Evidence for God from Science

Nothing knew there that I can see. Same stuff I've heard repeatedly on "Amazing Facts."
I really tire of the "remember" argument. Clearly a misuse of how the word is used in the text. As if this one commandment is more important because it says, "remember."
Maybe that is why we have so many murderers. The commandment should say, "Remember, thou shall not murder."

Also, a common accusation that we keep the nine and not the ten. Wrong. We simply follow scripture.

Mark 12: 28-34
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

32"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

34When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

Mark 22:40
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.


Galatians 5:14
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Romans 3:28
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

Romans 13:10
Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Bav,

You response to my comment of "are you still beating your wife" is highly illustrative of several points that I've attempted to make:

I used the comment as an illustration of a loaded question, which is exactly along the lines of what you have been doing in the presentation of false dilemmas to K and others refusing to examine the logical fallacy involved. The question, "are you still beating your wife" is the classic example of a loaded question. The question makes an assumption and if then the person is limited to a "yes or no" answer, no matter how they answer, yes or no, they then accept the original premise that they have indeed been beating their wife. You did exactly the same thing when you asked your question of K, and then sought to limit him to a yes or no answer.

If you need to learn more of this then please refer to this article or just google the phrase "are you still beating your wife" or "loaded question" and you should be able (hopefully) to understand how disrespectful and disingenuous such a continued approach is, especially after it has been explained in detail and shown as to what you're doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

Loaded question, also known as complex question, presupposition, "trick question", or plurium interrogationum (Latin, "of many questions"), is an informal fallacy or logical fallacy.[1] It is committed when someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved. This fallacy is often used rhetorically, so that the question limits direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda. An example of this is the question "Are you still beating your wife/husband?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he or she will admit to having a spouse, and having beaten them at some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed.

I made it clear in the original quote to you which was:

Let me offer you another one in the same vein for you to play with. Are you willfully ignorant of what you're doing with this tactic, or are you sincerely this incapable of understanding a simple concept and engaging in civil discourse? While you're at it, maybe you can let us know if you're still beating your wife (a classic example of the type of games you're playing here.)

You have chosen to repeat the quote outside of that context and use it without quoting the qualifier in what appears to me an attempt to garner sympathy for yourself and your cause, and also to point a finger at me personally and call me unloving. Ironically, this just further illustrates the consistent disrespect that I've observed over a very long time and the willingness to leap to judgement of others in order to shame or diminish what is being said instead of just addressing the issues raised.

I will read your article.

Before I comment on it however, I'd appreciate your reading over the material above again, dropping if you would the need to argue and be right and ask yourself if the tactics you're employing in addressing your beliefs, are really what you want to use to promote your cause. Your continual use of these type of tactics really just diminish your cause and make it very difficult to take your beliefs seriously. How you are saying things in this regard is speaking louder than what you are saying.

blessings,

bart

BavarianWheels wrote:

Kurieuo wrote:As you believe we are saved entirely by faith, then I can only assume you do not believe we must keep the Sabbath?
Are you avoiding my question Bav?

I assume by the wink that you're kidding, but just in case let me be more specific in answering your question.

No, I was being serious as it is a simple "yes" or "no" question, yet you gave a response one expects a polititian to make. The winking I guess was to hint at this being a loaded question as your own.

Given your beliefs, is it possible for you to just provide a "yes" or "no" answer? Yes, you believe we are saved entirely by faith and keeping the Sabbath is not necessary. Or, no, you believe we are not saved entirely by faith as keeping the Sabbath is necessary.

Bav wrote:If a person understands fully at this moment that the Sabbath is binding on a Christian as an outward manifestation of the inward change (living according to the Spirit) AND CONTINUES to willfully go against one of God's Commands (one of the 10), then I fear for his/her salvation if their heart is not changed in time. If a person, at this moment, is fully convicted that the Sabbath is not binding, having studied the Scriptures exhaustively, then I believe his/her salvation is firm with Christ at this moment...were he/she to die right now. If the Sabbath is important, it will come into play.

Thanks Bav. From this, it then seems you concede that the Sabbath need not be kept by someone in order to be saved. While you see it as important, one can be saved without keeping the Sabbath. I very much welcome this small shift. Please remember it whenever I say that keeping the Sabbath is not neccessary for salvation.

Bav wrote:Hence the question; If the Sabbath becomes a point of contention in the future, to the point of the example we have in the third chapter of Daniel, (where the question is on worship) what will you do? I can tell you by 100% assurance, that if this was to come about I would continue my belief and "custom" of the Sabbath and suffer whatever consequences there be for such a stance. Are you able to make a stance of like in your conviction? If so, what is it today? I cannot believe I need to word a question in so many different ways for someone to make their stance on a choice which, on the surface, seems clear, yet no one can utter those words here for the whole world to see.

