If God is God, Why. . . ?

a reply to: ChesterJohn

I am still awaiting proof that your deity is supreme. My deities are still here after thousands of years.

a reply to: Noinden

What ever proof I give you will just say your don't believe it. I gave it already and yo say your are still waiting. So no proof can be given you.

So, You will have your proof from God himself.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

That is the point I am making neighbour. This is all belief. My beliefs do not agree with yours, and it comes down to gut feeling. That is not a provable thing. Despite what you keep saying.

I have proof of many Gods thanks. I prefer my Indo-European ones. They are not jealous or vengeful. They are assured in who they are. Not some hormonal desert deity who needs to be constantly told how great he is.

a reply to: Noinden

Remember that belief and faith are not the same things. And things that are different are not the same.

We can have a ton of beliefs and still not be saved. It is faith that will save, specifically faith on the finished work of the cross of Jesus Christ.

You really do have a perverted view on God, who Jesus was the fullness of him bodily. Jesus was God in the flesh and John 1:1-2; 14, 1John 5:7 and Revelation 19:13 are just a few verses that teach the doctrine of the deity of Christ. So he never once desired or told anyone to tell him how great he is. So in saying something like that shows your lack of understanding of God, his ways, his people and his preserved pure words s found in the AKJV bible.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Faith is built upon belief, thus they are intimately connected. My view on your little desert deity is that of an outsider. He is not my deity. You have an equally perverted understanding of others faiths. As evidenced by your attacks on Islam. I suspect you would attack Jews if you could too.

a reply to: Noinden

You then realize that they are not the same. My view on your little deities is that of an outsider. They are not my deities, you have equally perverted understanding of my faith. As evidence on your attack on Jesus Christ, I suspect you would kill someones dog if you could.

You see we can both play this game.

The better game is this, "Just wait and see".

a reply to: ChesterJohn

I notice you skipped past your misunderstanding of your fellow Abrahamic Religion if Islam That is very telling.

I understand your faith quite well thanks. I grew up around it. I went to a Christian School, despite being non-Christian.

I'd not kill anyone's pet, dog, cat, whatever, because I like animals. You basically put a big fat non-sequitur in there, to poison the challice.

So go on prove what you said. You are sure in your faith neighbour. So sure, you argue with your fellow Christians.

a reply to: Noinden

Islam is a sham made up by a epileptic fornicating child molester, to make followers after himself, in which he made clear he being the prophet of his little god, was equal to when it came to his followers of his religion. If you haven't noticed he had to be contacted by his little god to start Islam God never called anyone to start a religion in the Bible. Abraham was called to leave his family and land and if he did, God would give him the land of Canaan. The worship practices of Israel were the same as that of Abraham and those before the flood and after the flood(see Job).

When God called Israel out of Egypt, he set up civil and worship laws for his called out people to follow. They were never ordered to try and reach people with their "religion" It had been a choice if any starnger wanted to worship God and t was said there would be one law for Israel and the stranger that dwelt among them.

Once in the land promised them, they were ordered to wipe out all the inhabitants (because of their sins that were come before God) to test their obedience and they didn't obey, and they were told not follow the worship practices for the gods of those previously in the land and they didn't obey that either.

At least get it straight no one started a religion called Judaism. And no one was called out to start a new religion called Christianity and no one did. Start with that truth and re-read the Bible, and see if you can find out the real reason for the earth, Israel and Christianity.

So before you start saying Israel started a religion, you need to understand you are incorrect as to the origin of the worship of God, and it was not an religion. It was something man had did from the beginning, but man turned form God and God called nation to be his chosen people and he codified the way they were to worship him as a righteous and holy God.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

There yah go neighbour. Back to your bigoted frothing at the mouth. You bitch and moan about people attacking your faith, yet you lead with it. You don't get the irony ...

Basically you understand your strange little version of Protestantism. That is it. Not even the greater Christian faith. You are thus not qualified to talk about other paths.

a reply to: Noinden

1) I am not a protestant. I am a Bible Believing Baptist - Baptist did not come out of the Protestant Reformation. You would do well to understand that not all church organization can fro the Man made religious construct known as the Roman Catholic Church. Out of which we have Lutheranism, Wesleyan, Presbyterianism, Episcopalianisn, Anglicanism, and many of the other sects of Protestantism.

