Do You Still Believe a God Cares for You?

by JosephAlward 58 Replies latest jw friends

ISP

Do You Still Believe a God Cares for You?
God is not actively 'caring' for me. Anyone really believe God is actively doing anything?
ISP
Satanus

UnclePenn
You seem to want to keep the reincarnation subject completely out of the biblical discussion, yet this was believed by some jewish sects in that time and area, namely the samaritans, gnostics and essenes. As well, the middle east was a nexus for trade from the far east w the west. So, eastern thought would have been heard there. Reincarnation was nothing new to jesus' ears. You will recall that one of his first missionary journies was to samaria.
Incarnation: (1) : the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form (2) capitalized : the union of divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ. - mariam-webster dictionary.
'in the *spirit and power* of Elijah' Lk1:17 You say john came w a spirit LIKE that of elijah. The gerome biblical commentary says this comes from malachi4:5, and that there was a tradition that elijah really was supposed to be a latter messenger, since he was said to have been taken up bodily. If john came in, or with elijahs spirit as some translations say, then as elijahs spirit dwells in johns body, it matches the definition of an incarnation.
Even the scribes believed elijah was coming. Mt17:10-13 'I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him' You don't either.
John9:2,3 Jesus healing the man born blind, and the disciples asking him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They thought his blindness was a result of sin. They thought it could have been a result of his his own sin. If so, the sin would have nessesarily preceded his birth, at which time the results of the sin ie blindness was apparent, so sin would have been commited, in their opinion, either in the womb or before conception - you decide.
Jesus supposedly incarnated once at 2-6bc, died about 33ce, his spirit was out of his body for about 3 days, it then reposessed the body. Let's see, first incarnation @ 2-6bc, second incarnation 33ce. The second time one does something, it can be said to be redone, so the second incarnation was a REincarnation. Even the word resurrection has the idea of a 'standing up again'. You falsely acuse me of twisted thinking. You mistake twisted thinking for objective thinking.
'Heb 9:27 Just as man is destined to die once' Didn't lazarus and all the other resurectees die twice?
Reincarnation remained popular among middle eastern christians and jews. Some groups that continued its belief after jesus were the essenes, ebionites, followers of origen, and gnostics. Zohar, the jewish writing of 100ad, taught it. The nicene council was an attempt to unify the various christian sects. While it was largely successful in extinguishing these, it fail to qwash reincarnation belief. In fact, reincarnation gained so much popularity, that in the 5th general council, convened by emperor justinian in 553, it was specificly denounced as a heresy, later punishable by death. You have the catholic church to thank for the absence of reincarnation in the christian corpus.
You said 'Love is selfless.' Do you believe god has selfless love for humans?? Not.
'If I love my neighbor but I let Him be mugged while I stand there, then that is not love. If God ignores the killing of 6 million Jews then that is not love. In fact, it is the anithesis of love.' God stood there and did nothing while 6 million jews died, so by your words he didn't love them, he hated them (antithesis).
'SO, now God has adopted the thoughts of modern psychologists and psychiatrists?!? Now, it's not really Hitlers fault that he killed all those people, he was a victim because of some insecurity or fear?!?' Not a victim, just bad decisions and enterpretations, then overreaction. Some psychs are able to do what your god can't. It would appear that the psychs have a love that is closer to unconditional than your god does.
'I think you would see it differently if you were humiliated and stripped of everything you had, stuffed into a camp with thousands of people , sitting in your own urine and being starved to death and given a common burial.' Likely i would, but then i'm not god and i don't have unconditional love for anybody.
This discussion was about unconditional love. The dictionary defines unconditional as: 1 : not conditional or limited : ABSOLUTE, UNQUALIFIED. You have repeatedly insisted on injecting your concept of justuce as a limiting factor in to your gods love. Thus you have not been discussing unconditional love. While i don't have it, you havn't grasped the possibility of its existence. We have been discussing two different things.
SS
thewiz

De. 32:4-6a
Just like people isn't it? People do horrible things but God is the one to really blame?
---
My brother and I were discussing this topic a few weeks back.
Is there anything such as free will? -Conclusion. No.
It's based on a condition.
Obey me - you live.
Disobey - you die.
Is that necessarily a bad thing? Not really.
Unclepenn1

