Do we really “trust in God”?

garyt1957 said:
Well if you believe the Bible, the earth is only 2000 years old. Or is it 6000?
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The 2000 is the time After Death as in 2000AD. The 6000 is the biblical time line for creation of heaven & earth. The bible is not a fact filled record. It's full of nice stories trying to explain the varying physical attributes & anti social differences in people that were present then & now.

Questioning the stories or if there is a God will generate a lot of posts. There is no right or wrong in the different posts just a good way to entertain oneself & keep the old gray matter active.
 

The best example I can give of faith is this:

You see a parent at the pool trying to talk little Timmy into hopping into the water with the words..."it's ok I'll catch you" and Timmy just automatically trusts because he knows Dad is there and he believes dad will catch him. Even though he doesn't know for sure. Dad could walk away and let Timmy blubber in the water for all Timmy knows.

Faith in God is basically the same thing. You have faith in a being you can't see to save you from this awful world. You have no proof per se but you have hope. Faith Hope & Love always go together. God wants us to trust him with that innocent childlike trust. The problem is that we don't get to keep our innocence as children. The real world forces us to take our eyes off of Christ and once we start looking around we lose that trust.

To me the bible is a guide on how to live as a Christian. It is our only way to get to know God. And yes...I can't see him and I don't know if he's real. But that's the problem...people always need tangible proof. God wants that blind faith. He wants us to need him and to seek him. If you are not open to that kind of thing then you have little chance of ever getting there.

You look around and you see all this Covid and your first thought is where is God in all of this. He's there. But if I start blaming him for this and refuse to believe that there is so much more that he has in store for us that has nothing to do with what's going on...I'm taking my eyes off the Lord and the big picture. For me the big picture has little to do with life here. It's the after that I'm concerned about. As long as everyone demands tangible proof and refuses to look in God's direction and give him a chance...then he's going to sit and wait for you to come to your senses. Yes I have no proof of this. It's just what I've been taught. And what I've learned over the years in my relationship with God.

You are offered every opportunity to get to know God but until you make the decision for yourself...no one can make you do it. Other Christians can lead you to the water but we can't make you drink it. You have to thirst for it.

And now I'm out of this thread because this is just too much for me.
 
Warrigal said:
Vida May, you are right to question Christian leadership when it leads to destruction. I wish I had more to offer than this. I see no reason why you should be banned.
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Huh? What? I am terribly sleepy and tired, but banned from what?
 
Thank you everyone, but what I said is very highly political and I am taking myself out of the forum before I get banned. I will return when I calm down and I will stay out of this thread.
 
Vida May said:
Oh dear, 😯 I don't like Richard Dawkins but I also dislike Christianity and its influence on education and other national decisions. Especially at the moment, I think we are in big trouble and this has a lot to do with religion. Right now we could use a picture of Jesus wearing a mask and saying "well maybe we should wash our hands and wear a mask".

One of the worst problems with Christianity is what it did to the pagan temples and knowledge that set medicine back a few thousand years and still plagues us today despite our public education system and advanced science.

😿 I am so hurt by the culture war we are in bringing us to violence in the US because those who put their faith in science and those who put their faith in their religion are pitted against each other. Our liberty depends on science and our knowledge of that has been replaced with a Christian mythology of the founding of our democratic social order.

There is a serious Christian divide between those who want to give Christianity all the credit for our success and those churches that preach distrust of our government and misunderstand our social order and this has become violent and we may see even more violence led by well-meaning Christians who have sown the seeds of war on the status quo.

Forgive me, perhaps I should receive a warning that I must get out of the thread. I don't want to be banned but everyone knows "In God we Trust" has strong political ramifications. This is the wrong time to discuss "Do we really "trust in God", because of the life and death importance of this question. "Do we really "trust in God" should not mean at this time, not wearing a mask, and that goes directly to the forbidden subject. How do we get people to see this is about public health issue instead of an individual freedom issue when the churches are very politically involved and someone very important, would have us believe God gives him the authority to lead while the churches preach distrust of government and support this man who is very disruptive to the status quo. That makes want we believe about God very important and how do we keep this a light and inconsequential discussion? I am sorry, 😥. I wish I never got involved in this thread if it means being banned, but it is too late now- there are serious consequences to what religious leaders do and what people believe. We are experiencing violence because the pandemic is killing people and leading to many problems. Not a good time to discuss religion.
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What? You have said nothing to be banned for as far as I know. I disagree with much of what you have said especially that we are experiencing violence because the pandemic is killing people. I have no ideal how you made that link. But since you will not read what I am writing I won’t write it.

In any event with the current level of sleep deprivation that I am experiencing due to an issue beyond my control, not the pandemic but my puppy, what you have said will go unanswered by me. 😂
 
Warrigal said:
I understand the 6000 years was a figure calculated by some English bishop. Perhaps someone asked him how old the earth was and he tried to oblige by counting the generations of the geneology of Jesus listed in the NT. Perhaps he didn't like the evolving science of the day which revealed fossil evidence that supported current theories of evolution (which existed before Charles Darwin, by the way). Whatever the reason, he was wrong, not only in the number, but also in looking for scientific answers in a theological text.
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  • Sun, 17 January 2021 = 4th of Sh'vat, 5781
https://www.hebcal.com/converter/
 
That is great, you take your son when you can. One thing caught my attention. Reading the Bible is not necessary. How are you going to know what it says, and be guided by it's words? A car needs gas, you need food and air, etc. Your soul or spirit has got to have the Word in it to be fed. Being depraved of the Word by choice is not good at all. Even if you just read one Proverb a day would help. Wisdom. Just one a day.
Aneeda72 said:
The Protestant faiths have always come about when a group of people disagree on a pastors or important persons view of the Bible and it’s teachings and meanings. People split off and form a new group, more to their liking, and a new Protestant religion is born.

