Mark Twain had a lot of cynical, common sense. However
priests and pastors who listen to the confessions and
problems of people day in and day out also gain a lot of
insight into humanity....

walksalone <spam@fcc.gov> wrote in message news:<1lx9uapuk2anw$.cjabsw8xbj33$.dlg@40tude.net>...

I don't know why God uses faith as the
first criteria, but I do know that He tests it.

===>Why do you keep on imagining that??? -- L.

Experience.

===>Misinterpreted. -- L.

Suggest you read CS Lewis "The Great Divorce", a parable so to speak.

Any claim to you being deserving to having your claims considered in
anything but as a joke just went out the door with that reference.
Instead I suggest you read *Letters from the Earth* & *What is Man* by Mark
Twain. Both offer more insight on th humanity & deity questions than all
the apologetics put together.

Mark Twain had a lot of cynical, common sense. However priests and
pastors who listen to the confessions and problems of people day in
and day out also gain a lot of insight into humanity. One of the
things they would most clearly realise is the fallibility of people.
But they go on believing.

While it is only fiction, the point is that until you "step inside" so
to speak, all experiences will seem purely secular. And once you
"step inside", all experiences will seem to have some possibility of
outside agency.

Not for me, reality suits me just fine so I don't do drugs or play make
believe.

Fine. I assume "reality" around your way makes no great demands on
you, as it might in Iraq or North Korea. Different story then.

Humiliation is a part of it. In his "Screwtape Letters" Screwtape is
commenting to Wormwood, a junior devil, that some of the "Enemy's"
(God's) favourites "go through the longest and deepest troughs". It
is a puzzle, I'll admit. But it is also true.

Says the person that can not even question his gods. Pity, for a belief
that is never questioned in not a belief, it is total unconditional
surrender to the status of willing slaver.

Oh, I question my God all right. I may believe but that doesn't mean
I find His methods easy to understand.

Privately I'm rather blunt in
my approach at times.

The greatest Christians of the 20th century have not, generally
speaking, been in the West. They've been in the East or the South, in
those countries where persecution has been strongest.

Really, when are you going to join them? Never likely.

One day I will, if some experiences I've been told about are correct.
The West is heading for a major breakdown.

And they are also unknown and often lie in unmarked graves, known only
to God.

No they are not, for you can't even identify your gods. So to claim your
gods know them is to insult them.
Not that it matters to the likes of you.

They lie all over the old Soviet Union, China, South America, Africa.
Their bodies that is. "Do not fear man" Christ said, "who can kill
the body and after that do no more. But fear God, who after death can
throw body and soul into Hell. Believe me, Him you should fear."

Not an easy command when a torturer has you in his control. But if we
are told not to fear him, then what is Hell like?

Now you will either accept this as truth if you are Christian, or as
foolishness if you are not.

Actually, I'll accept it as the ravings of an ethical coward that sold his
imaginary soul for security, & has gained neither security or peace of
mind. our presence here indicates you may be aware of that.

Too many personal experiences now make me realise that it was my
original atheism that was foolishly mistaken - completely so.

walksalone <spam@fcc.gov> wrote in message news:<1lx9uapuk2anw$.cjabsw8xbj33$.dlg@40tude.net>...

I don't know why God uses faith as the
first criteria, but I do know that He tests it.

===>Why do you keep on imagining that??? -- L.

Experience.

===>Misinterpreted. -- L.

Suggest you read CS Lewis "The Great Divorce", a parable so to speak.

Any claim to you being deserving to having your claims considered in
anything but as a joke just went out the door with that reference.
Instead I suggest you read *Letters from the Earth* & *What is Man* by Mark
Twain. Both offer more insight on th humanity & deity questions than all
the apologetics put together.

Mark Twain had a lot of cynical, common sense. However priests and
pastors who listen to the confessions and problems of people day in
and day out also gain a lot of insight into humanity. One of the
things they would most clearly realise is the fallibility of people.
But they go on believing.

While it is only fiction, the point is that until you "step inside" so
to speak, all experiences will seem purely secular. And once you
"step inside", all experiences will seem to have some possibility of
outside agency.

Not for me, reality suits me just fine so I don't do drugs or play make
believe.

Fine. I assume "reality" around your way makes no great demands on
you, as it might in Iraq or North Korea. Different story then.

Humiliation is a part of it. In his "Screwtape Letters" Screwtape is
commenting to Wormwood, a junior devil, that some of the "Enemy's"
(God's) favourites "go through the longest and deepest troughs". It
is a puzzle, I'll admit. But it is also true.

Says the person that can not even question his gods. Pity, for a belief
that is never questioned in not a belief, it is total unconditional
surrender to the status of willing slaver.

Oh, I question my God all right. I may believe but that doesn't mean
I find His methods easy to understand. Privately I'm rather blunt in
my approach at times.

The greatest Christians of the 20th century have not, generally
speaking, been in the West. They've been in the East or the South, in
those countries where persecution has been strongest.

Really, when are you going to join them? Never likely.

One day I will, if some experiences I've been told about are correct.
The West is heading for a major breakdown.

And they are also unknown and often lie in unmarked graves, known only
to God.

