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Name: BMillikan •
Title: You'd better be right! •
Date posted: 03/16/07 18:30
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Q: I would approach this subject very cautiously. The consequence of being wrong is very extreme. Jesus WILL come back some day and will dispell all of these cultist theories/religions. This is not the first and will not be the last. All non-believers will be made believers, but will be too late. So, make SURE you're right before deciding to believe these claims (which, is FAITH, by the way). God says "Test me and you will see that I am good." and you will also see that His Word is TRUE. So, test Him with an open heart. Like I said, You'd better be right if you are to believe in this cultist religion!
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Name: Lesil •
Date: 03/16/07 18:36 |
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A: Oh, and *this* post doesn't sound like it's been written by a religious cultist at ALL. Noooooo. . .
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/16/07 18:49 |
A: Lesil,
People generally react in anger to my beliefs. But, I'm either very wrong or I'm right. All I'm saying is that if I'm right, the consequences for people, like yourself, are severe.
Brian
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Name: Nate Spain •
Date: 03/16/07 19:02 |
A: Lesil, you NOTICED that?? :-)
It baffles me how people really believe that the "best" way to "attract" people to their faith is to SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF THEM by telling them,
"THE CONSEQUENCE OF BEING WRONG IS VERY EXTREME."
Ahhhhhh! Okay!!! Okay!!! I'll JOIN!!! I don't want to BURN IN HELL FOREVER!!!! I submit!!! Here!!! TAKE IT!! TAKE IT!!! It's my 10% tithing!!!!
PLEASE!!!! SAVE ME!!!!! SAVE ME!!!!!!
Such an attractive way to bring people to "The Lord."
I make a habit of avoiding sarcasm and hitting like this. But your approach is vulgar. How does it help your cause? Think about it. If Christianity, as you know it, is inherently attractive, than you need no such warnings (Uh, UNLESS you have some...doubts??)
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/16/07 19:22 |
A: Nate,
If you drive a car, you can't ignore the fact that you could be killed in a deadly accident. That's a potential consequence to driving a car. You can't ignore that. All I'm saying is that we believe the consequences are severe, but you are right about one thing. It's a very inherently attractive belief system.
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Name: Nate Spain •
Date: 03/16/07 20:38 |
A: "but you are right about one thing. It's a very inherently attractive belief system."
Not if the way you "attract" people to it is to instill fear, instead of love. Also, it's a waste of your time to use that approach. You're locked in Christian thinking, and wrongly assume that attempting to scare people will work. It does not.
I am not a Christian. So, your words are not only meaningless, but insulting.
Also, you insult your "merciful" God, who, according to you, would punish RESEARCHERS for using the their...ahem...GOD-GIVEN skills in the pursuit of KNOWLEDGE.
Such a God is WORTHLESS. The God I believe in (and I do believe in God) is going to smile upon his creatures who make errors, and, after death, tell them where they went on, allow them to heal [not burn], and send them onward and upward in eternal spiritual progress.
Please stop using such weak and cheap tactics, and just try to contribute to the subject. You insult others; you insult yourself; and you insult your God.
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Name: exact55 •
Date: 03/16/07 20:50 |
A: @BMillikan
Some of the posters get rather heated when encountering a religious life view. You are free to believe by faith in whatever you wish.
I don't believe in anything religious and like to think that I have an open mind.
The two views are mutualy exclusive:
Faith - believing by faith and therefore expecting the evidence to back up the faith. If the evidence does not back the faith up then the evidence must be flawed.
Open mind - following the evidence regardless of where it may lead.
Not all who claim to have an open mind are actualy open minded. Most are biased in some way and for many that bias is against religious views. For me this is the case and I freely acknowlege it.
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Name: Nate Spain •
Date: 03/16/07 21:00 |
A: The problem comes when each and every supposed aspect of a religious teacher's life is enshrined in doctrine. For instance, "Jesus was born in Bethlehem," was (maybe still is) DOCTRINE in the Catholic Church at one time. Now, if it's found out, with certainty, that he was not born in Bethlehem, then the researchers who found that, "made a mistake," according to religious folks.
But, if the **basic teachings** of the founder (tolerance, charity, patience, love, etc), are focused upon, then no "finding" is going to hurt the religion. If Jesus' bones are found in Talpiot, or if his body is found in the Roza Bal tomb in Kashmir, do either of those findings negate his parables? I think he was more interested that people get his MESSAGE, rather than Paul's focus on death, descent, resurrection, ascention, and return.
Out of all of those BEAUTIFUL teachings that Jesus taught, why is it that the ONE thing that's consider real is his DYING? I mean, like, let's just FORGET the Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount, or the parables he spoke. It all boils down to DYING. That's the doctrine: DYING.
