On the other side, God's existence began right in that moment when the first human asked himself "Why am I here? What's the sense of life? Who made all this possible?"

He (or she) noticed that there was no answer for all at first. Then he (or she) made a big mistake thinking that there must be one who have the answer. What kind of logic is that? If I'm the first human on earth then there's nobody else but me. So, nobody else have the answer!!!

God is only a creation of our imagination. We created God as a virtual life form who stands for all that we don't understand. This gave us hope. So, we created a Creator who has created us. Now, nobody really knows who was the first creature - God or the humans!!!
Well, do you know what I mean? Do you know what was the first being - the hen or the egg?

Gods have no might without any believers and believers have no hope without any Gods. It's a kind of symbiotic relationship between Gods and believers. But right in that moment when you'll understand this fact God will disappear in a puff of pink logic smoke...

Something like that was written in Douglas Adam's Book "Hitch-hiking through the Galaxy" (read the part with the babel-fish!). I can't really understand why a God do such un-logically things like creating humans with the ability to make wars and then sending a son who tell us to not make wars. Why didn't he rescue his son for the cross? What a bad father!!!

Our God isn't only the Creator - he's also the destructor! He's the order like he's the chaos! He's life and death! He's love and hate!

Sorry, but I have much more trust into my parents than into such a multiple creature. Didn't he teach us to find our right way? So, here I'm rocking... ...for our Lord!!!

By the way, I hope my english is much better now then three months ago! Thank you, for talking with me!!!

Sheriff, I hope and pray that you will find the REAL truth. But I know this: Christianity is not about words or concepts but about the power of God. If that God is real then He is more than words or concepts but mighty and powerful as the universe He created !! And He would not be ashamed to use it to save those who will believe in Him.

BTW, your English is very good. What nationality are you ?

i don,t know how to paragraph so bear with me,,,there are around 6 or 7 billion of us living on this world,each of us unique,thinking that i am special because there is only one of me (our soul),when we talk to friends that we have,t seen for 40 years and they talk about personal things about us and our memories return,then we realise that they,the same as us are unique.we are born into this world and we have a soul, we were born with it ,but if i ask you how old were you, that you can remember back to, maybe a lot of people will say i can remember when i was 3 or 2 years old,but you can,t remember before then .why not?you didn,t just become 2 years old and got a soul.There are many religions in this world christian,muslim budhist hindi confuscionism etc,it depends on where you were born guides the religion you will follow,can they all be right? ,i doubt it,they all contain some truth,if the bible is the correct source to find god then the church and bible should say the same thing,look at the roman catholic church in one of the commandments it says NOT to have graven images and yet the catholic church,s are full of them,look at the rest of christianity,there are so many breakaways,they can,t all be right,Christ even had a go at the pharises by saying to them what they teach to others to do they don,t do themselves,hypocrits,During the world wars,the same religions in england and germany were blessing the weapons that were to be used against their enemies,that does not make sense,God says its wrong to murder,and yet God blessed the israelites to kill their enemies to victories,ie, its ok to kill but not to murder,do i believe in God?i am trying to,but its not easy to understand a lot of things that the bible says,i know the bible was put into latin AD so that the common people could not read it,and many people were killed because they translated it into english,we are born we live and we die,and what we do while alive is important,the problem is we NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS THE TRUTH,mike

Nardoni,
I was meaning to ask you about that.
Your posts don't have any paragraphs, why is that?
I do not mean to be insulting, mind you.
Theodore

hi trident,i didn,t know how to paragraph,since then i have found out(press enter key),mike

Mike,
You have a few legitimate questions, that perhaps on some level I can address. Yes the Bible says Thou shalt not kill. Then later on in the Bible God commands the Israelites to take the land that God has already given them. And at times to actually kill. IN fact there have been times God has commanded his choosen people to kill many of their own. Odd?
Read Exodus Chapter 32. It's a very intriging story that sums up humanity to a great degree and this seemingly contridiction. God has already delievered the peopl. He is there God and Redeemer. But what happens to these people? The wish not to recognize God because a man is late. Not a wise choice. Application number 1, because of what man has done, they ignore God. Don't let this happen to you. Then when Moses confronts them (Aaron specifically) he (Aaron ) acts like he's innocent and suprised. His actual answer is "Thye gave me the gold, I threw it in the fire and out came this calf!". Pretty lame don't you think?

But the story doesn't stop there, Moses actually asked them all "Whoever is for the Lord, come to me". Well many didn't come to him. They were subsequently killed. About 3,000 actually,

So what then? Seems to contradict? Not really. These people were delivered by God. They all witnessed greaty mircales and yet chose to ignore God. Then when actually asked to join the Lord, they declined. Seem to me their blood was on their own head.

This is like the story of mankind and God. Man has been redeemed (through the work of Christ on the cross), yet they ignore it. Then when given the gospel, they ignore that too. God's wrath then remains on them. God the Creator gives and takes away. It's that simple. We are not to play God. We are not to kill. It should not be in our hearts to kill. And that is the heart of the matter actually. God see the heart of all men. Jesus even said that anyone who holds hatred in the heart for another is guilty of murder. (Matthew 5:21-22).

When God redeemee the Israelites from the Egyptians, he was accomplishing two things. 1) redeeming His people and 2) judging those who reject Him. The same thing happend when the Israelites were winnign battles to conquer the Promosed Land. These people that were dying in war were actually being judged by God for their evil ways.
But we as humans are not to take this step ourselves.

I agree with some things you stated and about the "church" this is why I have become a protestant. I was once Catholic and was totally confused byt all their heavy laws and history that seemed to conflict with the Bible.