No they are not, for you can't even identify your gods. So to claim your
gods know them is to insult them.
Not that it matters to the likes of you.

They lie all over the old Soviet Union, China, South America, Africa.
Their bodies that is. "Do not fear man" Christ said, "who can kill
the body and after that do no more. But fear God, who after death can

throw body and soul into Hell. Believe me, Him you should fear."

Not an easy command when a torturer has you in his control. But if we
are told not to fear him, then what is Hell like?

Now you will either accept this as truth if you are Christian, or as
foolishness if you are not.

Actually, I'll accept it as the ravings of an ethical coward that sold his
imaginary soul for security, & has gained neither security or peace of
mind. our presence here indicates you may be aware of that.

Too many personal experiences now make me realise that it was my
original atheism that was foolishly mistaken - completely so. Put
bluntly, you are the one who mistakenly believes you have no soul.

Bob Crowley

The one that claims to know what it is talking about, the one that does not
even know why its myth is false because they don't teach that in Chick
tracts, that one. Sure looks like it.

Don't read Chick tracts, as I am a Catholic. I did see a couple of
them when I was still a Protestant, but their rabid anti-Catholicism
put me off. As a matter of interest, one of the earliest guest
speakers I heard when I did become a (Protestant) Christian was a
Protestant missionary based in Spain, who was trying to convert
Catholics. I could feel the anger welling up in me as she tried to
tell us all Catholics are afraid to die etc. etc. It was a load of
bunkum.

I wasn't impressed then by anti-Catholic rhetoric and I'm less
impressed now, despite the admitted failings, stupidities and
sometimes dubious rulings of the church from time to time, indluding
two rulings I disagree with today.

walksalone who wonders, does humanity not deserve better than the bob
crowley's of the world? & yes, that is a serious question.

You're entitled to your opinion.

Bob Crowley.

Not-easily-duped wrote:

Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth> wrote in message news:<407A06DA.B801ED4F@Nothing_But_The.Truth>...

Weatherwax wrote:

"Not-easily-duped" <Codebreaker@bigsecret.com> wrote in message
news:bbba7302.0404111508.30471038@posting.google.com...

Weatherwax wrote:

Hidden in your response is an admission that Psalm 16
has nothing to do with a Messiah or a resurrection.

"...You must understand this in the first place, that no
prophecy in Scripture can be understood through one's
own intellectual powers, for no prophecy ever originated
in the human will, but under the influence of the Holy
Spirit men spoke for God." 2 Peter 1:20

In which case, why have the prophecy to begin with? They would
be useless.

I suspect that pseudo-Peter wrote that only as an excuse for the
prophecies not coming out as written.

===>Not just that, but as a follower of Saul/Paul,
he was totally embarrassed that the prophecies
of Saul/Paul, regarding to imminent coming of CHRISTOS
and the end of death never happened, even Saul/Paul himself
was no doubt dead by then.
2 Peter can be best understood
in the light of that embarrassment.-- L.

In his letter to the thessalonians Paul made clear that the coming
of the Lord was not that imminent as some might interpreted it.
Where is the embarrassment?

===>GOOD QUESTION!
The embarrassment is shown by the fact that he DID NOT
WRITE THAT!

HE WROTE with assurance in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
"Behold, I tell you a mystery;
we will not all sleep,
[he and his followers will not die!]

but we will all be changed,
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound,
and the dead will be raised imperishable,
and we will be changed."
This is repeated in
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
"For this we say to you by the word of the Lord,
that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord,
will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God,
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain
will be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air,
and so we shall always be with the Lord."

Now, in 2 Thess. 2 there is a clear retreat from the
certainty of 1 Corinthians!
It appears that perhaps the same author who wrote
2 Peter also wrote or edited this passage, with the
message of "hang in there, it will come"!
"Second Thessalonians is widely regarded as pseudonymous.
The reference in 2:2 suggests that the letter belongs to the
deutero-Pauline period, and the letter may have been intended
to replace 1 Thessalonians entirely. The time of composition
is likely to have been in the last two decades of the first
century when hopes in the imminent parousia were faltering."
"Norman Perrin writes the following
(The New Testament: An Introduction, pp. 119-120):
Second Thessalonians is so like 1 Thessalonians and yet so
different that it must be an imitation of 1 Thessalonians written
to meet a later situation. Verbal similarities begin with the first
verse and continue throughout; yet there are very real theological
differences between the two letters, the most important being that
of eschatological perspective. In 1 Thessalonians the parousia,
the coming of Jesus from heaven as apocalyptic judge and redeemer,
is imminent. When Paul speaks of "we who are alive, who are left
until the coming of the Lord" (1 Thes 4:15), he clearly expects the
event in his own lifetime. But 2 Thes 2:3-12 sets out an elaborate
program of what must first happen before that event can occur.
Not only has the apocalyptic imagery changed, but the whole
tenor of the expectation is different...."
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/2thessalonians.html

Not-easily-duped wrote:

Libertarius <Libertarius@Nothing_But_The.Truth> wrote in message news:<40788961.6AFBFF1A@Nothing_But_The.Truth>...

Weatherwax wrote:

"Not-easily-duped" <Codebreaker@bigsecret.com> wrote in

"Weather