This brings up
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Name: Michael •
Date: 03/16/07 23:22 |
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A: Well... to believe to escape hell or to gain heaven are pretty selfish and crappy reasons. Forget about heaven and hell. Just try to love your family and friends more. Be a servant. Don't let fear or greed lead you. Let compassion guide your faith. Be a servant at home and work. I think thats the message Jesus taught. Nothing more.
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/16/07 23:49 |
A: @exact55:
I was (and still am) open minded about my beliefs. But, there must be solid facts backing it. There are not in this case. I can point you to countless websites that argue this docudrama is incorrect. You're right about people getting "heated". It's obvious, but something I'm used to. You just can't explain to those who are not true students of the Bible about it because they will immediately stop listening and start arguing.
Nate & Michael:
You should truly study Jesus' teachings if you're going to talk about them.
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Name: Michael •
Date: 03/17/07 0:36 |
A: Quote: Nate & Michael:
You should truly study Jesus' teachings if you're going to talk about them. :Quote
Haha thats the same thing I was trying to tell you. You just need to dig into the word a bit more. You have faith, you just need to water it a bit and let it grow. Good luck to you my friend
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Name: exact55 •
Date: 03/17/07 3:33 |
A: @BMilican
I agree absolutely that the evidence supporting this movie is weak.
There is no question about that !
My response is to your first statement - and just acknowledging that you have a different life view to my own and pointing out that the methods of reaching conclusions are governed by different rules.
In this case we come to the same conclusion,
Take care regards Kasper
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Name: Red •
Date: 03/17/07 3:49 |
A: B millikan, Driving a car and goings on in the after are two diffrent Phenomena. One you understand through statistic, the other is left to the post-mortem state.
If I told you I can sell you a brand new Caddillac for 5 bucks, but you could not take delivery until you were dead , would you buy it?
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/17/07 11:11 |
A: Red:
Not for a Cadillac, but a Porsche is a different story :-)
Just clarify what your saying to me because I don't understand what buying a Cadillac and getting it after I'm dead has to do with the point I wasa trying to make.
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/18/07 15:34 |
A: @Michael:
John 3:16 states "For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotton Son. And that whosoever believeth in Him shall not PERISH, but have EVERLASTING LIFE." Right from the Bible. God talks about perishing. Well, there are plenty of people who are not perishing that do not believe in God's only Son. In fact, there are many that are doing very well. So, it's not talking about this lifetime obviously. The next few words show us that he is talking about EVERLASTING states. A synonym of "ETERNAL" or INFINITY in relation to TIME. So, to say that the Bible never speaks of Heaven or Hell or ETERNAL LIFE and ETERNAL PERISHMENT shows there is not a full understanding of God's teachings in the Bible. Jesus Himself talks about Hell and perishment in many of his parables. If you pick and choose what to believe in the Bible, then you can't be counted as a true Christian. It's the same for Muslims that don't believe in the whole teachings of Muhammed or Buddhists who don't follow the full teaching of Buddha. It's all or nothing.
@Nate:
My words should not be insulting if you don't believe in them. You should simply just ignore them. Your words don't insult me. In fact, I find differences of opinions interesting. But, one thing is fact. There are three possibililties to beliefs, either you're right and I'm wrong, or I'm right and your wrong, or we're both wrong. I'm not a doubter, but my scientific side comes out and you have consider all the possibilities if you want to find the truth. I was once an unbeliever, like yourself. But, I believe now because of people like myself that convinced me that I was wrong. It's ok to be wrong as long as you're willing to admit it. My "approach" as you call it is not vulgar. It's simply meant to inspire thought.
I think you'd agree that there are consequences to everything we do. Some are good and some are not. I'm just saying consider the possibility of bad consequences to your belief system.
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Name: Michael •
Date: 03/18/07 18:53 |
A: @BMillikan
You misunderstand me. I'm not sayin there is no heaven or hell, merely there are much better reasons to follow christ. Heaven and hell just aren't as important as loving on another. As you grow in he lord he may reveal these truths to you my friend. Keep reading the word as you pray for undersanding.
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/18/07 22:21 |
A: @Michael:
As a student of the Bible, then you must believe in absolutes. This is like beating a dead horse. I understand what you're saying, but you must also believe there is a destination for everyone (post mortem) and I was just bringing it up as a possibility to those who don't believe in the Bible. As far as it being scary, yes it is. Whether it'll make a difference in anyone's life, I don't know. But, I bring it up as something to ponder.
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Name: Michael •
Date: 03/18/07 22:41 |
A: @BMillikan
Fair enough. I really do hear what you are saying. Only after lots of time in the word and prayer did I see that being a servant was a far greater testimony of Christ than a fire and brimstone sermon. Loving people with more than empty words can be tough haha. But being a servant is the message overlooked in the Bible not the concepts of a real heaven and hell. As you said its all or nothing.
