Why hasn't Jesus came back?

Being a christian...It is exactly what it is FAITH...why does eveyone argue over it...How can you argue over FAITH

 

I beleive becaus I have FAITH, there's really no need to justify it.

 

faith is just stubborn ingnorance in my books. its a refusal to believe any other possibities exist, exept the one youve been trianed and conditioned to beleive in.

 

Not really,at least not in websters

 

faith is stubborn ignorance?



lmao....i wonder would your loved ones appreciate that...or your friends for that matter.


god forbid we detach from selfishness for one second anyway and offer altruism in its stead.


that would just be unthinkable *laughs*


seriously....it would be though.

LMFAO

 

I am glad I don't read his books then. What he doesn't realize, is that he has faith in his belief that we are wrong. Next please!

 

Actually, the attitude you are talking about is called 'dogmatic', and it is often mistaken for faith, by the people who can be described as 'dogmatic'.

I'm not applying that term to you, just to those who inspired that misconception in you, by misrepresenting their dogma as faith.

Faith just means you believe wholeheartedly without need of proof, in whatever it is you have faith in. It doesn't exclude other ideas. In fact, I think that true faith opens up a person to accept just about anything as possible.

That's it! How can anyone argue about what constitutes faith. It is one of those words that means precisely what it means, and there are not muddy edges or murky middle.

It doesn't matter to me when Jesus comes back. If He said He's coming back, then I believe Him. Regardless.

Faith does not exist on a probationary status. It is patient, because true faith is never in vain. Having faith will bring it to fulfillment. If you truly believe in something with all of your being, it will come to be.

 

I'm pretty sure you would know.

cc

 

Is there some kind of limit on how many will be saved (doesn't seem very nice to me)?

I am aware that there are exact numbers given of those who will be saved after christ's return, and the apocalypse begins. I didn't know that there was a cut-off before he comes back though...

 

I don't recall reading anything about God being nice in the Bible (of course, I may have missed something). Seems just the opposite, actually. Yes, it is written several times that God loves the world (and I suppose it can be inferred from this that He loves everything in it), but abusive fathers can still be said to love their children. If you read His laws concerning the way wars are to be conducted, for instance, you will see He had a very bloodthirsty side. I suppose though that one could have come to that conclusion just as easily (and far more literally) just from reading the story of Cain and Abel, in which He chose animal blood sacrifices over agricultural ones (hence my use of the term 'bloodthirsty'), setting a precedent of destroying living things to appease Him which continues to this day. That never made sense to me.

It's a good thing that Jesus is said to have brought a new covenant with Him, because the old one really sucked.

 

killing animals in sacrfice as opposed to eating them?




well meat was probably more prized and worthy of sacraficing over grain...and he did want harvest sacrafices also.


animal flesh was for more special occasions or occasions when terrible deeds had been done.

 

Two gods--

OT god: kind of like administrator of souls, likes sacrifices, doesn't mind a little righteous bloodshed now and then, rules his subject with the 'thou shalt not' 10 rule of law. Under this rule, you either live a terribly fearful and constrictive life (?) or you die. After your ordeal of life, you still die, so what's the point? Die now, save manna and quail.

That's why you can graduate to:

NT Father: Full Owner of all that is, aka the ineffable and remote ultimate force of everything, so excellent we don't even need to worry about what name to use. Doesn't like sacrifices, doesn't even have death or hate in his vocabulary. Think light and love. Sent Jesus, not for the purpose of human blood sacrifice, but to show the Way by revealing the Truth, and also demonstrated that our bodies are subject to death but not the life that is in us known as 'spirit'. I'm sure execution was expected, what else could happen. But that wasn't the purpose of His life. Jesus did not live to die. He lived to show us we can live, too. Jesus told us of two things that would cover all technicalities of the written law: 'do' love Him and the Father, 'do' love everyone else. Under this law, we are considered trustworthy and capable of self government.

