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alphadogtucker's Top (3) Replies by other users' votes

• (1 vote) The Reason.
  

  I can’t know what causes that emptiness in a particular case, especially with somebody I’ve never even met. I can propose one possibility based on the following equation: 19 years of age minus 16 years as a Christian.
  
  I was brought up a Methodist. I got my hair dabbed (”baptism”), I owned a Bible, I had lit the candles at the alter, I was an American, and I really was a pretty good kid. I even prayed once in a while. So I must’ve been a Christian, right?
  
  One day when I was 18, someone took me aside and explained that you don’t become a Christian by osmosis. None of those things make you a Christian. Not some prayer prayed by your parents, not some ceremony performed by some guy in expensive robes, not having a certain family tree, and not even following so-called Christian values.
  
  Being a Christian means placing faith in God and establishing a personal relationship with Him. This implies a number of things. First, it implies an understanding of whom God is, one that I think we already share.
  
  Second, it implies seeing a need for placing faith in God. That need results from the fact that the Ten Commandments and all the other hundreds of commandments have shown you that nobody, including you, can achieve righteousness before God. Without perfect cleanliness, we cannot ever appear before His holy presence.
  
  Third, it implies that the only way out of condemnation is through resting entirely on His provision. Any reliance on your family tree, your church membership, your own efforts, anything outside of His provision, has to be discarded. Your faith is in Him, Him alone, or it is invalid.
  
  Fourth, it implies an understanding of how He provides for our redemption: Christ, our Substitute, doing for us what we could not endure.
  
  Fifth, it implies a hope, a confidence that just as Christ rose from the dead, so will God give spiritual life to you.
  
  If someone were questioning the purpose of life and they claimed to have been a Christian since the age of three, I would wonder whether three were old enough to have “saving faith.” I would suspect that they had taken it for granted that they were a Christian since the age of three, but based their confidence on a false assumption. That describes me, quite well, when I was 18.
  
  The sixth and final implication of “placing faith in God and establishing a personal relationship with Him” is that this decision moves one to approach God in prayer in order to give consent to all of this. Giving intellectual assent to what the Bible teaches is fine, but that which the intellect has accepted must extend into the heart; and if one’s faith is from the heart, it will express itself. God isn’t interested in fancy, formal, formulaic prayer that amount to incantations; He wants that expression of the heart.
  
  I could be completely wrong about where I think the problem lies, but this issue needs to be addressed before any other cause can be addressed. I would therefore encourage such a person to become a Christian now.
  
  - written 2 years ago – voted for by Silverwings

• (1 vote) i know that in life you should have one religion and i was wondering…
  

  Seven deadly sins — seriously, that’s a clever outline!
  
  [quote Xeno Dragon]Assuming this, why have we chosen God as the protagonist? Why not Lucifer?[/quote]
  
  You insult yourself with that kind of question, but since you mistake rhetorical questions for legitimate arguments, I will answer in kind. Why would the Creator be the center, rather than the created? Why would One who is by nature god be the focus rather than a weakling usurper? Why would the Almighty be the protagonist rather than the one whom the Almighty has bound and limited? Why should the Way, the Truth, and the Life rule our hearts rather than the one who is the Accuser, the father of lies, and the pied-piper of death?
  
  [quote Xeno Dragon]What is wrong with the angel of light and knowledge?[/quote]
  
  What is wrong with the one who ceased to be the angel of light? What’s wrong with the demon of darkness who still pretends to be an angel of light? What’s wrong with one so dumb that he thinks he can occupy the throne of his Creator? You think Satan is an angel of knowledge, but you’ve allowed him to use a little bit of sugar to make you swallow a load of poison.
  
  [quote Xeno Dragon]We, (still assuming now), worship a deity that would flood the planet, kill millions, torture Job simply to see what happens, wipe entire cities from the map because he didn’t like the people there, and teaches people to hit babies with rocks.[/quote]
  
  The salient error above is that God did not torture Job; Satan, your precious “angel of light and knowledge,” did that. God accepted responsibility because He stood back to allow Job to prove his devotion to God; but your Satan tortured a righteous man of faith. In contrast, the world that God punished was occupied by a race at the height of rebellion and wickedness. Rebelling against God is like rebelling against gravity: Step off a ladder, and you have nobody to blame but yourself when the consequences hit. What difference does it make if somebody dies and goes to hell after 100 years of turning up hell’s thermostat, or if they die and ********** when they’re in their teens? As perverse as it may seem to say, if somebody knocks you off the ladder before you reach the top, he’s done you a favor. Our Creator has the right to make that decision.
  