Anyway, I have to run now. I will tell you the truth flat out, Jesus Christ is the truth and the way. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. Seek out Christ with all your heart my friend. You will find salvation and answers.

Peace
Bob
<><

PS I rushed this post, sorry for any typos.

[This message has been edited by RW (edited 07-26-2005).]

thanks for your reply bob,i noticed the fish at the end,mike

Mike: I meant to reply to you about it but after writing a long reply, it got deleted somehow. I agree with Bob basically. Another example is when Abraham had to offer his only son Isaac by God's instruction. In today's world that is an instruction to commit a 1st degree murder !!! But we are talking about the ancient times when God was doing this along with other instructions to make war to conquer lands for the Israelites. Buy one must remember the huge miracles that God did in the plain sight of multitudes such as the pillars of fire and the parting of the Red sea, the manna breads falling from heaven, etc, etc. There was no doubt in anybody's minds that God is at work and they had to obey it. It was not a delusionals imagination of a particular individual. It was plain to everyone that it was God. That is why they could carry out those seemingly violent actions. So, in short it was not a crime because they were obeying God.

But today after Jesus arrived after being foretold by prophets of the old days is fortunately a different time. A time of grace, forgiveness and non-violence as Jesus showed for an example of how we should live. If there is anyone who wants to repeat the acts of Abraham today would contradict with Jesus Christ teachings and that clearly cannot be Christianity.

As for the statues/graven image, I think it is pretty clear that God forbid anyone to worship things other than God. I think you can have paintings/artworks depicting Jesus, etc but you are not allowed to worship it. As long as it is not worshipped, then it is just an art object.

Not sure if this clears up your q's or not ?

thanks for your reply lukitoh,don,t get me wrong i am NOT anti christian,i just feel that if the word of GOD is true, then it cannot be false,so it must all be true.
Before the 10 commandments were made aware to the people,the people would not be aware of breaking the law because there was NO written law, only conscience, and awareness of breaking the law made them feel bad.(if you tell a child not to touch a hot stove because he will burn himself, and he does, then he burns his fingers and the pain tells him not to do that again, and to trust his parents)
the christian breakaways from catholics,,whether it,s methodist,anglican pentecostals,etc,etc,they all disagree ,why ,same bible same god?,some only accept the new testament.
GOD made the 10 commandments,and stating that thou shall not kill,should apply to GOD also,and to me it,s wrong for GOD to tell the israelites to kill their enemies and then say ,do not kill.(who am i to judge)They say who are you to question god,just have faith.if you kill someone during wartime then you are classed as a hero ,but if you kill someone during peacetime then you are a murderer ,same crime.(I believe that churches and governments many years ago have made changes to the bible to give them more control of the people,and that is probably the reason i sometimes find it difficult) ,because you need the full truth and trust to be able to have faith ,mike

Warning, die-hard religious types, please refrain from reading this. You will probably not like it.


In my opinion, faith and religion are like a screwdriver and an aeroplane, completely different things. The first is a pure thing, comes from inside everyone and differs from person to person, and the second is a well prepared, organized, time tested and proven method of making people obey the will, motives or faith of some OTHER persons.

If i fell down some stairs, a christian may feel his duty to lift me up and care if I am alright, a muslim may do the exact same thing. But their God is quite different, because someone thought so. I respect God's creations, and maybe deep down i think he exists. It's his so called "representatives" that I don't like.

For me, faithful people are caring equally for themselves and others, pray to whatever higher entity they like, and seek no harm. Abortion clinic bombers (so called christians) think they have more faith than the people they accuse as murderers of the unborn. Same for the guys who throw rocks to a poor woman who is pregnant after being raped against her will. If I could, I would happily push the button to eradicate both categories, no remorse.

The Bible is actually a compilation of older stories, "modernized" and adapted to fit the trends of the era it was written. How the world came to exist, resurrection matters, battles between good and evil and many other things documented in the Bible, were elements of other religions well before Jesus came to earth and Christianity was born. Maybe in 3000 years from now, some other religion will have its place, and people will laugh about then "ancient" beliefs about someone who was reportedly born by a virgin, as people today don't really think Osiris or Poseidon existed.

If there is a God, we must be prepared to call him with many names, and NOT attach adjectives like "real", "good", "right", "true" and so on. God, Allah, Zeus etc are all the same thing, they are just names, describing, each culture's and era's version of a higher entity. Scots have whiskey, Americans have bourbon. They both can get you drunk easily, they look very similar, and can make an ugly woman prettier than the best plactic surgeon can. Yet they have different names and flavors.

I always wondered why is the church here in Greece called an "orthodox christian church" (orthodox in old Greek means something along the lines of "the right belief"). Other christian religions feel the same, so why are we the right one? Who decides it? Answer is nobody, we just happened to have a quarrel with the western side of our church some centuries ago, probably for financial or power control matters, so we decided to detach and call ourselves "right". The same people fought each other to decide if we should have icons in churches or not...look around you if you happen to visit a Greek church and guess who won that battle.

Last, for sure Jesus did not have an angelic WHITE face, sporting well groomed and somewhat curly shoulder length hair, as depicted in Western icons. He probably looked more like the Byzantine icons depict him, dark skin, dark long hair.

Lukitoh, I think you are a very good person and I sincerely respect your faith, and your commitment to it, but not your religion, or anyone's in particular. And no matter whatever fanciful shapes the oil takes, I would better like a cure for cancer happening, or wars stopping, in any shape. Or a Tyros on my doorstep

Sorry for the rant,
Theodore

PS, Sheriff, you English is definitely getting better and better. In the beginning, months ago, it felt a little like you were writing in German and then using a translator like Babelfish, I don't have that feeling now. Keep up the good work!

[This message has been edited by trident (edited 07-26-2005).]