turnorburn
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Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
Strengthening families through biblical principles.
Focus on the Family addresses the use of biblical principles in parenting and marriage to strengthen the family.
Read daily articles from Focus on the Family in the Marriage and Parenting Resources forum.
I find Hell to be the whole reason why Christianity is so not-believable.
Burning for eternity - what, for the love of reason, is the point of that?
we should preach easy believism to fill more seats. I mean after all God needs to be more PC anyway we wouldn't want him to offend anyone.
we should preach easy believism to fill more seats. I mean after all God needs to be more PC anyway we wouldn't want him to offend anyone.
I realize this is sarcasm, and it exemplifies what believers often do not "get" about non-believers. It implies that the non-believer is arrogantly trying to make the god conform to our vision.
But this is not what the non-believer is saying, and the sarcasm about "PC" simply shows the lack of empathy and calls the unbeliever's reasons "stupid". This may feel good to you, to call me ridiculous and foolish and taunt with a sneer at being PC, but it does not address the actual point of the unbeliever.
If a thing just doesn't make any sense, then a person cannot "decide" to believe in it. Very many atheists are in this position. We hear the story and it doesn't "compute". It's not really that we are rejecting it as something we don't like, we can't even get that far because it just makes no sense. We are not able to summon any feeling about it whatsoever because it appears not-possible.
Typically, at this point, the believer pulls the "rebellion" card. But think about this without a sneer for a minute. If I said something to you that seemed utterly contradictory or impossible, could you summon a sense of belief in it at will?
For example, if it were a sunny day where the air was dry and the forecast was stable, and the place was not known for tornadoes, if I were to come running and say "a tornado is imminent!!!" and tell you to leave your business and valuables unlocked and run for a culvert, would you be ABLE to summon a sense of urgency about it? Or if were were mountain climbing and I claimed that this 15,000-foot mountain peak was known to be subject to tsunamis, would you be able to look at me and think, "that could be true!"? Or would you probably find yourself unable to believe me. Not unwilling, but flat out UNABLE. What if I said that I had just heard of an airplane that circumnavigated the globe powered by breastmilk. Wouldn't you just blink and try to wrap your head around it and be unable to picture it?
I'm not saying that I feel your god is like a claim of a tsunami on a mountaintop, I'm not trying to be disrespectful by my analogy, I am trying to show what it can feel like to be unable to have a belief in some claim or description.
This is not a matter of rebellion, it is a matter of not being able to picture this thing as happening.
My post was not to claim that Christianity "ought" to be more anything. My post was to describe my reaction to what Christianity is described as being. And to me, the description of a burning hell having been created by a loving god does not compute. I cannot picture it, cannot make myself imagine its existence. It leaves my mind not angry, but utterly blank.
After reading this, I can honestly say that having a non-believer like you here is a good thing. The intellectual challenge that you present is (I think) both helpful and interesting.