On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:42:19 -0600, "Jerome" <sittin@work.org> wrote:

No, God created me to be what ever I wanted to be.

But he is posessed of such an ego that he will be pleased and
flattered by all that groveling sycophancy? He won't be sickened by
all your saccarine prayers?

No, he asks us to humble ourselves to Him, so that we may know Him and
better know ourselves.

You have to grovel to someone to know him do you?
One never knows equals?

Fellowship is what He desires of us.

How can one have fellowship with an inferior?

If you where a
God and wanted to create life - how else could you truly know if your
creation loved you if didn't set it free to do what ever it wanted.

How could I ever believe it loved me if it knew it was going to suffer
eternal torment if it didn't? Would that not cast doubt on the
sincerity of any such 'love'?

If it followed your ways and sacrificed itself - you would know
for sure it loved you.

No you wouldn't. Maybe it just wanted to get to heaven.

God thinks of all of us as his children and wants all of us to love
Him and obey Him.

But he leaves evil men running loose to harm us and Satan to incite
them.

How much would you give to your own children if they
loved you and obey you?

I'd give them the chance to live long enough to do so instead of
leaving them to die in Nazi death camps and Russian gulags. And I'd
give them the option of not loving me without fear of terrible torment
for that 'crime'.

Mat 7:11 "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall
your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

A lot more, but he doesn't do so.

I choose to submit my
will to Him. We will all bend our knee to Him at some point,

So you devoutly believe, but cannot in any way prove,

Isa 45:23 "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth [in]
righteousness,
and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue

swear."

Rom 14:11 "For it is written, [As] I live, saith the Lord, every knee

bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God."

John 3:12 "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not,
how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?"

The Bible tells me lies about many earthly things that I can check up
on. How then can I trust it about heavenly things I can't check on?

better to bend
it on this side of death where we may glorify His name.

How could you possibly glorify the creator of a universe?

By allowing Him to take control of my life and live it for Him. His
strength is made perfect in weakness.

What a colossal conceit! The creator of ten thousand million galaxies
is glorified by YOUR behaviour!

Only in your opinion.

You imagine God to behave the way you would if you were a deity.

How so?

By assuming he would not be disgusted by your toadying.

Now who is "imagining God to behave the way you would if you were a

I was just following your lead.

In fact I, like Einstein cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes
the objects of his creation.

By recognizing that God holds the universe together with his will -
let alone my insignificant frame?

Do you have to engage in obsequious flattery to recognize that?

No. Just a recognition that you, as I, am but dust.

But you don't limit yourself to that do you? You slather on the
obsequious praise and flattering prayer.

## Man imagines god in HIS image!

Flesh only understands flesh and the spirit only understands spirit.
Those who walk after the flesh make their gods into what they want .

And that's you in a nutshell. Personally, I cannot imagine what God
might be like, if he/she/it exists at all. I'm reasonably sure that
God is not anything like the gods imagines for himself though.

Gen 1:27 "So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female created he them."

And if triangles had a god it would have three sides.

Those who
walk after the spirit allow God to mold them into what He wants us to

You just said God "created me to be what ever I wanted to be".
Now you're refusing the gift?

No, I want to be what God wants me to me.

Then you've refused the gift of being what you want to be.

No, you're not allowing God to mold you, you delude yourselves and
mold yourselves into intolerant sectarians, each confident that his
vision of God is the true one.

There is but one true God,

And each sect is sure it's the one they imagine for themselves.

and I seek after Him - on His terms - and by His ways.

Not if you follow the God of the Bible you don't.
You're following blindly the lead of ancient liars long dead.

There are many in the world who seek God on their own terms and they
will never find Him. They may find enough to satisfy their own flesh -

they will never satisfy their spirit.

On the contrary. This world has far too many devout who have smugly
satisfied themselves in the spirit that they have found God. That's
been a major problem all over the globe for centuries.

"Working your way to heaven" is a
common philosophy in the world - most religons have it as their core
doctrine. This includes atheism.

Nonsense.

Atheism puts self as god and seeking your
own desires is building your own heaven on earth.