There's not much real salvation found in the OT. It's a dead end, unless it takes you farther into the living end. Pun intended.

 

As a note, the number of people saved after the Rapture included in Revelations can be translated in different ways. Many Christians don't believe that the number value in itself is important, but rather what the number represents. I can't find the verse now, but I believe it was something like 100,000 people saved. In the times the Bible was recorded, that was a whole lot of people!

Christ never specified how many will be saved. When asked about it, He said this (Revised Standard Version, Luke Chapter 13):
23: And some one said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them,
24: "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
25: When once the householder has risen up and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, `Lord, open to us.' He will answer you, `I do not know where you come from.'
26: Then you will begin to say, `We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.'
27: But he will say, `I tell you, I do not know where you come from; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity!'

What's that mean? As a Christian, we are called to try to walk the narrow path. We are to be mindful of our actions at all times... we are to portray Christian values in our lives.

Many so-called "Christians" will not be saved if they aren't mindful of their actions. So that old lady at church who's been whispering about so-and-so's tatoos or extramarital affairs is risking her soul, just like that creepy old man who screams at my guy friends to remove their hats when entering the building!

 

LMFAO! That's a pretty interesting take on Judaeism.

Sacrifice was to atone for or cover our sins under the blood of the innocent, in this case, an unblemished animal. For the most part, human nature doesn't really like taking innocent life. Not really. The idea here is to be mindful of the fact that, because we are sinners, an innocent has to pay the price for our redemption. It's supposed to be a deterrent.

Things changed when Christ came, because he was the perfect sacrifice, as opposed to imperfect sacrifices which must be redone every year, esp. during Passover and Yom Kippur. G-d made Himself a man, and suffered both life and death, so that He could a) be compassionate and understand our plight, and b) save us from our imperfections.

We have a lot more leeway to screw up in the NT because that perfect sacrifice has been made, already. All we are called to do is accept it.

 

So if a person sins, then an innocent creature must be killed in order to cleanse that person of their sin. BUT killing an innocent creature is itself harmful (though not a sin, interesting what is a sin and what is not). These are the rules set up by an all-powerful and loving deity? REALLY?!?! I think you have been decieved.

I blame Abraham, for making the deal in the first place - if there was an original sin, that was it. His agreeing to that covenant has been the cause of more strife over the centuries than any other single act I can think of. Essentially, he was told (and admittedly this may be a somewhat skewed paraphrase, but I'm trying to make a point) "Promise me your foreskin and the foreskins of all of your male decendants, do whatever I tell you without question, and I will lead you to paradise." Well, that deal went sour, didn't it? And what's with the foreskin sacrifice? Certainly where Abraham was concerned, the blood of an innocent was not being shed in that act - Abraham was a coward and a pimp who made his wife whore for him in exchange for safety from an imagined threat.

Sorry to burden you with my peceptions of the situation. I probably ought to leave well enough alone. I'm not accusing the followers of any of the Judeo-Christian religions of being bad people as a group. Certainly every group has it's bad seeds. I know many, many people who follow various sects of these religions (and I suppose I should include the Islamic religion here as well) who are good people and who do their very best to live good lives. I wouldn't want to hurt those people or give them the impression that I think that being good is equivalent to being foolish.

I also try to live a good life and I believe that living a good life is more than simply not doing harm to others. I make efforts to help others, without discrimination, and I try to nurture the goodness I see in others, where I can. To ease suffering and to increase understanding of ourselves and each other and our world is the path I attempt to follow. I know many Christians and non-Christians who are on this path with me and I wouldn't try to lead them from it. It does irk me somewhat that simply because I am pagan, my efforts are somehow automatically considered to be suspect and it irks me even more that there are some who consider the Christians who are on this path with me to be somehow tainted. Occasionally, my annoyance at this leads me to make the point that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God isn't really all that great, as far as deities go.

