The Bible

God gave man free will.

 

1) nope - nor it is a requirement. There is also this concept called "forgiveness" that Jesus used to talk about. Then of course there is the rule I told you about "do unto others as you would have then do to you - treat others as you would be treated" .

If you forgive others - perhaps you too will be forgiven - perhaps even your hard heart and head

How long have we been talking about the Sermon on the Mount - and you have yet to read it with your eyes open - not reading with the idea of fitting the words of Jesus into some man made perspective given you by Pastor Dan ... but reading with the idea of hearing what Jesus is trying to tell you.

If you truly believe that this sermon actually came from Jesus - then you also believe that when he gave this sermon there was no epistles of Paul - no Gospel of Luke and no Gospel of John. The people listening did not have any of these writings. Put yourself in the shoes and mindset of that person and listen from there - not through some filter of what you think you know.

Jesus answers your question in this sermon so why are you asking me ?

Does Jesus say you have to do all these things ? Nope. He then gets more specific in relation to your question.

Two points Jesus has made here 1) Severity of Sin - some sins are worse than others 2) works matter

Fortunately for you - Jesus sets the bar quite low. Jesus did not think much of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law - and I doubt he would think much of Pastor Dan.

2) I don't believe in the same God you do but, I do try follow the teachings of the Jesus in this Sermon.

 

And ? What a bunch of meaningless gibberish. You talk about some events that led up to "Sola Fide" - and some larger picture but give no further info on what the hell you are talking about.

You have no response to my post and so you write some meaningless gibberish. This is a denial/avoidance response - a "thought stopping mechanism"

When the indoctrinated cult adherent comes across information that conflicts with ingested dogma - the adherent will try to avoid thinking the "bad thought".

That's the beauty of sophisticated mind control techniques - if properly done the adherent will avoid the bad thought all on their own.

I can give you the more detailed explanation of how this was done if you like - but, there is no doubt that you trying to avoid thinking about information and ideas that conflict with ingested dogma.

 

Well that assertion raises a number of questions. 1. How do you know that is true? 2. Why did giving humans free will justify putting Adam and Eve in that rather bizarre situation in the Garden with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? 3.How can free will be possible if we were created by a being that knows everything, thus this being knew before the creation what each of us would and thus is personally responsible for every every single action that ever happens in the universe? 4. Does God have free will? 5. Can perfect beings have free will?

 

It is all throughout the Bible. Starting with the account of Adam and Eve.

What do you mean, why did free will "justify" it? Can you rephrase?

I would argue that just because God knows what we will do, this doesn't mean that He is responsible for it when we do it.

I would say that He does. I don't of a Christian who says that he doesn't.

Can you name a "perfect being?"

 

Exodus 31 chapter 18:

That's before Exodus 34, if I'm not mistaken...am I?

There are two possible methods to discuss religious texts: scientific and theological,

From a scientific point of view, the ten commandments are a very old, basic set of laws slightly modified to suit the needs of a monotheistic religion. Most of them obviously predate Judaism. Most of them will obviously survive any and all religions. The various descriptions of different sets of laws in the Torah reflect the evolution of Hebrews from a group of nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes, each with its own traditions and rules, to a more homogeneous society. What better way to enforce laws upon stubbornly traditionalist tribes than pretend those laws were both spoken and written by God himself? Thus came the ten commandments into existence.

From a theological point of view, the ten commandments are special because they were spoken either by God himself, or with the voice of God through Moses, and later written by God's finger. Those who understand the need to study Judaism before making categorical statements and claims about it, will no doubt tell you that the written Torah - believed to have been given to Jews by God together with the ten commandments - is not the only source to be taken into account. There's also the oral Torah - tradition transmitted by scholars. Then there are the Gemara, Rambam's Mishneh Torah, Rashi, Kabbalah, Tosafot, Joshua ben Perahiah (president of the ancient Jewish tribunal the Sanhedrin, famous for demanding to give everybody the benefit of the doubt), and the list goes on and on beyond any reasonable bandwidth.

