Who is bad or who is good

[johnfowler1551]

Is Russia bad or is us. The bible says the countries that help Iran Syria turkey Ethiopia and maybe another is gog n Magog. Who is helping those countries? I'm lost on who to believe. Acts says don't join the empire. I depend on some of it. Who is the good and who is the evil?

 

[Dorothy Mae]

What is Augustinian theology?

Sin Nature theology was invented by Augustine.

And it's impossible to know the facts without having our own boots on the ground over there. That means I have no facts. That means you have no facts.

I worked for years closely with US troops and they are NOT trained to rape women. You can believe they are if that makes you happy, but it’s just not true.

Quit trying to make me into some sort of badguy. All I posted is what the word on the street is. Do you think that I have firsthand knowledge of the situation over there? That's a good one, lol.

You said US troops are trained to be brutal. They aren’t. Like I said, if it pleases you to think so, I won’t be able to convince you otherwise. If rumor on the street is your preferred authority, what can I do?

US troops aren’t the foreign troops in the Ukraine, only the Russians, btw.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

I apologize for being cheeky in my posts. I just personally know men and women who served their country with honor and integrity. It irritates me when they are called “brutal” and “rapists” as a group. They are governed by US military law and the military is not shy about bringing charges as necessary. I also worked with the JAG corp, a whole unit whose purpose is justice in military matters. The US military isn’t the mafia on steroids as you suggest.

I will admit that individual soldiers might rape an individual female same as happens in the US. And the army in particular isn’t the cream of the American crop. But they aren’t worse as a group than other groups of Americans.

 

[Edward]

Sin Nature theology was invented by Augustine.

So does man not have a sin nature?

I worked for years closely with US troops and they are NOT trained to rape women. You can believe they are if that makes you happy, but it’s just not true.

Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth, little girl?

You just don't like it that I said that it is "possible" that the Russians are doing a good thing over there.

Knowing that my own government are elitest underhanded corrupt people makes it easier to believe that the US isn't always the good guy when they go around the world inflicting Democracy on the peoples of the earth. So go on and believe your own government if you want to.

If rumor on the street is your preferred authority, what can I do?

Right. Thank you.

 

[Edward]

I apologize for being cheeky in my posts. I just personally know men and women who served their country with honor and integrity. It irritates me when they are called “brutal” and “rapists” as a group. They are governed by US military law and the military is not shy about bringing charges as necessary. I also worked with the JAG corp, a whole unit whose purpose is justice in military matters. The US military isn’t the mafia on steroids as you suggest.

I never said any of that so I'm done responding to you about this. Think what you want.

So you was a paper shuffler for them in JAG? And that makes you expert on combat training?

 

[Dorothy Mae]

So does man not have a sin nature?

According to Augustine? Yes According to God? No

Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth, little girl?

I didn’t.

You just don't like it that I said that it is "possible" that the Russians are doing a good thing over there.

Nope. I don’t like you insisting the US military is brutal.

Knowing that my own government are elitest underhanded corrupt people makes it easier to believe that the US isn't always the good guy when they go around the world inflicting Democracy on the peoples of the earth. So go on and believe your own government if you want to.

That’s not the military’s action. That’s CIA. And yes it has happened. Shameful

Right. Thank you.

You are welcome.

 

[PeterJens]

I agree about wealth ruling.
But banks are institutions.
The Italian population was taxed back in 2011, if i remember the year correctly,. because banks had to be kept operational. OTOH, if they were allowed to close, many would have lost life-savings.

This is not a responsible institution.


Yes. I think that's where we're headed.
And mostly, also, because so many don't realize what's happening.
(are we in the conspiracy forum? LOL).

My kids have grown up with the idea that democracy is not rule by the people, so is not freedom.
What they miss is the slow conversation that takes place through the life experience of populations.
So literally you need structure and balances along the way. Where we are in Europe with the fall of
the Soviet Union, and the openning up of eastern Europe is fantastic.

What China can teach us is applied good transport links, trade routes, labour mobility can transform whole societies for the good. The UK changed the world through steel and railways. How you achieve the freedom of expression and successful application of good ideas probably matters less than their success.

I hope that knowledge and technology applied by loving people wins through, and I have hope, because the Lord of creation has made mankind with this level of motivation. I am amazed how many sacrificial mothers there are everywhere and dads who will fight to resolve issues at whatever cost. Jesus provides support for this framework, so I have optimism it is possible.

We forget too easily it is families that are our social bedrock, so we need to empower them to function well.
God bless you

 

[GodsGrace]

My kids have grown up with the idea that democracy is not rule by the people, so is not freedom.
What they miss is the slow conversation that takes place through the life experience of populations.
So literally you need structure and balances along the way. Where we are in Europe with the fall of
the Soviet Union, and the openning up of eastern Europe is fantastic.