In the “American” Catholic Church most people decided to use a form of birth control. The church, while not happy, did not kick these people out.

I know very little about the Jewish faith except this faith has also split into weaker less strict groups. I think they are three different groups from the very strict to the not so strict. But I am not going to google it.

I think it just shows people or perhaps just Americans chose their religion, and then chose the most convenient, to them, form of that religion. This says to me no ones religion is that strong. It is a belief in God that needs to be strong. Reading the Bible, not necessary.

My son with DS believes in God. The group home will not take him to church, but they do take the LDS members to church. When the LDS teachers come into the group home, I allow my son to listen because the word of God, is the word of God. My son prays to God. When he is sick he asks me to pray to God that he feels better. My son cannot read. He has an IQ of 53. His belief, in God, is strong and pure.
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hi
 
MarciKS said:
David Jeremiah is the reason I got saved.

To me Joel Osteen is like God's cheerleader.
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Joel Osteen is great! A lot of people really need a lot of cheerleading! You would be surprised how many people are down on themselves, feel like they are worthless, have been abused or left, on and on. Certain preachers get in touch with certain people.
 
There was a great Irish comedian called Dave Allen who frequently made jokes about the church...
In one, he spoke about a priest and an atheist discussing the existence of god.

Priest: You are like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there.
Atheist: You too are like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. The difference is
that you have found it!

And that is IMO, the truth of it. Believers need something to believe in so they invent a 'God' to believe in and who will see them OK if they bow town to it. Never mind all the capriciousness and evil that this god exhibits. You believe in this god and you'll be OK.

I find it infinitely more comfortable to believe that there is no god and when we die, we die. No heaven, no hell, no afterlife.

It reminds me of another joke....

A man had four sons. Three became priests and the other became a doctor.
One morning all three priests said that they had a dream that they were in heaven and it was just like home with them all sitting round the fire.
The doctor said he dreamt that he was in hell and it was just like home. He couldn't get near the fire for bl**dy priests!
 
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RadishRose said:
  • Sun, 17 January 2021 = 4th of Sh'vat, 5781
https://www.hebcal.com/converter/
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And in Jesus' day, along with the Hebrew calendar, the years would have also been numbered in terms of the current ruler - eg in the 5th Year of Tiberius Caesar or the 1st Year of Herod the Great. People like us, who live in modern times, often forget that ancient civilisations had different ways to us, not to mention different language structures to contemporary English.
 
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fancicoffee13 said:
That is great, you take your son when you can. One thing caught my attention. Reading the Bible is not necessary. How are you going to know what it says, and be guided by it's words? A car needs gas, you need food and air, etc. Your soul or spirit has got to have the Word in it to be fed. Being depraved of the Word by choice is not good at all. Even if you just read one Proverb a day would help. Wisdom. Just one a day.

hi
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My son can not read, lots of people can not read. It says something in the Bible about how you must enter as a small child, small children do not read. Lots of people do not read and yet they believe in God. Yes, the Bible is not necessary, IMO.

And just because you can not read the Bible, you are not cut off from God. After all the early Christians and those that lived and served Jesus Christ did not have a Bible to read. A Bible was not available for decades. Geez
 
RadishRose said:
AD stands for the Latin phrase anno domini, which means in the year of our Lord.
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Thank you for the clarification. The time span between creation & the birth of a son has never been defined. Science claims billions of years best guess for those with faith is ?

I wonder if the earth will sustain life as we know it until another birth comes along to prove that God is real.

I don't think this qualifies as a Jesus wannabe
 
Liberty said:
Very true Keesha. We think of ourselves more highly than we should. This can also mean we take things on more seriously and hold ourselves to a higher or more self incriminating perceived standard, even higher than God's, which can trap us into a psychological never forgiving cycle. Life is about letting go. Watch out for the cycles of energy. If we can forgive others, the mission isn't accomplished until we also forgive ourselves. That means believing and acting according to our spiritual ideal.
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Really good points Liberty. There is such thing as being grandiose in a negative self defeating manner. Control freaks who can’t let go give a message to the universe that they can do a much better job than God. No wonder they're stressed. 😂

I’ve been reading lately that the most important things in life to consider are; to love self and others, to forgive self and others and to let go of anything that causes stress. Note: Not meaning stop doing housework or yard work cause it causes stress but to change the way you think about it so it creates a sense of harmony in your life.

Sometimes simplifying things makes it easier especially for ‘over thinkers,’ or people who tend to complicate things.
 
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Pepper said:
Wonderfully expressed @Vida May.
Especially "Right now we could use a picture of Jesus wearing a mask and saying "well maybe we should wash our hands and wear a mask."

Why is there a reason to ban your post? There is not.
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I agree, very well expressed, no reason to ban IMHO because no one offended here I'd guess, and unfortunately still feeling the need to take way too much responsibility for any negatives anyone might find in any post I've seen! :)
 

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