Your point, however, is about Jews intentionally changing their own religious beliefs in order to deceive, a very old claim made by early Christians enraged by Jews' lack of enthusiasm for their doctrine. Early Christians were convinced, as are many today, that Jews changed the text of the Tanakh in order to root out what Christians believed to be prophecies about Jesus. This claim has been of course proven wrong, even the Catholic Church admitted that much, but the underlying belief in Jewish duplicity has survived, apparently. Now it's being remodeled by modern atheist mindset - in this particular (probably far left inspired) case as an attempt to hide Jewish ethnocentrism. Why would a nation - any nation - wish to hide its national identity and aspirations, is beyond the limited capacity of my cognitive abilities. Why would Jews, and only Jews, do that?

 

I've never quite understood what that was supposed to mean...did god mean to give man free will or was it just something that happened as a by-product of all the other tinkering that happened....taste, smell, sight and so on, was free will just something that came as a result? If he deliberately gave man free will then one assumes it was given so man would use it and figure out his own rights and wrongs and mistakes and stuff..... anyway....since man was given all these senses and used this "free will" and started to do things that rather pissed off the almighty to the point that he took the major hump and decided to kill everyone..... then you kinda wonder why he did it, what it was for and why he got so naffed off when they didn't do what he wanted them to do. This free will thing seems to be a bit of a bollocks up on his part based on the fact that the almighty wanted...what...absolute faith in him from those same folk that he gave freewill to! So, if the killing of the human race...noah and floods and something about sodom and gomoreah(?) and other stuff...was a resetting of the almighty's cult.... by killing everyone that didn't like him.... then why would he then give back the same freewill to people that pissed him off the first time!!

 

I meant to say, "but he IS talking about getting into heaven by works alone/without faith every single time he mentions a good work?" After some time has passed, I now know that you're not saying works alone/without faith.

I have NEVER ONCE claimed that works are not the will of the Father, just that works ALONE are not the will of the Father. Works ARE the Will of the Father and those who are saved DO WORKS! It is very simple!

Nice try in trying to paint me as someone who is not blessed. I answered "strong" to your last question of the sentence, which was,
"is your faith strong or is it weak." Do you consider this to be the same question as, "do you feel that you are strong in the spirit or weak in the spirit?"

 

ALL throughout the Bible? Have you read Romans 9:21 lately? How does the account of Adam and Eve show that God gave people free will? Why did God put Adam, Eve, and the future fate of humanity in such a bizarre situation?

Can God be corrupted? Will he always stay perfect? When I asked you why God's creation can be corrupted and be made imperfect your reply was that God gave humans free will. If God can both be perfect and have free will why didn't he create us the same way?

Presumably you would name God. Personally I don't think the concept of a perfect being makes sense.

 

Why do you suppose that it isn't a requirement?

What about it?

What is your understanding of Salvation? And again, do you believe that you do "the will of the Father" and are therefore saved? Or do you believe that you are saved by some other means?

Why do you think that Jesus did not think much of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law? And who is this Pastor Dan?

This is surprising. What God then?

Do you not admit that you have engaged in Argumentum ad populum?

 

This is an interesting question. I am not sure how one can interpret the Sermon on the mount any differently. I agree that there is a slight bit of grey but not much. Jesus does not speak a word about "Faith" in this Sermon except perhaps by inference in relation to reverence for the Father.

Again one needs to ask the question "Faith in what" ? The best we can get to is reference for God "The Father" but, this has nothing to do with Sola Fide. You still need to clarify what you mean when you said "Faith"

I have not claimed "works alone" but, nor have I claimed otherwise. My claim is simply that "Sola Fide" - "Faith Alone - in the idea that one must believe that the sacrifice of a God ( or Son of God) wipes away sin in order to be saved" is contradicted by the Jesus of Mark/Matt.

This is convoluted and false. What you claimed initially was that Jesus did not contradict Sola Fide. Glad you now realize that indeed Jesus does contradict this doctrine but - this was not originally the case.

If you agree that Jesus states that "works" are "The will of the Father" - then you agree that works are part of the salvation formulation. You have given no evidence that "works alone" are not sufficient with respect to the Sermon in question. Nowhere is faith cited - at least not directly- as the will of the Father and certainly not "Sola Fide". As stated above the only Faith one can claim (and this would be a rather grey inference) is reverence for God in general (God the Father).

