Deep thought: 2+2=22. Can you follow my thoughts/reasoning on the subject matter?! Awesomeness! Whoa, there must be some truth to it!

Duuude! Well-reasoned, thoughtful OPINIONS may be rare, but OPINIONS are not “agendas”, even if that’s what the hotties drop on Fox News! It’s chill to have an opinion, and it’s cool not to always be down with your crew. No worries, they’re still your boys.

Check it, Sven. There’s not a monster in the closet. A thoughtful, well-reasoned argument demonstrating that obvious truth is not like “religious zeal”. It’s just a “thoughtful, well-reasoned argument”, bro! GET ONE and hit me back, playa!

OUT

P.S. Yo! Saleem is a DUDE, bra! Haaaaaaaaa what’s up with THAT?!!

Aron, we get it that you do not believe in God and quite frankly, you hammered the point home. Lighten up man, at least Saleem was gracious enough to visit and read the blog and leave a comment. I doubt she expected to become embroiled in a debate.

I also enjoyed the posting and essay! Thanks!

God Bless,
Sven

All you have to do is open a Bible, and you will discover this to be true. If you have read the Bible, and still came to the conclusion you typed above, well then, you’ve got me. But until you read it all, how can you really know?

I have had the same doubts as you as one point. You see, not too long ago, I started going to church again, mainly because my father died, and we had the memorial service at church.

That brought me back after I had been gone for almost 6 years. I was involved in booze, drugs, cigarettes, pornography, and had 2 girlfriends that I was also “involved” with. Now, I had already quit drinking, and also smoking at that point, both because of prayer. My dad prayed for me all the while and encouraged me to quit. One of the girls I knew challenged me and said, “I do not think you can quit smoking,” which led me to quit smoking because I wanted to prove her wrong.

But after he passed away, I felt a fear that everything was going to go wrong. I was overwhelmed. Then my mom gave me his Bible. I had before regarded the Bible as a thing to be avoided because it held a way to control my life, and I knew what it said was contradictory to my lifestyle. So I did not read it until she gave me his, and I opened it, and asked her what the Bible verse was about the “Lord is my shepherd.” She told me Psalm 23, and I read it. When I read it, I felt a peace I had not felt my whole life. For the first time, I was not afraid.

I went on to read the book of Job. It made me see that a man can live a righteous life, he is not bound to be controlled by his substances, situations, circumstances, or government. A man can live a life that is pleasing to God, and I wanted to know how.

I decided to read the whole Bible. I read it in 3 months, and during those 3 months, I hardly put it down. It is the most amazing book I have ever read.

I got to the New Testament, and started to read about Jesus. His words were hard, but I knew that he was the Righteous One. He was the one whom the prophets spoke of. After reading it, I wanted to accept Him as my Lord and Savior, and become a Christian, because my pastor told the church one Sunday, that in order to be a Christian, you first have to believe what is in the Bible. I thought, that is true isn’t it? I wanted to be a Christian, but I still had my doubts about the Bible. But I knew Jesus Christ was the Lord, not necessarily because of the Bible, although that confirmed it, but because of the change I had seen in my life when I accepted Him and the change that I was seeing in people around me.

I have lived in the dredges of society and seen people take drugs, commit crimes, and so many other things that are horrible. I have seen them all doing that, and did them myself, and thought there was no hope. Truly, there is no hope without God, without the power of Jesus. Because ultimately, the very thought that “life is pointless because we die anyways” was still the underlying truth there. The truth then was that if we die, we go to hell, or we go nowhere and simply vanish into nothing. A pretty disappointing reality, which made it a lot easier to take drugs, get drunk and commit crimes.

Now that I know there is a God and he is watching me at all times, I do not do those things because He is the Lord, and I do not want to be destroyed when I die. I also know that God did not want me to destroy myself because he loves me. He loves you too.

This is not religion. It is a relationship with God. For the first time in my life, it did not matter if I had a girlfriend, a pal, or a bottle. I had God. I have God. And no matter where I am I can talk to him and he talks to me.