>This discussion was about unconditional love....[edit]...Thus you have not been discussing unconditional love.
The discussion was not about unconditional love. I never even mentioned the word. I also think it is a concept foreign to the Bible. God loves with an everlasting love and His love is unfailing, but never does the Bible say that God's love is unconditional. I thought we were talking about love and what true love is. You kept bringing up the uncondtional thing and I said that it is not love to turn aside evil and ignore injustice. (I'll tell you what, how about you answer this question and we will go from there.' If I murder you, is that loving you?. Go ahead and answer that and we can move on to God's love next. I just want to codify man's definition of love first. How can we try and tackle the concept of God's love if we cannot agree on man's love first? Sound good?)
John9:2,3 Jesus healing the man born blind, and the disciples asking him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They thought his blindness was a result of sin. They thought it could have been a result of his his own sin. If so, the sin would have nessesarily preceded his birth, at which time the results of the sin ie blindness was apparent, so sin would have been commited, in their opinion, either in the womb or before conception - you decide.
I'll tell you what SS, I will even grant you this one. Let's say that the disciples did believe in reincarnation, that is different however from the Bible teaching reincarnation. Jesus never gives an affirmative that their supposed reincarnation view was correct. Instead, he replies with 'neither'. Now if you are going to argue that his silence makes it a possibility, let me give you this analogy. Let's say I were to ask you, 'SS, do you hang out on this MB because you are a homosexual, or because you hate exJw's?' and your answer was 'neither, it is because I used to be a JW that I enjoy this MB'. Would your silence then make my assertion true? That you are a homosexual? No, it would only mean that I gave you a faulty dilemma and you are neither of the things I mentioned. In the same way was the question proposed to Jesus. And as far as the John the Baptist/Elijah thing goes, I think it's a total stretch and if you want the Bible to teach reincarnation, you will have to have a myriad more examples than just a few stray ones that are ambiguous at best.
>You have the catholic church to thank for the absence of reincarnation in the christian corpus.
Really!? What if you are looking at it the wrong way. What if the Bible never taught reincarnation and these false teachings were creeping into the church (which 26 of the 27 books of the NT warn about) and let's just say that in the 5th gen council it was established as heresy to keep the church from false teaching. Isn't that another way to look at it? Is it possible that the Bible doesn't teach reincarnatrion and that the church put it in the heresy category (and rightfully so) to keep others from being misled?
>Heb 9:27 Just as man is destined to die once' Didn't lazarus and all the other resurectees die twice?
Yes Lazarus was raised again, so was the widow's son in 1 Kings. Enoch never died and Elijah never died either. Hebrews said that it is appointed for man to die one and then judgement. First of all, this kind of strips away the reincarnation argument. Secondly, it is the rule, not the exception. Mankind will die and face judgement, it is a fact. God kept two men from death and another few He let live a little longer. That does not negate the fact that there will be a judgement. It just means that God chose to deal with a few exceptions in a different manner. Don't worry, they will have to give an account also.
Thanks for the conversation. Looking forward to a response.
Penn
Unclepenn1