What China can teach us is applied good transport links, trade routes, labour mobility can transform whole societies for the good. The UK changed the world through steel and railways. How you achieve the freedom of expression and successful application of good ideas probably matters less than their success.

I hope that knowledge and technology applied by loving people wins through, and I have hope, because the Lord of creation has made mankind with this level of motivation. I am amazed how many sacrificial mothers there are everywhere and dads who will fight to resolve issues at whatever cost. Jesus provides support for this framework, so I have optimism it is possible.

We forget too easily it is families that are our social bedrock, so we need to empower them to function well.
God bless you

I agree with you.
But I see that persons are not getting married and it's becoming a rule of thumb.
They just live together so marriage is losing its importance.
I'm happy that you're so hopeful.
I don't live a negative life...but I'm not as hopeful as you are.
Maybe we have to go through some bad times until we get back to some normalcy?
I mean both financially and morally and also freedom-wise. I see our freedoms deteriorating.
(on a WW level).

 

[Dorothy Mae]

I agree with you.
But I see that persons are not getting married and it's becoming a rule of thumb.
They just live together so marriage is losing its importance.
I'm happy that you're so hopeful.
I don't live a negative life...but I'm not as hopeful as you are.
Maybe we have to go through some bad times until we get back to some normalcy?
I mean both financially and morally and also freedom-wise. I see our freedoms deteriorating.
(on a WW level).

A survey in Germany revealed that more and more young people want a family, married, the whole traditional life. That was before Covid though. The destruction of freedom and rights might have changed that. Germany was particularly draconian.

 

[Free]

According to Augustine? Yes According to God? No

That human nature is inherently sinful is a central tenet of Christianity. If we don't have sinful natures, then there is nothing to be saved from. It means that it is possible to live sinless lives and Christ's death becomes pointless and the Bible's explicit claims that we need to be saved are meaningless.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

That human nature is inherently sinful is a central tenet of Christianity. If we don't have sinful natures, then there is nothing to be saved from. It means that it is possible to live sinless lives and Christ's death becomes pointless and the Bible's explicit claims that we need to be saved are meaningless.

No, it’s not a central tenet. It was invented by Augustine who struggled with his own very sinful past. He found an excuse, a nature he couldn’t help.

The Bible says that God saw that “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (not before.) It’s also intention, not deeds. It’s not inborn, but it develops. Sorry but the foundation of christianity is forgiveness of sins actually committed.

 

[PeterJens]

That human nature is inherently sinful is a central tenet of Christianity. If we don't have sinful natures, then there is nothing to be saved from. It means that it is possible to live sinless lives and Christ's death becomes pointless and the Bible's explicit claims that we need to be saved are meaningless.

I like this proposition, because it raises the deeper question, is our problem sin, or is sin the result of our problem.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is not so much a law, as an observation. In human interactions we randomly respond appropriately and inappropriately for various reasons. PTSD often leads soldiers to be rediculous promiscious. Those with massive insecurity problems read too much into small statements, missing the whole intricacies of interaction and our emotional being.

I would suggest the idea of living a sinless life is meaningless, because you do not choose a sinless life, it is the fruit of our communion and fellowship and following Jesus. Those who follow Jesus are not better than those that do not, like comparing people of equal merit and putting one over the other. No those following Jesus are in the light, have life and eternity, while those who live in darkness are dying and falling apart, not knowing what is going on just life is drifting away from them.

The language of sin and its payment is a metaphor for the gulf between man and the Lord, and how Jesus through the eternal demonstration of love that cannot be denied, lit the fire for those who really want a way out of the place of darkness and lostness in the world. If you end up with merely a transactional relationship with debt and payment, you remove love and the essence of who we are and who the Lord is.

We tremble when we see ourselves built on security and safety, yet seeing it is all on a foundation of sand, which the storm can just wash away.

So I would say the central tenet of Jesus is the world is lost, in darkness, bound by sin and unable to sort things out.
He put on the light of love and life, and painted a straight road for us to walk.

God bless you

 

[Free]

No, it’s not a central tenet. It was invented by Augustine who struggled with his own very sinful past. He found an excuse, a nature he couldn’t help.

The Bible says that God saw that “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (not before.) It’s also intention, not deeds. It’s not inborn, but it develops. Sorry but the foundation of christianity is forgiveness of sins actually committed.

The Bible says a lot of things, and making a doctrine out of one verse is big error.

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psa 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Rom 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
Rom 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
Rom 7:23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Rom 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
...
Rom 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Rom 8:8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Rom 8:9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
...
Rom 8:12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
Rom 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

2Pe 2:18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

Why do people sin? Because their flesh, their nature, is sinful. The big problem with your position is that it leaves open the possibility that people can live sinless lives just like Christ. That would, of course, be utterly false and heretical. Why do you think all people sin, as the Bible says? Why do you think even very young children don't need to be taught to hit other children or take toys away, etc.? We cannot not sin because it is in our nature to do so.