When He gave his only son to die on the cross, I knew he loved me.

Let me explain something to you. God is actually three in one.

God is three persons in one being, all being exactly the same, but in three persons.

I do not expect you to fully understand this, as I do not either, but here is how this works.

It is called the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

When God the Father, sent God the Son, the Son was crucified and rose from the dead. When he left, he sent God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit lives in those who believe in the name of Jesus Christ, and accept him as Lord. The Holy Spirit is also called the Holy Counselor, and gives guidance in all things. It is the very same Spirit that Jesus Christ had on the earth.

All three are separate, yet all three are One.

That you will not find directly written in the Bible. You will not find the word Trinity either. But it is evident by this. Jesus Christ did miracles on earth, and raised the dead. He forgave people’s sins, something only God could do. He rose from the dead himself on the third day after being crucified. He reign at the right hand of God even right now. One day he will return for those who believe in Him, and they will live with him in Heaven for all eternity.

In Revelation 20:15 (NIV), concerning the last days, and the judgment of the dead, “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

This is the last punishment. There is no forgiveness from that place, and there is no end. Eternal punishment for all time, for those whose name is not written in the book of Life.

How do you get your name in the book of Life?

You need to confess your sins to God, accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, and follow Jesus from that point on.

If you do not my friend, then I pity you.

In the Old Testament, Moses was a follower of God. He was God’s “Man”, if you will. He followed God totally and fully. At one point, the Israelites had rebelled against God and built a false god to worship in the form of a golden calf. Let us read together what God told Moses:

Exodus 32:31-34
31 So Moses went back to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, please forgive their sin–but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” 33 The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish,10 I will punish them for their sin.”

God did punish them, but not because of he hated them, but because he is their father and loves them.

But there is salvation for those who have gone astray and sinned. There is forgiveness for those who have rebelled against God, no matter how bad it is. You could have killed 1 million people and he will forgive you, if you would ask him. He is God and there is no limit to his love or forgiveness. “8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8 NIV) All you have to do to accept this is to accept his Son Jesus, as your personal Savior and he will come into your heart. Accept the truth, and believe what the Bible says about him.

If you ask Jesus to come into your heart, and clean you of all the sin in your life, He will. You will be made new and you will share in his blessing, and be able to go to heaven one day.

Go to church, read the Bible, and pray to God. That will be the way to break the hard ground for God to plant his seed in your life. You will not “never have fun again”. You will experience life with God, and there is no better way. Life is about love. That is the way God intended it to be. It is us humans who have fouled it up.

Repent and believe.

Lord, I pray that all who read this post will acknowledge you. That they will accept you as the One true God, and that they need you in their life. All other ways are false and lead to death, but your way leads to life eternally. Thank you for forgiving me Lord, and for loving me more than anything else, and did not hold back your son’s life for mine. You willingly sacrificed him for me because you love me. I thank you Jesus for what you did for me on the cross. I pray for all those who have accepted you that you will walk with them, and show them what needs to be done. I pray they will go to church again and come back to you! I know all things are possible with you Lord, and no man is too far to come back. I pray all this in the name of Jesus, amen.

If you have decided to allow God to make this change in your life, would you please tell me? My e-mail is timdaniel@inbox.com. I would like to pray with you and help you with some ways to grow in your new faith.

God bless you, and have a great day.

As I said I’m not really arguing since it is near impossible to change someone’s beliefs and if this is working for you I don’t want to trash it, I don’t have anything as comforting to replace it with. For me every “truth” that has turned out true has been verifiable. So I’m not saying your “truth” is false just that I don’t buy what I can’t verify. I don’t discount the possibility that I may find verification, but I haven’t seen it yet.