2) You missed the point the point was Islam is a man made created religion where some so called god told Mohammad to start Islam. Man made started religions up to date are Baalism, Moloch worship, Diana worship, the Greek religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormonism (another one where someone told a man to start a religion), Moonies, Animism and Satanism. These are all man made religions.

3) What men have labeled after 325AD as Judaism and Christianity were never started by a men. Jesus Christ did not start what is known as Christianity. Christians were called that by Paul and Barnabas because their life was in Christ and they were his body. But it is a worship of the One True God Almighty, who became a man in the person of Jesus Christ, the fulness of the godhead bodily, this was the same worship that had been going on since the beginning of our current 24/7 time system of the world, as recorded in Genesis. It was never a religion it was a truth, man was made to worship God and he did so.

But you seem to be under the misconception that Judaism, a name coined by men to justify their religious sects, was just started by men but it wasn't, it was started by God instructing men how to worship him. You can only come to him if you are pure in heart, soul and body. When Israel was called out from Egypt by God, he gave them instruction (which had been lost up until that time) on how to worship him. How to be clean before coming to him and how to approach him through the priesthood he established for worship. Today the only way to come to God is through his son Jesus Christ, a believer comes to the father through Jesus Christ Cross to worship him, being purified by his blood so we can draw nigh unto him.

No man made religion can do that, because it is not what and how God had instructed them to come to him. No pope can draw you near, no Bishop of protestant religions can bring you near, no amount of Mantra Chanting can bring you near, no amount of fasting can bring you near, no amount of studying religious books (the Authorized Bible is not a religious book,it is a history book) can bring you near to God, no amount of eating healthy can bring you near, nothing can bring you near except but the blood of Jesus, that alone can bring your near. And we are to be covered in that blood every day.

No amount of telling yourself, I have my little gods and I hold them above a desert deity, and I can come to them any way I want. That is not a true God that is man made religion.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

(a) Generally speaking, Baptists are considered a subset of theProtestant branch of your little Abrahamic faith. So yes you are a Protestant Neighbour. You use a protestant bible. Not a Catholic one.

(b) I have bad news for you. All religions are man made. ALL. Thus your attaks on Islam is hypocritical in the extreme. Its as if evidence Mohammed existed, while Jesus has no direct evidence, twists and bunches your panties.

(c) Yes indeed Judiasm was indeed started by men. The Gnosis that it is from God (just as Isalm is) is jsut that UPG. Unprovable.

So I have my faith, and it works for me. I don't hold it as above yours. I do however consider you to be uneducated in the greater theology of the world. That is the difference between you and I. I have an open mind. You are close minded, and bigoted.

a reply to: Noinden

Generally you are wrong Baptist are not related to Protestants nor are they a sub group except by Roman Catholics Popes who want to plop every group as being under them before they were Started. to baptist their line comes through the Eastern passage of Antioch church via the Anabaptist. But all religions were started by men. Jesus never started any of them. He gave the person who believed on him access to worship the Father in spirit and truth, through his finished work of the cross, only by blood from Genesis 3 to now can one draw near unto God. It is not a religion it is a right way to worship.

Well if you can't read 6th grade English and see from the Authorized Version that no one started Judaism or true Christianity, then you are not as bright as I thought you were.

originally posted by: ChesterJohn
a reply to: Noinden

1) I am not a protestant. I am a Bible Believing Baptist - Baptist did not come out of the Protestant Reformation.

Weird way to use the word "Baptist". The dictionaries I'm seeing seem to define Baptists as Protestants.

The Google dictionary and Oxford Dictionaries have:

1. a member of a Protestant Christian denomination advocating baptism only of adult believers by total immersion. Baptists form one of the largest Protestant bodies and are found throughout the world and especially in the US.

Cambridge English Dictionary:

... a member of a Christian religious group that is one of the Protestant churches.

Merriam-Webster:

2. capitalized : a member or adherent of an evangelical Protestant denomination marked by congregational polity and baptism by immersion of believers only

Dictionary.com:

Word Origin and History for baptist

c.1200, "one who baptizes;" see baptize + -ist. As "member of a Protestant sect that believes in adult baptism by immersion" (with capital B-), attested from 1654; their opponents called them anabaptists.

Part 17—1530 onward—Protestantism—A Reformation?