>This discussion was about unconditional love....[edit]...Thus you have not been discussing unconditional love.
The discussion was not about unconditional love. I never even mentioned the word. I also think it is a concept foreign to the Bible. God loves with an everlasting love and His love is unfailing, but never does the Bible say that God's love is unconditional. I thought we were talking about love and what true love is. You kept bringing up the uncondtional thing and I said that it is not love to turn aside evil and ignore injustice. (I'll tell you what, how about you answer this question and we will go from there.' If I murder you, is that loving you?. Go ahead and answer that and we can move on to God's love next. I just want to codify man's definition of love first. How can we try and tackle the concept of God's love if we cannot agree on man's love first? Sound good?)
John9:2,3 Jesus healing the man born blind, and the disciples asking him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They thought his blindness was a result of sin. They thought it could have been a result of his his own sin. If so, the sin would have nessesarily preceded his birth, at which time the results of the sin ie blindness was apparent, so sin would have been commited, in their opinion, either in the womb or before conception - you decide.
I'll tell you what SS, I will even grant you this one. Let's say that the disciples did believe in reincarnation, that is different however from the Bible teaching reincarnation. Jesus never gives an affirmative that their supposed reincarnation view was correct. Instead, he replies with 'neither'. Now if you are going to argue that his silence makes it a possibility, let me give you this analogy. Let's say I were to ask you, 'SS, do you hang out on this MB because you are a homosexual, or because you hate exJw's?' and your answer was 'neither, it is because I used to be a JW that I enjoy this MB'. Would your silence then make my assertion true? That you are a homosexual? No, it would only mean that I gave you a faulty dilemma and you are neither of the things I mentioned. In the same way was the question proposed to Jesus. And as far as the John the Baptist/Elijah thing goes, I think it's a total stretch and if you want the Bible to teach reincarnation, you will have to have a myriad more examples than just a few stray ones that are ambiguous at best.
>You have the catholic church to thank for the absence of reincarnation in the christian corpus.
Really!? What if you are looking at it the wrong way. What if the Bible never taught reincarnation and these false teachings were creeping into the church (which 26 of the 27 books of the NT warn about) and let's just say that in the 5th gen council it was established as heresy to keep the church from false teaching. Isn't that another way to look at it? Is it possible that the Bible doesn't teach reincarnatrion and that the church put it in the heresy category (and rightfully so) to keep others from being misled?
>Heb 9:27 Just as man is destined to die once' Didn't lazarus and all the other resurectees die twice?
Yes Lazarus was raised again, so was the widow's son in 1 Kings. Enoch never died and Elijah never died either. Hebrews said that it is appointed for man to die one and then judgement. First of all, this kind of strips away the reincarnation argument. Secondly, it is the rule, not the exception. Mankind will die and face judgement, it is a fact. God kept two men from death and another few He let live a little longer. That does not negate the fact that there will be a judgement. It just means that God chose to deal with a few exceptions in a different manner. Don't worry, they will have to give an account also.
Thanks for the conversation. Looking forward to a response.
Penn
Satanus

UP
How was mexico? What do you like most about it?
>The discussion was not about unconditional love. I never even mentioned the word. I also think it is a concept foreign to the Bible. God loves with an everlasting love and His love is unfailing, but never does the Bible say that God's love is unconditional.
I may have brought up the subject. However, since we agree that gods love is not unconditional, ie it is conditional, i rest my case and drop the subject. Talking about human love doesn't interest me, especially starting w an illustration that includes you killing me.
>Let's say that the disciples did believe in reincarnation, that is different however from the Bible teaching reincarnation.
Agreed. I was trying to show that the idea was floating around in society at the time and mentioned in the bible, not nessesarily taught.
>>You have the catholic church to thank for the absence of reincarnation in the christian corpus.
>Really!? What if you are looking at it the wrong way. What if the Bible never taught reincarnation and these false teachings were creeping into the church (which 26 of the 27 books of the NT warn about)
The catholic church decided which books should be kept out of the bible for the first time at the council of hippo, africa in 393. It kept out books, including those that taught reincarnation. I showed you that before the nicene council there were different strains of christianity, some of which believed in reincarnation and some christian books that taught it.
SS
zanex

do I believe in a god that cares for me personally? good question..I dont have as good of an answer...at the point I lost/left my faith behind it was a choice between belief in a god that at that point was scarring and emotionally traumatizing me or belief in that god an suicide...I think I made the right choice..I am still here to talk about it and my worldly wife and daughter also think that I made the right choice too...then to be df'd by that same religion was a breath of fresh air...atheism til my baby girl was born then agnosticism but never never again will I go back to that hole of jwville...
Unclepenn1

SS, Mexico was awesome! Cancun is the most beautiful place on earth. Truly astounding. Crystal blue bathwater warm oceans. Loved it!
Perhaps we can discuss other things in the future. I like the way you come across in your posts. Respectable and sincere. A rarity it seems in these here parts :) If you ever want to rap, email me. ( [email protected])
Zanex. Our discussion was about the God who was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. It had nothing to do with the WT religion (just to clarify.) But let me ask you this. How do you think Jesus would react to the way JW's treat each other and how would He feel about their doctrines and, also, what do you think about the way He treated people? Love to hear your reply.
Penn
Unclepenn1

oops! email address is [email protected]
(fingers are a bit slow today)

Do You Still Believe a God Cares for You?

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