  Even so, God provided a way of escape analogous to the one He provides today. If you don’t accept that way of escape, you have nobody to blame but youself when the consequences come. He provided that way of escape for you just as much as for anybody else alive, but He isn’t going to force it on you.
  
  [quote Xeno Dragon]What did Lucifer EVER do that cast him as the antagonist in this story?[/quote]
  
  In many countries, mutiny is still punishable by death. Satan went beyond that. Having failed to usurp God’s throne, he set about to turn God’s creation away from Him. Fomenting a revolution is still punishable by death in many places, too. He corrupts God’s creation through lies and temptations. He physically attacks people, too. What did Satan do? He’s done or conspired to do every crime in the book.
  
  [quote Xeno Dragon]Sure, he was proud, but look at God![/quote]
  
  There used to be a TV show called The Three Sons of Will Sonnett. Walter Brennan played title role, an unbeaten, “good-guy” gunslinger. People would laugh at his age and call him boastful, but he’d reply, “It ain’t boasting if you can do it.” Likewise, it isn’t self-centered if you really are the Center. What darkness it is to blame the Creator for expecting some respect and devotion from His creation!
  
  [quote Xeno Dragon]Greed? God wins that one, look at what he’s taught to get followers and their pocketbooks to show up to church every Sunday.[/quote]
  
  Many real Christians haven’t reached the point of maturity in their faith where they recognize the greed and manipulation. They have two problems: First, we all start out with a full set of faults; and a lifetime of growth in authentic Christian faith barely begins to get those faults under control. Second, we have your Satan and his minions constantly putting evil intents into people’s hearts. The Bible corrects Christians who get off track just as it does non-believers. You wouldn’t blame the U.S. Mint for counterfeiters; you shouldn’t blame God for the charlatains. What gives a counterfeit its appearance of value is the existence of the real thing. Even the values you refer to come from an attempt to imitate and substitute for the real thing. Not proof, but definitely evidence that the real thing is out there.
  
  - written 2 years, 3 months ago – voted for by Hope

• (1 vote) Which is grammatically correct: “one-third of
  

  Before getting to the subject, I’d like to object to hyphenating “one-third.” (I’ll leave it at that!)
  
  Let me add another dimension. How many people are there?
  
  Were there a large number of people — say, 99 — then one third would equal 33. One would correctly say, one third of the people are.
  
  Suppose there are only three people; then one third of the people equals one person. One would correctly say, one of the people is. Saying one third of the people when the number equals three would be used with an ironic intent because people normally implies a large number.
  
  The most difficult case occurs when the situation requires accuracy with a number of people fewer than three. In such a case, one would correctly say, not one third of the people are, but one third of the person is… and may he rest in pieces.
  
  - written 2 years, 3 months ago – voted for by cady

Last 5 Replies – All 22 replies »

• Which is grammatically correct: “one-third of
  

  Oops, that was me.
  - written 1 year, 9 months ago

• i know that in life you should have one religion and i was wondering…
  

  Of course love with limits is conditional. My point: You can’t say that God loves everybody unconditionally. Does God love Adolph Hitler unconditionally? There’s a conditional love for His creatures, a love that provided a way to salvation, but a love that also has an expiration date. Our greatest concern should be to find the unconditional kind reserved for those who become His children.
  
  “Christian” is not defined by the common denominator of all who call themselves by that name. Christ defined what it means to be his follower. Paul, Peter, and John wrote extensively to define the details. If one wants to call his way “Christian,” he should prepare to back it up with the only reliable source — the Bible. Otherwise, he risks being just another one of the counterfeits that pack into so-called Christendom.
  