That we have a sinful nature is the only biblical position. Anything else leads is based on misunderstanding Scripture and leads to serious error.

 

[Prycejosh1987]

A bad person does not have the Holy Spirit and a good person does. There is no one good but someone with The Holy Spirit is spiritual and acceptable to God. A bad person is worldly minded but a good person is supernaturally and eternally minded.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

The Bible says a lot of things, and making a doctrine out of one verse is big error.

It’s a bigger problem to cherry pick out verses that seem to support a preconceived theology.

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Notice a baby is not sinful if the mother sins during conception. The mother sinned (so it was thought.)

Psa 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

Newborns speak lies? Newborns go astray? Really? This ought to make headlines. Which language do they use?

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Wrong Theology is embraced by deceitful hearts rendering people blind to the actual text.

Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Notice they DID sin, not have a sin nature. That term is nowhere in the Bible. No writer would have believed it.

Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Except Enoch

Rom 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
Rom 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
Rom 7:23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Rom 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
...
Rom 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Rom 8:8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Rom 8:9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
...
Rom 8:12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
Rom 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Notice the last verse speaks again of DEEDS. What we do! No sin nature we can never help but are told to put to death the sins we do. DEEDS

2Pe 2:18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

There are such people for sure for whom sensual sinful pleasures are to be spread and enjoyed.

Why do people sin? Because their flesh, their nature, is sinful.

No, the Bible says we sin Because we want and do not have. We don’t have because we don’t ask. We ask and don’t receive because we ask with wrong motives.

Now you had to stop quoting the Bible as to why we sin because no Bible writer would have thought that we sin because it’s our nature. No one. So you couldn’t get a scripture. Paul spoke of himself in his struggle but no “inborn sin nature” was the excuse. Augustine invented that excuse.

The big problem with your position is that it leaves open the possibility that people can live sinless lives just like Christ. That would, of course, be utterly false and heretical.

You would hate it if there people like Jesus on earth? Would you object to people having been conformed to the image of Christ as predestined (Ephesians) walking around?

Why do you think all people sin, as the Bible says?

Because they want and don’t have….see James’ answer to that.

Why do you think even very young children don't need to be taught to hit other children or take toys away, etc.?

My children didn’t hit other children and most of the children I know didn’t. Children aren’t always aware of other people. Same as adults, by the way. I didn’t have to teach my children to be loving to grandma and grandpa. Not a word…but they were. I can bring up lots of good children do that they weren’t taught. What does that prove?

We cannot not sin because it is in our nature to do so.

Not according to the Bible. We sin because we want and don’t have, we don’t have because we don’t ask. We ask and don’t receive because of our motives.

That we have a sinful nature is the only biblical position. Anything else leads is based on misunderstanding Scripture and leads to serious error.

As I point out, not a single writer of the Bible gives that excuse. Not one.

But anyone can see it’s appeal. You are selfish and proud and etc because….wait for it….you can’t help it (sigh of relief.) It’s not your fault you do wrong to others.

Of course no one actually lives like that and courts that decided criminals are not at fault for their crimes inflicted suffering on society. No Calvinist says when his car or job or spouse or baby is stolen, “ah well, it’s their sin nature and they cannot help stealing my car, etc.”

 

[PeterJens]

I have a problem, and its this. Both sides are right and wrong.

We are emotional beings with an intellect that helps make sense of the world and how we react to it.
So if I say I love football, you know I have an approach to football that is positive, yet I choose not to
follow a football team.

The interplay between frameworks and emotion are as individual as people are individual.
The Lord made us in His image. Take a look at the Lords expressions and you will find emotional turmoil,
regret, aspiration, humbleness, grieving, great joy and justice with judgement. Nothing is clear cut, but
nuanced. Moses who was very close to the Lord, dishonoured Him once, and paid with not being able to
enter Palestine across the Jordan.

I fear my emotional balance is too all over the place to honour Jesus rightly, when I see Him.
But that is what He calls us to be, in His presence.

So the Lord predestined us to His glory, yet we see it as our response to Him as He shines a light on our souls.
He gave man free will, but some will never choose to listen or respond. Are they predestined by God to the
lake of fire, or is it their choice? Or is it both, at the same time? Which do I favour depends on how I feel about
the response or otherwise of unbelievers, which is me knowing hurt and desire for revenge.

Theology that suggests God takes delight in torturing sinners for eternity is wrong. The Lord declares openly
he will obliterate His enemies and they will be remembered no more.

You will be fuel for the fire, your blood will be shed in your land, you will be remembered no more; for I the LORD have spoken.
Ezekiel 21:32

Why do people think in all eternity billions of conscious people will forever be suffering as a memory of what they did for a short time on earth? The lost and the empty are exalted up to eternity for what?

It is this idea of eternal torture that fuels an overemphasis on predestination and salvation as being just being part of the group, not a personal transformation of the heart into a glorious Child of the Father who will walk into eternity with Him.

God bless you