You then make the claim "Those who are saved do works" = Those who do works are saved ? This contradicts what you have been claiming - that works alone are not sufficient.

If you read back - I question was - Do you consider that you are strong in the Spirit. If you are reading literally - yes - it was a bit of a trap. The point however, was not for me to declare that you are condemned - meaning I do not actually believe this. The point was to get you to think.

What do you think Jesus means by "poor in spirit" ? I have an idea but at the end of the day I am not sure about the meaning either.

 

This is what makes talking to you so painful. The "why" is explained in the post you are responding to. You then proceed to talk over that explanation as if it did not exist ?

Again this is answered in the post you are responding to. "Pastor Dan" is just a name I made up that refers to the person from whom you have learned your doctrine/dogma. Obviously I do not know this person's name. It is also a figure of speech referring to modern day teachers of the Law/ Church Doctrine.

Why is this surprising ? We have already had this discussion in detail.

1) There are at least 2 and possibly 3 different Gods of the Bible.

The God of Abraham was "El" (Enlil) Head of the Divine Council - The Creator God, The "Father", The "Most High" and so on.

YHWH was the God of the Israelite's (Urgarit literature and Deut 32:8 refer to YHWH as on of El's 70 sons) http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf

The God of Jesus is clearly not YHWH - the flip flopping, xenophobic genocidal maniac child killing God with the most petty and nasty of human characteristics. Perhaps it is El - (The God of Abraham) or more likely some allusion to a fusion of of the characteristics of El into some almighty God.

2) You believe in the God of the Israelite's YHWH - the nasty God. I do not believe in this depiction of God. I do not believe that this is God .. so what I am saying is that your depiction of God is different than mine.

I do not - and I have already explained why this is the case. You do not understand logical fallacy well enough to know the difference.

 

Why are you so resistant to reading the fairy tale for yourself and taking notes about what you read? If you simply take the time to do that you will understand the fairy tale about the Ten Commandments. It is the easiest story in the Bible to understand because it is the foundation for all of the other biblical stories. The laws in Exodus chapter 20 and in Deuteronomy chapter 5 have nothing to do with the biblical stories.

 

In the UK we have the '10 Commandments' (Exodus 20) laid down by Parliament. We then have the development of those '10 commandments' by the courts who can 'interpret' them into daily life (Exodus 34).The 10 Commandments (Exodus 20) are the basis on which Jewish life SHOULD have been lived. The 'Parliamentary Commandments' are by what we live, interpreted by the courts and lawyers.

Exodus 24:4 Hebrew And Moses wrote, all the words of the LORD, and dwelt in the morning, and built the altar under the ground; And they were ten commandments, the twelve captives of Israel. . After descending the first time from Sinai and seeing the idolatry Moses smashed the tablets on which the 10 commandments were written. In Chapter 34 they are rewritten as they were before.

As it's only a story I'm out of the discussion. Moses didn't exist - except in the story written in the Babylonian Exile.

 

Having free will doesn't mean that God cannot use people for His good when he chooses to.

Did God tell them to break his rule?

God cannot be corrupted. He will always stay perfect.

Because then we would be equal to God and God can have no equal.

And you are correct! God is the only perfect being.

 

God meant to give man free will.

That is correct.

Because that's the way that He decided to do it, to continue with His original plan. I admit that its difficult to get ones head around. If it was possible to know God's ways, I could give you a MUCH better answer!

 

I don't understand why the name "Ten Commandments" should be assigned to the foundation (if you say so) of all biblical stories. "Covenant with God" seems pretty important to me, a damn good reason to build all kind of stories around it.

Speaking about foundation, it is believed that seven of the Ten Commandments (the seven Laws of Noah) were communicated to Adam and Noah by God himself. Long before the Covenant.

There are 613 commandments in the Torah, all mandatory. The Ten Commandments, which are not called "commandments" in the original Hebrew text ("utterances" would be a more suitable term), are just a part of the whole. Their special status, as I said, is given by the belief that those utterances were given to the Hebrews by God himself with his own voice, and written with his own finger. The rest of the Torah was dictated to Moses. That doesn't mean that one can keep only the Ten Commandments and ignore the rest.

