Why don't YOU believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God?

Originally posted by Antichrist
Completely agree with you AnarchistSuperstar.

I would certainly gather that.....your both are like two fish in a big pond just waiting for someone to catch and clean ya.
Fish fry anyone............

regards
seekerof

I answered your question, sorry if you didnt catch it. Its in the "God doesnt exist" thread, near the end. Check it out. It seems that all you have left is to use ad hominem.

Colonel as it is obvious at this point I have been holding back let me take me take this opportunity to drop the other shoe.

Before the conquistadors and the Vatican assembly (EMPIRE) made its presence known, the American Indian Tribe known as Taino could be found anywhere in south or Central America as well as the Caribbean
(we are talking millions).

In the early 1820s only seven families were left (of which my great, great, great, great grandfather was considered chief). They were all killed and you want to know the main reason, the Taino considered Jesus Christ as having visited the Western Hemisphere.

I am not calling God a liar I am calling the Church a liar at least from the context of its existence prior to 1954.

With all due respect these are just my thoughts

Originally posted by AnarchistSuperstar
I answered your question, sorry if you didnt catch it. Its in the "God doesnt exist" thread, near the end. Check it out. It seems that all you have left is to use ad hominem.

Yep, you answered it by evading it...nuff said Anarchist.
Carry on in your 'crusade' and quest.....I wish you much luck in your endeavor to think you know the answers......

regards
seekerof

Originally posted by Illmatic67

"" It (is) possible for one that has never even heard of jesus christ to be saved. In order for such a one may be saved, it is required that he observe the natural law; with help of god, everyone having the use of reason can do that ""

That is what I've been saying the the start.

No Illmatic, that is not what you been saying cause if that was, indeed, what you were implying then you needed to say it where others could understand. Your 'cryptic' messages leave alot to be desired, but then again, we do only see what we want to see, correct?

regards
seekerof

I feel that these subjects are to emotional for seekerof.

Seekerof you seem to be very anygry with anyone that does not agree with you...unfortunate for you that thses posts are for all to display their feelings on.

Originally posted by RemainObsolete
I feel that these subjects are to emotional for seekerof.

Seekerof you seem to be very anygry with anyone that does not agree with you...unfortunate for you that thses posts are for all to display their feelings on.

Wrong answer but anger is good, healthy....so is belief.

regards
seekerof

I disagree RemainObsolete and further state that if anything, goregrinder's comments with respect to this thread while well within the regs represents an overtly emotional response.

At this point I an courius as to your opinion Remainobsolete???

your choice has been made....so be it

If that is really your decision then what is your opinion with respect to the content??

as for my opinion I will say that I do not believe. One should ask why they believe themselves. What makes you believe? The way you were taught to believe from your church? parents? school? literature?. If you hadn't had access to any of these regarding god then you will be asking yourself why you do in fact really believe.

your choice has been made....so be it.....was intended for seekerof

Originally posted by RemainObsolete
I ask this.....If you were never told about god through the bible, priest, your parents ,etc. would you still believe? and why?

The way I see it is that people are taught to believe in god....it's been that way for many years. Heck back in the day you were killed if you didn't believe.

(They also killed you if you DID believe during Nero's rule)

So if you never ever heard about god or the jesus you would not believe.

By simply asking a question, I've been labeled and put in a box by several respondents. (This tells a lot more about them then me though) I'm ok with that. I have chosen to believe in Christ as the Messiah because I've searched. Yes, I was raised a Christian but I rebelled in the early college years. I was borderline athiest for a while, but I didn't give up searching and I didn't close my heart to the possibility. I have had several epiphany's(awakenings) in my life that have transformed me to who I am now. God came in when I opened the door.
My beliefs come from many sources, not just the bible. I enjoy researching and studying psychic predictions, hypnotherapy, UFO literature, Crop Circles, Sacred Geometry, theoretical physics, other religious texts (I haven't read the Quran yet, but I'd like to.) The Divine Romance is an excellent book by Paramahansa Yogananda (Yogi).

Part of my current search is to discover my purpose in the divine plan. And part of my personal search is to try to see how everything fits together in the "Big Picture." You can read my Bio if you want a summary of my beliefs.

To address your questions, "If I were never exposed to Christ" I believe that I would be limited to the lower dimensions of existence. I would have to be reborn into a body that would have that access to Christ and his teachings. Since I believe in reincarnation, I can say I also believe that I did not receive Christ in my previous lives. If I had I don't believe I'd be here now.
I don't believe in the literal interpretations of Heaven and Hell. The world is not black and white and the spiritual world is also composed of gradients. To me Hell is the absence of God. Many people are there right now in their current experience, but they choose it through their thoughts, beliefs and actions. I believe we are separated from God by our beliefs. It is true that we are taught to believe in God and are given guidance to knowing him. I don't feel this is necessary per say but it is useful. Anthropological studies have found that all people have a relationship to a higher power (God if you will). Indigenous peoples on remote islands in the South Pacific who have had NO exposure to organized religion displayed a similar relationship to a higher power and immediately understood the Christ concept.
One of the hardest questions that I've wrestled with is this one: (Colonel, I'd like to here your answer to this one.)