Everything has to be gods and worship to the devout doesn't it? It's
the way you think. If someone values something they're 'worshipping'
it. If it's a desirable goal it's a 'god'.

Some atheism is a LACK of such an attitude, which is something the
devout just can't comprehend.

But it is all straw that will be burned away in the end.

So you believe, but have not a whit of evidence to show.
One of those tellings of heavenly things I don't trust.

We all want good things in our life and a
easy time of it at that,

And your faith was born of promises to those who couldn't hope for
good things in this world that they'd have it in the next. Promises
from greedy men like Paul milking the poor slaves of the Roman empire
of their pittances.

better to invest in those things that can not be
burned away - than those that can be.

1 Corinthians 16:1 Now concerning the collection for the saints: you
should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia.
2 On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and
save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken
when I come.
3 And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to
take your gift to Jerusalem.

Suuure Paul! It's all for the poor saints in Jerusalem! You 1st
century Jimmy Swaggart you!

Let me suppose for a second that you
are right - and there is no God -

I didn't claim that.

shouldn't we serve one another and love
one another in fellowship?

And not kidnap other culture's children and compel them to adopt our
religion and culture? Sure. We shouldn't enslave one another either.
But the Catholic church was doing both those things right up to 1960
in my country.

It gives me hope that believing in Jesus Christ
causes so much strife in others - no other belief causes so much division

the world.

It's religion that causes the strife. The particular deity believed in
is of little import.

Not that I like strife or division - but Christ Himself said it
would be this way.

No, the Gospels say he said that, but like most prophecy it's 20/20
hindsight, for the strife had already arrived when the Gospels were
written.

It reaffirms my faith.

I suspect you can rationalize most anything to do that.

Jesus said, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and
whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is
a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
(Matthew 16:25, 26).

No, the writer of Matthew, whoever he might have been, claimed Jesus
said that. You can't even prove you have a soul, let alone prove
what's going to happen to it.

Don't get me started on proofs about the Bible's authenticity.

Then don't get me started on proofs that the Bible is lying more often
than not.

So many say
it was written by many different authors over thousands of years. It

but then why does it have one voice, one message?

It doesn't, and only the stubbornly devout can rationalize its
vociferous disagreement into harmony.

Why does the Smithsonian Institute use it for historical fact?

Cite please.

Even bible scholors couldn't believe
Israel would become a nation again as the Bible said it would -

Like Jeremiah 31:31-40? Wrong!

and yet it
is. Time is short - weigh your own heart. In your heart you can feel

need for God yet your flesh overrides that need.

In other words stop thinking and let my emotions lead.
Always the cry of the evangelist. Don't think! Trust me!

Christ is the way, the truth, and the light.

"Mithra, the Good Shepherd, is the way, the truth and the light" his
followers said. Why should I believe you and not them?

I pray that you come to that realization and change
your heart. Let God do the work - he said he would - just yield your own
will and let His take over.

Don't think! Trust me! Pass the collection plate.

It may take years for it to happen - it may be
immediate - we are all different. We all come to God as sinners and have
nothing to offer Him- but our will.

""Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is
so favorable to tyrannythat it always profits by such a regime. True
Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much
mind; this short life counts for too little in their eyes."
Jean Rousseau

## Religion explains to ignorance the nature of the unknowable

Yes it does. I am not talking about religon - I am talking about a
relationship.

No, you're talking about a religion. An anceint one with a very bad
reputation.

I am not talking about thee's and thou's - I am talking about
falling to your knees and saying "God - I don't have all the answers. I

a sinner and I know you sent your Son as a sacrifice in my place.

Mataphysical hocus-pocus. The old Hebrew scapegoat concept retreaded.

Please show me your ways, and I will yield my will to you."

I don't much like the ways he has shown his followers in the past.

I am not talking about
3 hail Mary's and praying a rosary. I am talking about letting God know

you feel - if you hate God - start with that.

I don't hate God. What I hate is men's concepts of gods, particularly
Biblical ones.

Tell Him you hate him and ask
Him to show you what His ways are about. Start with what where you are
now - and let God take you on an adventure. Let Him show you love like

have never known it.

And the way the Duplesis orphans knew it?

## Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.