God bless you and good luck.
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Name: betty47 •
Date: 03/18/07 23:07 |
A: Oh, please!!! Can't we Christians come up with anything better than fear?
This posting at the beginning sounds like Bush and the Republicans. Vote for us or terrorism will strike. Vote for us and we'll save you and the Democrats will let the buggy man get you!! Christians have been spreading fear for centuries. Believe in Jesus! He'll save You from Hell! He'll give you eternal life!! Everyone said Jesus was Jewish. He lived as a Jew and died as a Jew. Why can't we accept that? He said to love each other ,but so did other Rabbis hundreds of years before him. Christians wanted to say Jesus was different so they came up with the fear factor - he'll save you from eternal damnation, he died for your sins, yadda yadda yadda. He's coming back!! The End of Days is near!!! Ah!!! Well he hasn't come back in 2,000 years, and there's no sign of him yet. I need something better than fear. I'm beginning to believe that he was a great teacher, a humble man, very spiritual, an articulate fellow, and very bright. His wife and followers were distraught after he died. They couldn't believe it and wouldn't believe it, and came up with a bunch of stories to get people to believe it. But guess what? Maybe he's dead and buried in the ground. Priests and Ministers and people smarter than I can come up with a way to still believe even with all this new information. Christianity will adapt. But the sky is not falling and we don't need to spread fear to love Jesus. Because if we can't do better than spread fear, modern technology will see how much of the story is really not true, and then maybe we should convert to Judaism where Rabbis said hundreds of years before Jesus that the Torah was all about love and peace. And after all, Jesus was Jewish. Maybe we should all join Jews for Jesus. Maybe we should be Hindus because they believe in eternal life through reincarnation anyway. Maybe they have it right. I don't have all the answers, but I know fear should not be one of them.
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/20/07 12:18 |
A: @betty47
There would be no fear if you believed in Christ (the TRUE Christ as documented in the Bible). These findings are suspicious as best. It's not going to change Christianity as a whole. FACT: Constantine had hundreds, maybe thousands of writings that were read and discarded because they did not fit the "context" of the Bible. Constantine was a Christian just like his mother "Helena". Look it up in Wikipedea. He had a reason to get at the TRUTH. These books could very well have been read by Constantine's servants and tossed out because they were out of context. I read part of the Gospel of Mary and that book doesn't even acknowledge there is "sin". In fact, it says otherwise. Sin is mentioned in the books of the Old Testament that the Jews believe in very deeply (The Torah and scrolls the Rabbis use to teach from).
Believe what you want, but I was not trying to instill fear. Rather, I was trying to provoke thought at the possibility that Christians may be right. If so, the punishment is eternal damnation. That's all.
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Name: Anchorite •
Date: 03/20/07 14:04 |
A: Selection Process
There must have been hundreds of texts. Full of internal paradox and contradicting each other. Constantine had to hold together a crumbling empire. He would have selected based on sense.
Jesus was fond of koan-like parables. Odds are that very little of the original Jesus would have gotten screened in, but lots of self-serving material would have.
If any accurate evidence comes forth on the subject of His life or His thoughts, expect to squirm! He was crucified for making people squirm.
Anchorite07
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/20/07 14:14 |
A: Anchorite:
"Constantine had to hold together a crumbling empire. He would have selected based on sense"
Constantine the "Great" was known for his vast empire. Where is your evidence that his empire was crumbling? A movie? Look it up. He is called the "Great" because of his contribution to Christianity. But, truthfully, he could have been called the "Great" because of the expanse of his empire he conquered. (Wikipaedea).
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Name: Anchorite •
Date: 03/22/07 2:19 |
A: Hi BMillikan,
I had been on Wikipedia and quickly scanned Constantine. You had me worried so I looked some more. I found that Wikipedia has an entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/-wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Centur-y- . It refers to crumbling and so on. That's enough for me.
It was not a critical point though. I was speculating on the bureaucratic psychology that may have predominated in the selecting official Christian texts.
BTW, he was very *successful* at holding together a crumbling empire. LOL.
Anchorite
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/22/07 12:01 |
A: Anchorite:
Perhaps he put the Bible together with the intention of finding the truth? He was a Christian, after all. I'd assume he'd scan each text and throw out the one's that didn't fit the context of the Bible (part of which he already had). The Old Testament is a collection of Judaic scrolls and the Torah which were already collected and assembled. The early Christians knew about it. They studied it as they were (mostly) Orthodox Jews.
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Name: Ulaw •
Date: 03/22/07 12:18 |
A: @BMillikan
So what will you do at judgement when most of your family and friends are sent to eternal hellfire? Will you just walk on into heaven an forget about them? Will you bow to the being that sends your childen to eternal agony? Would you trade places with one of them to save them? If you could would you sacrifice yourself and trade places with me to save me from hell?