Premise 1: God by definition is Perfect and Just.
Premise 2: If Jesus is the ONLY path to God, anyone who was unfortunate enough to have been born before he came or never heard the good news of his grace are doomed to never reach God.

If both of the above are true, then there is a contradiction here. This is one of the main sticking points for many people I know (including my wife)

I believe reincarnation solves this problem. I'm currently reading a book by a hypnotherapist who has done something no one else has. He hasn't just tapped into "past lives" but has found a way to have his subjects describe the spiritual world inbetween lives. Remarkably, most of his subjects describe very similar accounts in their experiences and they correlate very closely with near death and out-of-body experiences many other people have reported. In fact, this past weekend a new friend of mine picked up the book and didn't put it down until he was done reading it. He came up to me and said, "This is exactly true." I said, "Oh really? How do you KNOW that?" He said, "This is what happened to me when I committed suicide." He hasn't filled me in on all of the details yet because he had to leave, but I was quite taken aback. I'm always open to things but, being analytical by nature but I like to get a reasonable amount of information before making a firm decision. Anyway, I've been reading the book and it is fascinating. If anyones interested, the name of the book is "Journey of Souls" by Michael Newton, Ph.D.

Anyway, through reincarnation, we are given many opportunities to "Return Home" through Christ's sacrifice. If we choose not to accept this gift, we just stay here (in the lower dimensions). If we do accept it, by Christ's atonement for our sins (karma) we are pardoned and may become perfect again with God.

One last thing... I appreciate all the questions, but I'm really interested in hearing people's personal experiences of why they do or do not believe in Jesus as God's Son. Antichrist (not GWB) posted a well organized post on why he doesn't believe. I accept that that is where you are Mr. antichrist and if you are comfortable with those beliefs, I'm ok with that. However, if you are not comfortable in those beliefs. If you want to believe, don't look for proof in thought. Look for proof in experience. If you've ever felt Love then you've gotten a small bit of experience of God. You can't "prove" Love is real, but you know it when you feel it. This is how it is with the spiritual. Open up your heart and give HIM a chance. If you truly do with honest intent, you will be surprised.

Note - these are just my opinions and experiences. You can tak'em or leave'em

God's Love to all of you.

~Jammer

Originally posted by RemainObsolete
as for my opinion I will say that I do not believe. One should ask why they believe themselves. What makes you believe? The way you were taught to believe from your church? parents? school? literature?. If you hadn't had access to any of these regarding god then you will be asking yourself why you do in fact really believe.

Ok, here's the problem as I see it: Anyone who doesn't believe in God, seems to think that those who DO believe hold the belief only because of what they have been told and brought up in. Well, I can testify that this is BullS**t. Besides which, the whole purpose of God's revelations and the prophecies was so that people could tell others about God....

Now I was never brought up in any kind of christian society. I know very few people who believe in God at all, and I've always been brought up as an atheist. And I was fine with that, seemed to make sense. Also, being an atheist allowed me to make my own rules, I didn't believe so I didn't care.
I've already posted how I came to change my mind, but it had no influence from "God botherers" or anything outside......I just knew. I changed from one end of the spectrum to the other, for no reason other than my own experiences.

YEt atheists and the like seem to think that everyone who believes in God goes to church every sunday, reads the Bible every night and kiss's the Vicars feet in the hope of going to heaven. This is not true. Anyone can believe in God, you don't have to be brought up with Him, and you don't need to go to church to say a prayer.

From what I've read, the people who believe in God are willing to accept others views, probably because having had "Godly" experiences, there's no need to be angry - the simple fact that God exists makes them happy enough.
Yet those who do not believe, seem to be the ones who will not accept any view other than their own and insist that anyone who believes in God is "ramming it down their throats".
Well, everyone has different opinions, but to say God doesn't exist because you haven't experienced him is like saying you don't believe in worms because you've never seen one.
People need to be open minded about things here - too many people have made up their mind and are not willing to accept anything else. How can I say to you that God exists when you will never believe it anyway? People have had experiences with God. It happens, get over it. Just because you don't believe in Him doesn't mean that no one can experience Him.........

If anything RemainObsolete is apparent it is that my impressioni is goregrinder did nothing wrong, that was my point.

Beyond that you are free to apply imagination


Jammerman, taking everything I have presented to date would sugest that an opinion has been sugested.

What are your thoughts?



[Edited on 14-7-2003 by Toltec]

It seems like all you do is dismiss and claim I'm the one evading. I have answered everyones question, if you think I have then you must be purposefully avoiding, go look. I'll even tell you again, from what I've seen of you it appears that you are full of sh*t and try to act like you're on top by constantly dismissing me without reason.

AS are you talking to me

You have no idea what your talking about. Don't just check my posts here but check the others.

You don't need to 'worship' Jesus to have eternal life. To believe heaven only belongs to Christians is completely hideous.

God is the answer.

Originally posted by Illmatic67
You have no idea what your talking about. Don't just check my posts here but check the others.

You don't need to 'worship' Jesus to have eternal life. To believe heaven only belongs to Christians is completely hideous.

God is the answer.

God is indeed the answer. If I offended you in any way, you have my sincere apologizes.
Peace

regards
seekerof

jammerman, you must find it difficult to delve into reincarnation when Jesus said we are appointed to die and be judged. Not die and live over and over...??