And just to keep things even I don’t know if it all comes out in the wash but religion has done a lot of good in the world, I know it’s not all bad. And most of the bad has been people violating the core principals of the religion. I mean just think how great it would be if, discounting all the rest of christianity , everyone lived the ten commandments, heck just the first five would be fantastic. And if we couldn’t manage that just the first one. Everybody just lives the very first commandment! No murder, no executions, no war…

Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Why? He rose from the dead. I believe that due to the witness accounts found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He died because the Jewish people did not like the fact that he was telling people that they were forgiven. They killed him because it upset their traditions, rituals, and ruffled their feathers. It made them burn with rage when he called them hippocrates for telling people to do one thing, and they knew they were doing another. None of the people who wrote the New Testament were rabbis.

I am speaking of The Truth, and not truth in general. For example, I could tell you that water is wet. Now that is true, in a relative way. We believe that water is slippery, flows freely, and can occupy small cracks and crevices, making it “wet”; so therefore, there is a small amount of assumption that you know what “wet” means. It is not something that was a word, and then became true, it already was. So we therefore can agree, that water is wet; anyone who disagrees, is insane.

That being said, there is a Truth. That truth is that in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, he was. He Was. Meaning that there were not words to describe yet, what he was. He was, and always was. John 1 says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” John 1:1-5 (NIV)

It is up to you to believe that or not ultimately, but I ask you to consider something. It is true that there have been many people who has misrepresented Christ. Over the years, people have exploited him for various reasons, such as to gain power, prestige, or position. They have done things in his name, as in the Crusades. I do not defend their actions, nor do I think that they were acting under Christ’s will. However, at that time, there was still only Catholicism, and people were not allowed to read or own a Bible yet. They were told what to believe by a Pope, who was a man, and fallible. Although he may not have realized the magnitude of his sin at that point, it would forever be remembered as a smear on the Body of Christ, what occurred during those times. However, because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23), we can still ask God for forgiveness, and turn from our ways.

If you want, you can fill your mind with all of the things that people who claim to follow Christ have done wrong, but you yourself know that you also have done things wrong.

“But I haven’t done anything as wrong as bomb people or kill anyone!”

But Jesus said in Matthew 5:22: “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, “Raca,” is answerable to the Sanhedrin (these were judges over a town). But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

Basically put, no man has sinned less or more than another. We have all sinned, and God hates it all.

Now I know that there is a person who is a Christian, and he sins, but does not do it willfully. That type of person is normal, because we all sin. But a person who says, “I don’t care about God or Christ, I will do whatever I want to no matter what!” That kind of person is in serious danger.

Believe it or not, I also get upset when people kill people for Christ. There was a man who went to church with a doctor who performed abortions not too long ago. Anyways, this man learned that the doctor worked at an abortion clinic, and he started judging him. He started to hate him. He allowed his hate to consume him, and after a period of time, decided to kill him in the parking lot of the church.

This is an example of a person taking God’s judgment into his own hands. Is abortion right? No. It is wrong. It is murder. But are we allowed to kill him because of it? Not according to God. “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” Romans 12:19

And as for Christians celebrating Christmas in December, I am fully aware that it is not really the time of his birth. Now I do not know exactly when he was born, as it is somewhat hard to trace a 2000-year-old man’s birthday, you can ask anyone, but in the East, they have a totally different calendar than we do. The start of their year is actually in April. Now that is not the dogmatic truth of Christ’s birth, but it is up for debate. Either way, we celebrate his birth then, just as sometimes you might celebrate yours on a different day of your birth. It is all for him, not us anyways.

If anyone would like to talk to me directly, my e-mail is timdaniel@inbox.com.

Christ died because the power that be at the time didn’t want him around. he didn’t die because of “sins” that I hadn’t committed yet. That is the biggest cop out BS there is. “I’m just a pawn, I have no free will”. If that were actually the case then there would have been no need for the ten commandments. Why tell people not to do stuff if they have no power over their own actions. Total BS. There are a LOT of folks who go around calling themselves Christians. Very few of them live up to the name. IF you live by the ten commandments I have great respect for you, but if your one of those “I can kill so and so because God wants me to” then you are just another murder with a lame excuse. Preachers who send their followers off to bomb abortion clinics are no better than Charles Manson and should be treated the same way. Sorry to go off on a rand but that kind of mindless drivel that turns Christianity into a cult really pisses me off.