I do make a separate distinction between the God of the Old Testament and Jesus, whom I consider a fine role model and an enlightened being as worthy of godhood as any other deity whom I have invoked in my rituals. I have even invoked the name of Jesus occasionally, myself, and with good results, I might add. But I would NEVER do so with the God of the Old Testament, whom I consider to be the deity of those Judeo-Christian-Islamic worshippers who believe they are being righteous when they do harm to others in the name of their religion.

I do realize that the Jewish people still consider this to be their God, and while I don't understand why they continue to worship such an obviously evil being who has yet to live up to His end of the bargain He made with them so many thousands of years ago, I do not think ill of the Jewish people, nor do I think that the vast majority of their clergy espouse an evil philosophy. I am mystified by them, though.

I cannot sin - my religion has no such concept. I have no need to fear any sort of punishment in the afterlife, and yet I strive to do good. And having said that, I'm relatively sure that my words will be responded to with disdain, disbelief, and possibly even hatred. Probably, some who read this will pity me for my misguided ways, and they may truly believe that no attempt at good that I make will ever actually end with good results, simply because I do not believe as they do. To some extent, I suppose the feeling is mutual; though I don't expect anyone to believe as I do (I am firmly convinced that everyone's spiritual beliefs are unique to them - like snowflakes - some may appear to be the same at a glance, but if examied very closely the differences will become apparent).

It may come to pass, that I will be told I am intruding and have no right to post in this Christian forum, because I am not one; that I am unkind, inconsiderate, trolling, what-you-will, for presuming that I could communicate with Christians on a subject about which I have only read and therefore couldn't possibly understand. But it is precisely my lack of understanding which gives me the desire for dialogue on the subject. I will never share the same world-view, but my own religious beliefs drive me to try to understand it, anyway. This is my motive. I will always strive to understand more about the world around me and the people who I share it with. I refuse to be balked from this pursuit of understanding. So to those who would flame me for posting here, I say that's what your "ignore" feature is for. I suggest you use it because I'm going to continue to post until I am satisfied that there is nothing more I can learn from doing so.

I am being defensive, but I have yet to be attacked. I know this and I am not accusing anyone, personally. I've written the above in answer to responses I may never get, true enough. But this is my preemptive attempt to be understood before the hostility, which I freely admit I expect, begins - my attempt to avoid hostility (possibly futile, but I must try) and to lay the groundwork for open communication. Nothing I write is meant to insult or anger, truely. Even when I wrote that I thought HippieLngstckng had been decieved it was not meant to insult. Anyone, no matter how intelligent, can be decieved.

I've gone off-topic. This little rant might be better served if I started it on a new thread. But it was what I read here that gave me the impulse to write this, so I'll leave it here and see what happens.

 

i think the charriots of fire wud give it away ever so slightly

 

okkkkkkkkkk?
and who is they?
sureley they wuda kicked me out to!
im always bare foot

 

Hey Know1nozme, you're perfectly entitled to your opinions, I was just explaining what Jewish/Christian culture believes about the sacrifices. Whether or not you believe it falls to whether or not you have faith. I happen to be a believer. You can't be deceived on your beliefs. A belief is something you hold to be true, but cannot be proven. I guess you could say that it's subject to your life's experiences.

As for everything else, that's very interesting. It's just not what I believe. I'm sorry that you have such a horrible opinion of my G-d, though. That makes me pretty sad, because, you're right, I never said anything at all attacking to you. You know that I'm not passing judgment on anyone, right? It's not my job. The only reason I come into this particular forum is to help foster understanding between people, and demonstrate that not all Christians are psychotic zealots. I hope that you will meet some people, good Christians, that will hopefully change how you view people that worship my L-rd. Good luck to you, friend.

 

HippieLngstckng,

Check your PM's. I would like to clarify myself, but I don't think I'm doing this thread a service by posting it here. I'm too far off topic, now.

For the record, I don't think your 'L-rd' is the same deity I've been writing about, if that makes sense (that might only make sense to a pagan, I don't know - for that matter, it might only make sense to me). And I agree with your point about belief, entirely.