While the covenant and most of the commandments in the Torah are for Jews alone, the Ten Commandments form the basis for the seven Noahide laws. Anyone who keeps these laws - regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, color, culture - is considered a righteous person and granted eternal life. This is another reason for the special status of the Ten Commandments.

Now tell me that the Ten Utterances are not really the Ten Utterances...seriously?

 

Sorry, what is the question?

...any differently than works alone?

"Perhaps?" If its not what you suspect, then what ELSE could it be? It has to be something doesn't it? He DOES say "faith" after all.

So then why does Jesus forgive sins just based on what he says is "faith?" And what do you make of John 3:16?

I don't have my own definition of "faith." What I mean by faith is what the BIBLE means by faith.

I STILL claim this.

No. I just agree that the works described by Jesus are what saved people strive to do. And in doing so, the will of the Father is fulfilled.

And you have given no evidence that "works alone" ARE sufficient with respect to the Sermon in question. Do you think that you have?

Incorrect. Those who are saved do works DOES NOT equal those who do works are saved. How very unintelligible that is. That's not like you.

Not sure either. I'm sure you know that there is more than one opinion on it.

 

Why? Wasn't Jesus supposed to have said 'I and my Father are one?'

 

To confirm, you think that doing "the will of the Father" is a requirement, but doing it all of the time is NOT a requirement? And I'm just not sure how you are linking it to forgiveness.

Did you say whether or not you are saved? I don't think that you did.

 

Because He is God. He created us.

 

Sorry I edited my post.

Why? Wasn't Jesus supposed to have said 'I and my Father are one?'

Last edited: 1 minute ago

 

seems a wee bit odd as he seemed to be a rather vindictive curmudgeon of a chap...to do it once...okay gods can make ****-ups that's fine....but to keep on doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is rather beyond the pail of reason...even for an almighty it smacks as a bit absurd! One sort of assumes that being endowed (by god no less) with this rather broad concept of "free will" that the endower would by the very nature of the act allow the endowee to act as he chooses and not be constrained by pre-defined parameters. Allowing the concept and then becoming vindictive as a consequence of its employment seems rather....evil or at least an act of extreme jealousy? On the other hand if one is endowed with a version of free will lite - a kind of enclosed free will that allows the endowee to operate within a defined set of parameters; allowing expression of natural or innate humanity and ability while maintaining a reverence to god, then problem solved. Likewise why was it a requirement to hand down a set of operating instructions like the commandments when all that had to be done was hard wire those instructions into us and negate the ability to override his requirements - much like programming a computer where the programmer inputs the commands that the computer has to follow. Had god not wanted us to commit murder or adultary or those other undesired outcomes and wanted everyone to act in a state of "grace" (for want of a better word) then why would he not have created us with them in the first place. If on the other hand he knew that they could not be upheld then what was the point of giving these instructions in the first place? All seems rather odd to me....

 

Jesus says that doing the will of the Father is a requirement. What I think about the claim of Jesus is irrelevant to a conversation about what Jesus claimed. The bottom like is that this is what Jesus claims - and he claims it directly.

Jesus does not claim that people have to do God's will all the time - in every waking moment but in general one should try to apply the rules that Jesus teaches in all that they do. The bar is "more righteous than the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law". Sometimes people fail - like the thief. This does not necessarily bar one from heaven as one can be forgiven. The Thief recognized that he had sinned that he was not perfect and had made a mistake. He also observed the Golden Rule which is very important - a rule that is stressed by Jesus as hugely important.

Again - what do YOU think - Jesus means by "poor in spirit" I think it relates to the thief analogy - someone who - though he may have failed - recognizes his own failure - something to do with humility is implied here I think. This is likely a contrast between those who go around boasting about their faith - particularly the Pharisees and teachers of the law that Jesus did not like - and the average person who does not have much faith but tries to be a good person in general.

Doing good works is essentially "being a good person" - you seem to be confused on what "works" is.

I think this is a ridiculous question. Answering this question requires knowing what God thinks and I do not claim to know what God thinks.