Early Children of the Reformation
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BAPTIST CHURCHES: 369 denominations (1970) originating with the 16th-century Anabaptists, who stressed adult baptism by immersion. The Encyclopedia of Religion says Baptists have “found it difficult to maintain organizational or theological unity,” adding that “the Baptist family in the United States is large, . . . but, as in many another large family, some members do not speak to other members.”

name Baptist: jv 150

Baptists at first resisted the nickname Anabaptist (meaning, “Rebaptizer”) but gradually adopted the name Baptist as a sort of compromise.

A Divided Church—Can It Survive?

...However, even though this particular revival was heralded as “a glorious and unprecedented epoch in the religious history of Ulster,” it and other revivals like it have not produced religious unity among those who claim a spiritual rebirth.

Such ones will argue that they are united in fundamentals. But this is the same argument used by the rest of Christendom, who rationalize that “what unites Christians is already far more important than the matters that still divide them.” (The Church and Unity) Christendom claims: “Our fundamental unity with each other and with all our fellow Christians is rooted in our baptism in Christ.” (Christians in Communion) To say that the divisions are unimportant because of common faith in Jesus is, however, like saying that cancer is not serious as long as your heart is strong.

The reality is that such modern religious movements have added to the confusion and produced spiritual anarchy as persuasive teachers corral followers for themselves. Jim Jones and David Koresh are recent examples of spiritual leaders who misled thousands. (Matthew 15:14) One Baptist minister is a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan. He links his campaign for white supremacy with a religious revival and says that those who take part in it will “be given the strength of providence on high, given the courage of He who died on Calvary [Jesus Christ].”

opposition to Witnesses:

Burma: yb13 124

Later, in Mongpaw, a small village near the China border, an enraged mob of Baptists burned down a Kingdom Hall. When their vile act failed to intimidate the local Witnesses, the mob burned down the home of a special pioneer and began terrorizing brothers and sisters in their homes. The brothers appealed to the area ruler, but he backed the Baptists. Finally, however, the government intervened and granted the brothers permission to build a new Kingdom Hall​—not on the original site at the edge of the village, but right in the center of the village!

Ukraine: yb02 164-166

In 1949 a Baptist leader in the city of Zaporozh’ye provided local security services with information against five of our sisters, who were then arrested. They were accused of anti-Soviet agitation and were each sentenced to 25 years in prison camps. All their property was confiscated. For seven years until amnesty was granted, they served their terms deep in northern Russia.
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Religious Leaders Cooperate With Authorities
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In 1950 a young Baptist girl, Vasylyna Biben from Transcarpathia, learned that the clergyman of her church had informed the authorities about the activity of two Witnesses in her community. The Witnesses were arrested and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. After their release, they returned home, yet showed no animosity toward the clergyman. Vasylyna understood that these Witnesses really did love their neighbors.

support of wars: g 1/11 4-5

“Baptists are much better known for fighting than for peacemaking. . . . When the [American] slavery issue and other developments divided the denominations and then the nation in the nineteenth century, Baptists North and South supported the war effort as a righteous crusade and assumed that God was on their side. Baptists also identified with the national effort in wars with England (1812), Mexico (1845), and Spain (1898), justifying the last two ‘mainly on the grounds of bringing religious liberty to oppressed peoples and opening new areas for mission work.’ The point is not that Baptists desired war rather than peace, but that, for the most part, when war became a reality Baptists supported and participated in the effort.”​—Review and Expositor—​A Baptist Theological Journal.

As I mentioned in another thread called "A Message For Christian Men":

Romans 12:18

If possible, as far as it depends on you, be peaceable with all men.

Zechariah 8:16

“‘These are the things you should do: Speak the truth with one another, and the judgments in your gates must promote truth and peace.

Truth/fact: Baptists are classified as Protestants. Baptist Churches originate from the 16th-century Anabaptists who can be described as early children of the Reformation. Falsehood: Baptists are not classified as Protestants and (or because they) "did not come out of the Protestant Reformation". Or should I say defined rather than classified?

Proverbs 14:

2 The one walking in his uprightness is fearing Jehovah, but the one crooked in his ways is despising Him.
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5 A faithful witness is one that will not lie, but a false witness launches forth mere lies.