  The definition is clear: Our actions (e.g., “be nice”) cannot establish a relationship with God because none of us can achieve the kind of moral perfection necessary to approach a Holy God. Rather, He offers a gift that we must receive, from the heart. We who have received God’s gift are not Christians because of any deed we have done. We are Christians and strive to “be nice” because of what God has done.
  - written 2 years ago

• The Reason.
  

  I can’t know what causes that emptiness in a particular case, especially with somebody I’ve never even met. I can propose one possibility based on the following equation: 19 years of age minus 16 years as a Christian.
  
  I was brought up a Methodist. I got my hair dabbed (”baptism”), I owned a Bible, I had lit the candles at the alter, I was an American, and I really was a pretty good kid. I even prayed once in a while. So I must’ve been a Christian, right?
  
  One day when I was 18, someone took me aside and explained that you don’t become a Christian by osmosis. None of those things make you a Christian. Not some prayer prayed by your parents, not some ceremony performed by some guy in expensive robes, not having a certain family tree, and not even following so-called Christian values.
  
  Being a Christian means placing faith in God and establishing a personal relationship with Him. This implies a number of things. First, it implies an understanding of whom God is, one that I think we already share.
  
  Second, it implies seeing a need for placing faith in God. That need results from the fact that the Ten Commandments and all the other hundreds of commandments have shown you that nobody, including you, can achieve righteousness before God. Without perfect cleanliness, we cannot ever appear before His holy presence.
  
  Third, it implies that the only way out of condemnation is through resting entirely on His provision. Any reliance on your family tree, your church membership, your own efforts, anything outside of His provision, has to be discarded. Your faith is in Him, Him alone, or it is invalid.
  
  Fourth, it implies an understanding of how He provides for our redemption: Christ, our Substitute, doing for us what we could not endure.
  
  Fifth, it implies a hope, a confidence that just as Christ rose from the dead, so will God give spiritual life to you.
  
  If someone were questioning the purpose of life and they claimed to have been a Christian since the age of three, I would wonder whether three were old enough to have “saving faith.” I would suspect that they had taken it for granted that they were a Christian since the age of three, but based their confidence on a false assumption. That describes me, quite well, when I was 18.
  
  The sixth and final implication of “placing faith in God and establishing a personal relationship with Him” is that this decision moves one to approach God in prayer in order to give consent to all of this. Giving intellectual assent to what the Bible teaches is fine, but that which the intellect has accepted must extend into the heart; and if one’s faith is from the heart, it will express itself. God isn’t interested in fancy, formal, formulaic prayer that amount to incantations; He wants that expression of the heart.
  
  I could be completely wrong about where I think the problem lies, but this issue needs to be addressed before any other cause can be addressed. I would therefore encourage such a person to become a Christian now.
  - written 2 years ago

• i know that in life you should have one religion and i was wondering…
  

  Thinking that God’s unconditional love means everybody would get to enter heaven has flawed, hidden assumptions. Unconditional does not mean unlimited. Love is not God’s only attribute; it is limited by conditions such as His holiness, which makes defiling heaven impermissible for uncleansed souls.
  
  Neither does unconditional mean universal. One person may be the object of God’s philanthropic love while another person receives God’s paternal love. It’s deeply flawed reasoning to blindly spread the term ‘unconditional’ upon the entire population.
  
  Sathanas6’s illustration draws an analogy between a {father and his children} and {God and human beings}. It assumes that all people are God’s children. Christ taught, however, that we (as a group) are God’s creations who become God’s children only when we receive a spiritual birth. The illustration, therefore, should have dealt with how the father would treat someone outside of his family. The father can offer to rescue people from certain death and to adopt them; but he has no obligation to exercise paternal love toward those who refuse the offer.
  
  God’s philanthropic love compelled Him to provide a way of redemption. Christ’s substitutionary suffering as payment for our sins is available to all. Those who fail to respond to God’s sacrificial love, however, will never know the kind of love he has for His children. It is tragic, but it is also your choice.
  - written 2 years ago

• i know that in life you should have one religion and i was wondering…
  

  No apology (to me) necessary. It’s all good because it all expands upon an answer to the original question.
  - written 2 years, 3 months ago

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