It's very simple. Me speaking: "If a civil law comes down at some point in the future that makes one day the official "rest" day of this nation and thus does away with my religious freedom to worship on the Sabbath, I will continue to worship on Sabbath regardless of this law. I will become a "criminal" to keep in harmony with the nature of the Spirit no matter the consequences handed down by a man."

Let's try again.

If I am fully convicted that the Sabbath is not binding, then why would I care that the government sanctions some day contrary to a Saturday? On the other hand, if they imposed law which forbade free worship of God, Christianity, etc then I would be one of the first to make a stand. To burst the bubble that such realities are only true once they hit the US (or my own country of Australia for that matter), such sanctions and persecutions have happened and continue to happen throughout the world. This is not something going to happen at the end of time. It is already the end times as far as I'm concerned and many Christians have suffered since Christ died and rose again.

Canuckster1127 wrote:So. When you speak of salvation by grace apart from works you mean something other than full reliance by faith upon the finished work of Christ for salvation.

No. Salvation is not "the reward". If it were, it would mean we'd done something to earn or merit it, and it would no longer be grace. The only person who could speak of our salvation as a reward would be Christ and that on the basis of his incarnation, life, death and resurrection which he extends to us as a free gift. We're the object upon which grace is conferred, not the agent who obtains it based upon our performance.

You make some interesting points here. Let's see if I've got this right. You (and orthodox Christianity) are saying that salvation is not dependant on anything we can do to obtain it or deserve it? Then this seems to suggest that Paul was indeed referring to EVERYONE being eventually saved: 1 Cor 15:22. We did nothing to obtain Adam's curse of death over us, and so too we do nothing in receiving the second Adam's life giving gift. I'm now firmly 'in' my favourite topic of universal salvation and won't get into it too much here as I've discussed this on another thread. I had to make this point though, because of what you are claiming. Either this free gift of Christ's will be for 'the whole world' (many verses speak of Jesus as the Saviour of the world) ie EVERYONE or it is the ACT of accepting or asking for, the free gift, that saves you. Many tracts I've read and articles seem to suggest that your 'choice' to ask Jesus into your life etc, is what causes you to be able to receive the free gift. Can you see the conflicting points here? You're saying it isn't our action of 'asking God into our lives etc', but entirely down to God etc. I actually think you may be right, and this makes me happy because it 'strenghens' the case for universal salvation.

Jlay, you quoted some verses:

Galatians 5:14
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Romans 3:28
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

Romans 13:10
Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

love is the be all and end all and it is the biggest 'doing word. Love is action. Love is creating man, laying down your life to save them. So if we love God and our neighbour etc, then we'll be 'working' ie the fruits of the spirit. We'll be 'loving' each other, not because we begrudgingly 'have to' but as a natural result of caring for each other.

Catherine, if this is a topic that interests you, then you might be interested to read over the following thread: Saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

I do not see how universal forgiveness, entails universal salvation. Take the story of the prodigal son. The son was forgiven by his father long before he returned right? But when did the son receive that forgiveness and reconciliation? Once he returned right?

I can accept that forgiveness is universal, but that does not mean we play no part in receiving it. For the transaction of forgiveness to happen, it requires two parties. The ones forgiven can reject such forgiveness, we can ignore it, we can believe we did no wrong, or we can just write of the person who is apparently forgiving us.

So while I believe all are freely forgiven, I do not believe this means all are saved. For many flatly reject it, or do not accept the means for forgiveness, or do not see that they did any wrong. Therefore such a transaction can not take place.

Kurieuo wrote:Catherine, if this is a topic that interests you, then you might be interested to read over the following thread: Saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Sorry Catherine - wrong thread there.

I just read over it, and it isn't the one I thought it was. You might find it interesting nonetheless, however the real thread can be found at Must a person believe in the Trinity to be saved? (my exchanges with Jac)

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Kurieuo wrote:

Kurieuo wrote:Catherine, if this is a topic that interests you, then you might be interested to read over the following thread: Saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Sorry Catherine - wrong thread there.

I just read over it, and it isn't the one I thought it was. You might find it interesting nonetheless, however the real thread can be found at Must a person believe in the Trinity to be saved? (my exchanges with Jac)

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

I've had a quick read through a couple of pages of yours and Jac's comments and you both make some very interesting (and amazing) points. It's nearly my bedtime, so I'll read it properly tomorrow. I must say, I've never come across the 'idea' of universal forgiveness but not universal reconciliation. This is very thought provoking, and I instinctively feel you must be wrong here, but I'll come back to you tomorrow hopefully.