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/22/07 14:24 |
A: Ulaw:
I would do anything, here in this lifetime, to keep you, my children and my family from going to hell. Fortunately, most of my family are believers like myself. My sister is not. But, she's a grown woman with her own choices to make and I cannot take her place. I've made my decision, so it is set. But, you ask a tough question. It would be hard to see family go to hell. Anyone, for that matter. That's why it's so important to spread the Word here while people have that choice! I will bow (as everyone else will) to the One who loves us so much that He doesn't WANT us to enter hell. It was meant solely for Satan and his angels, not for humans. But if humans don't willingly follow Him, and instead decide to follow Satan and his many teachings then He has no choice. That, to me, is not hatred or insensitivity, but love. He will not FORCE us to believe in Him. Rather, you must choose to follow Him in this lifetime.
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Name: Ulaw •
Date: 03/22/07 14:54 |
A: @BMillikan
I respect your decision to hold to your beliefs. I've made my decision that if that kind of judgement comes to pass I won't bow or worship that god. I couldn't in good conscience. I hope I have the strength to stand up for what is right no matter the cost. If my son is condemed to hell because he didn't accept Jesus as his savior I'm going to burn too.
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 03/22/07 15:21 |
A: Ulaw:
Unfortunately, I don't believe that will be possible. I'm sorry you believe this way. It is written "Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Like I said in the beginning, people (like yourself) better hope I'm wrong. It's such a simple thing to admit that we are flawed human beings before a Righteous God and to admit we need a Savior to keep us from ending up in Hell. That's why Jesus Christ came. It's so simple, yet many find it repulsive and anger flares and they refuse to believe. Perhaps, one day you might believe too! I hope so. That is my prayer for you and your family.
Sincerely,
Brian
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Name: Ulaw •
Date: 03/22/07 15:46 |
A: @BMillikan
The problem is I am a believer my kids are not. I've read most books of the bible countless times. I am saying however that if my children are condemned to hellfire I'm not going to heaven period. I'd rather burn with them. I won't worship a god that would allow that period.
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Name: OneGod •
Date: 04/04/07 16:07 |
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A: Believing Jesus is god is idolatry. If you worship a man YOU better be right. The consequences for people, like yourself, are severe!
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Name: Panluna •
Date: 04/04/07 16:22 |
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A: I believe that we all go to the same state of being when we give up our last breath.And since the Spark of the Divine is pure there is no punishment after death.We just live with the consequences one lives with during one's lifetime.The soul isn't damned and Death is the great equalizer.
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Name: BMillikan •
Date: 04/09/07 0:13 |
A: @OneGod:
You are correct in saying that. However, I don't know your beliefs towards this. There can be no saving without sacrifice. And, the sacrifice must be on-going unless God were to sacrifice something very important to Himself. So, yes, Jesus was the Sacrifice and was God and man. Not another God, but part of the One True God.
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Name: OneGod •
Date: 04/09/07 0:22 |
A: @BMillikan
I would approach that very cautiously. The consequence of being wrong is very extreme. You're breaking three commandments:
You shall have no other gods before Me
You shall not make for yourself an idol
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God
You better hope you are right!
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Name: betty47 •
Date: 04/09/07 1:08 |
A: If this isn't fear, I don't know what is. The truth is that Jesus never preached this way. He was Jewish. He lived and died as a Jew. He never said to believe in him or we will all go to hell if we don't. He preached love, peace, freedom and the kingdom of G-d. People after him who wanted to do away with all things Jewish started the fear factor to try to end Judaism, but Christ never believed in the Trinity. Christ believed in One God. Christ believed in Torah. Christ believed in love. Christ believed in healing. Christ celebrated his Judaism and Jewish holidays.
Learn more about Christ before you try to spread fear because fear is not what Christ is about.
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Name: roy •
Date: 04/13/07 0:47 |
A: BMillikan , God does not sacrifice any part of him for the worthless human. He values only the believers/prayers to Him. Sacrifice from endless entity may not mean any real decline in its One Unit, what is this hastiness to atribute something meaningless to the Perfect One? This time He may get you instead of others as you were wishful expecting.
In the future no Jesus or any prophet will come again. Although christians and half of muslims believe so, it is not written anywhere except sceptical hadith books for muslims. Why should he come? What is the odds to convert everyone in second descend, as he couldnt convince 100 % of the living people in his first coming?
If anyone comes, I may claim, Solomon, comes. What is the difference? Jesus was a human and died as usual people. Why the lucky latest generation has the honor to welcome him again? What is their prerogative,a favored nation? There is judgement day, be patient we shall witness what was the truth among our disputes about him. Untill then keep safe and sound.
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