6 The ridiculer has sought to find wisdom, and there is none; but to the understanding one knowledge is an easy thing.

7 Go away from in front of the stupid man, for you will certainly not take note of the lips of knowledge.

8 The wisdom of the shrewd is to understand his way, but the foolishness of stupid ones is deception.
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12 There exists a way that is upright before a man, but the ways of death are the end of it afterward.
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25 A true witness* [Lit., “A witness of truth.”] is delivering souls, but a deceitful one* launches forth mere lies.

originally posted by: Seede
a reply to: whereislogic

Actually, there are differences between the very first edition of the KJV and later editions. It has changed since the first copy of the press. This video mentions how you can tell if you've got a first edition KJV or not (at 1:20):

I have a first edition of the 1611 KJV bible and I gave you the correct information in my above post to Noiden.

You are referencing the New World [JW] bible version of the rejected selected MSS of which your committee used. those MSS are highly rejected by most all Scholars of the KJV biblical MSS translators.

I never referenced the New World Translation in the comment you were responding to. That comment was all about the KJV. How odd for you to use it to launch the usual discrediting arguments against that translation or even to bring up the translation at all.

One man with two years of university education mastered 6 languages [no Aramaic] and translated the entire OT and NT with rejected MSS? I don't think you should go there.

It seems you wanted to go there though. You might want to avoid sifting the facts, exploiting the useful ones and concealing the others. Also distorting and twisting facts, specializing in lies and half-truths would be something best avoided.
How Knowing Greek Led Me to Know God

...
From Phillips Academy I went on to college, to Princeton. In my senior year I decided I wanted to teach, and after graduating, I did start at an Episcopal boys’ school, St. Paul’s, in New Hampshire. This was consistent with my background. Growing up, I was a longtime choirboy at the local Episcopal Church. In my area the respectable people were either Unitarian or Episcopalian. So I’d been steeped in the very High Church Episcopalianism but exposed to very little Biblical or spiritual understanding. The Bible was swallowed up in church formalism. Now at St. Paul’s I was immersed in it once again. Everybody​—faculty and students—​had to go to chapel every weekday and twice on Sunday.

I taught Latin and Greek there for four years. ... The next three summers I studied for and got my master’s degree in Latin and Greek.
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Suzanne would come to me and ask:

“Oh, Nicholas, here’s a word that Karen and I studied in the Bible. Could stauros just mean ‘stake’?”

“Well, sure. It does mean ‘stake.’ I don’t know how they ever got ‘cross’ out of stauros. But I’m not surprised. The Christian church has been doing things like that at least since Constantine’s time.”

Later I met Karen’s husband, and after some general discussions a regular Bible study was started. But I had problems. Episcopalianism had given me no knowledge of the Bible, no faith in it. I needed an approach to the study that would satisfy my demand for logic. Was it reasonable to think that the Witnesses​—an unpopular minority often scorned and ridiculed—​had the scholarship to meet my need?

But then I remembered, minorities with different ideas were often ridiculed by the majority, even despised and persecuted by them, yet ultimately were proved right. Now here are these Witnesses​—a minority, different, running around knocking on doors, standing on street corners with their magazines, scoffed at, and often despised and persecuted. Maybe it would be worth listening to them​—they just might have something!
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One woman, a Baptist, gave me one of these little tracts about the Witnesses, supposedly exposing their errors. In several places it referred to the Greek. So I was curious: Just how knowledgeable were they in Greek. Within a few weeks I had acquired several more similar tracts to examine.

Most of them revolved around the Trinity. They assumed the Trinity to be true, then carefully selected their scholarly authorities to prove it. In fact, the attacks on Witness teachings often focused on the Trinity and on their New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. In Greek, as in English, some words can mean different things in different contexts. The English word “bow,” for instance, can be a courteous bow, a bow of ribbon, or a bow with which to shoot arrows.

In Bible study, however, you look not only at the context but also at other scriptures to see how the word is used in different settings. So you check to see whether you’re leaning on your assumptions or on the evidence. I noticed that these tract writers frequently manipulate the evidence, misrepresent it. On the other hand, the Society was quite honest in looking at all the evidence, all the possibilities, offering their conclusions, but then telling you to decide. After a careful examination of the points of controversy, I saw that the Society was right.

In some places the Trinitarians clearly manipulate the evidence. The classic example of this is, I guess, John 8:58. There Jesus said: “Before Abraham was, I am.” (King James Version) The Trinitarians pick up Jesus’ use of “I am” here and relate it to Jehovah’s statement to Moses in Exodus 3:14 (KJ), “I am that I am.” Because both Jesus and Jehovah used “I am,” they argue that this makes Jesus and Jehovah one. And the Greek root does say am in the present tense at John 8:58.

