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Originally posted by kaiode1
Originally posted by SuperiorEd
Originally posted by FarBeyondDriven69
Thats awesome, I really wish I knew Gods true word and not out of a book twisted by man but whats he really wants of us. Sadly I guess we will never really know for sure until we are face to face with him.
How true. The Bible is not approached correctly. It is not the Word of God, yet, paradoxically, it is the word of God in an imperfect reality. Are you shocked I say that?
In reality, Christ is the true Word of God as stated in John 1. The Bible is only a reflection of both man and God together, as in a dimly lit mirror.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13
12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
This point is missed on nearly the entire world and represents the truth an atheist needs to hear. A non-believer sees only his reflection in the mirror and misses God altogether. Why? He is blinded by his selfish spirit and ignores God in the reflection. He's too busy looking at his love for himself to see the one who made him standing right there alongside. The irony here is that God is LOVE. Faith, hope and love are what God offers from the other side of the reflection.
We (mankind) produce a horrible image in the mirror, but God suffers us within his image anyway. We are made within His image as imperfect reflections of Him, so it stands to reason our rendering in the biblical reflection will be a historical depiction of our own imperfect image next to God's perfect image. If we were perfect, we would be Him and the Bible would be the perfect word reflected by our own perfection. We cannot be His perfection apart from entering the reflection back to God alongside Christ.
Suppose God made us in a perfect image of Himself. He cannot make Himself in perfection or it would be a perfect copy of Himself. He can only be one, not two. We can only be an imperfect reflection of Him as an image which is less than Him. How imperfect did he choose us to be? All the way from chaos. This is the process of drawing us closer in a temporal reality where consciousness defies entropy. The universe decays as we climb closer to God in defiance of the material world's love of darkness. The unbeliever makes the choice to follow entropy back to the darkness. The believer seeks the light against the flow of a raging stream. Its a struggle to keep faith, hope and love alive. Revelation proclaims to the believer, "OVERCOME!"
This is a sad aspect of religion. God can be seen in pieces anywhere man is present in the world, but religion holds truth as something of a pride issue with its supposed perfect theology and dogma. God is the only truth, period. We are filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Look at Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, Krishna, American Indians and so on. If you look, God is there and each of them are filthy rags like all of us. Works are not enough. Christ paid the price to bring us fully back to God by Grace, God's unmerited favor.
I love Hermetic philosophy from Egypt. The Corpus Hermeticum reveals some hidden aspects of God. The Dhammapad is ripe with insight. The Discourses of Rumi are astounding. God is everywhere you look, yet so is imperfection and untruth. This is the Divine paradox. The Bible and all the other reflections of truth that have touched the hand of man will be imperfect and dimly lit. This is why Christ said the true path is in the middle (narrow). God is not the exoteric church and he is not the esoteric new age magic. God is in the middle--the narrow path between all you think you are seeing in the illusion. In my humble opinion, God will not be found in perfection here on Earth except within the life of His true Word--Jesus Christ.
Here is a quote from the Corpus Hermeticum:
8. Then said Poemander unto me, Dost thou understand this vision, and what it meaneth? I shall know, said I. Then said he, I am that Light, the Mind, thy God, who am before that moist nature that appeared out of darkness; and that bright and lightful Word from the mind is the Son of God.
Did Hermes know of the Son of God and that He was the WORD? A dogmatic Christian will say no. I say, stop looking at yourself in the mirror. A mirror cannot reflect itself, only what it sees. We are only the witness, not the judge.
very, very well put my friend. There are so many atheists that realize that a lot of the religion and things that we have been led to believe are mixed so much with lies that it's impossible to know what's real. but these atheists allow their new "no god" beliefs to close their minds in ways that are even MORE dangerous than being led astray by blind faith. i think that it's good not to just give in to blind faith, but you also have to keep your mind open to the realm of the spiritual, and i believe that's where so many people mess up.
Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by SuperiorEd
I'm going to start swearing in my native tongue if this ignorance keeps going on. I've addressed the whole 'Biblical pyramids' thing...in fact, it was one of the very very very first discussions I had when I joined ATS.
The pyramids of Egypt predate the Hebrew language, Hebrew society, or anything resembling monotheism. Furthermore, there is absolutely no archeological evidence to support the idea that the Hebrews ever resided in Egypt, let alone that the account of that time given in the Bible is anything resembling accurate.
Sheer ignorance.
Originally posted by SuperiorEd
This point is missed on nearly the entire world and represents the truth an atheist needs to hear.
A non-believer sees only his reflection in the mirror and misses God altogether. Why? He is blinded by his selfish spirit and ignores God in the reflection. He's too busy looking at his love for himself to see the one who made him standing right there alongside. The irony here is that God is LOVE. Faith, hope and love are what God offers from the other side of the reflection.
Originally posted by Annee
Originally posted by SuperiorEd
This point is missed on nearly the entire world and represents the truth an atheist needs to hear.
A non-believer sees only his reflection in the mirror and misses God altogether. Why? He is blinded by his selfish spirit and ignores God in the reflection. He's too busy looking at his love for himself to see the one who made him standing right there alongside. The irony here is that God is LOVE. Faith, hope and love are what God offers from the other side of the reflection.
No it doesn't.
Oh Look! Another anti-Atheist thread.
Originally posted by SuperiorEd
Sure. Well said. The book of Adam and Eve, for instance, tells us why God allowed the fall of man.
Ch. 13:13
....text removed to slim down quote...