However, even their own theological grammar books acknowledge that where an expression of past time appears in the sentence, the present tense verb can sometimes be translated as if it has begun in past time and continues up to the present.* This is also true in French and it is true in Latin. Hence, when the New World Translation says “I have been” instead of “I am,” it is translating the Greek correctly. (John 8:58) Yet the Trinitarians act as if ‘No, that’s not even possible!’ So I began to notice this misrepresentation of the evidence on the part of the detractors of the Society.
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The year before this, a publication was released by the Watch Tower Society entitled The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures. It proved to be crucial for me.
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Incidentally, right at the time when this publication came out, I was assigned to teach at Phillips Academy a course in New Testament Greek. Since I did not learn Greek from a theologian who was teaching New Testament Greek, I was probably much more objective about it. I could look at the words with fresh eyes, free of the traditional, doctrinal notions.

Such preconceptions can really give you eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear because if, as you do your research, you’re looking for something to confirm what you already believe, that’s all your eyes and ears will see or hear. Instead of looking to see ‘Well, what’s the whole case?’ they see only what can be used, or misused, to support their preconceptions.

Incidentally, most theologians that I’ve met are not strong in Greek. The quality of Greek scholarship in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, however, is very good. It’s the kind of thing that a person who really wants to work with the Greek, even though not knowing much Greek, can do a lot with. I feel it’s one of the greatly underappreciated jewels of the Watch Tower Society’s publications.
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“The translation is evidently the work of skilled and clever scholars, who have sought to bring out as much of the true sense of the Greek text as the English language is capable of expressing.”​—Hebrew and Greek scholar Alexander Thomson, in The Differentiator, April 1952, pages 52-7.

a reply to: Seede
The “New World Translation”—Scholarly and Honest

“FULL of falsifications!” Back in the 16th century, that is what opposers said about Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. They believed they could prove that Luther’s Bible contained “1,400 heretical errors and lies.” Today, Luther’s Bible is viewed as a landmark translation. The book Translating the Bible even calls it “a work of genius”!

In this 20th century, the New World Translation has also been charged with falsification. Why? Because it departs from the traditional rendering of many verses and stresses the use of God’s name, Jehovah. Hence, it is unconventional. But does this make it false? No.
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Other Scholars Agree
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Why the Harsh Criticism?

Luther’s Bible was criticized because it was produced by a man who exposed the shortcomings of the traditional religion of his day. His translation opened the way for ordinary people to see the truth of much of what he said. Similarly, the New World Translation is criticized because it is published by Jehovah’s Witnesses, who outspokenly declare that many of Christendom’s doctrines are not found in the Bible. The New World Translation​—indeed, any Bible—​makes this evident.

In fact, the New World Translation is a scholarly work. In 1989, Professor Benjamin Kedar of Israel said: “In my linguistic research in connection with the Hebrew Bible and translations, I often refer to the English edition of what is known as the New World Translation. In so doing, I find my feeling repeatedly confirmed that this work reflects an honest endeavor to achieve an understanding of the text that is as accurate as possible. Giving evidence of a broad command of the original language, it renders the original words into a second language understandably without deviating unnecessarily from the specific structure of the Hebrew. . . . Every statement of language allows for a certain latitude in interpreting or translating. So the linguistic solution in any given case may be open to debate. But I have never discovered in the New World Translation any biased intent to read something into the text that it does not contain.”
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Just remember that there are those who rather than simply use the Bible as the basis for true teachings, concentrate on trying to discredit the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, as if Jehovah’s Witnesses were wholly dependent on it for support. Which isn't the case and neither was my commentary that was all about the KJV a good excuse to 'go there', as you put it.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Nope, those are weasel words. Baptiss are classified on the whole as protestants. Only the extreme culty ones like Westbro get a definite pass.

Neighbour, I hold post graduate degrees (a PhD and a Masters(. I can read far beyond your silly little grades. Judaism, like all religions are created. They don't pop into place. If you don't understand that, you are beyond hope of logical discourse.

Thus your attack on Islam is hypocritical, and bigoted.

Oh and the bible is not a historical document. It has been shown to more often than not be wrong about the history it tries to portray.