Seems like this subforum went downhill since I last was here...

I've heard that every year I've been on PaRD.

I've skipped about 3 years though. Maybe the slide is more noticable over longer stretches of time...

Organized Religion & Church taught me to leave both dogmas and find God for myself.
And after all of that, God has become the most powerful force in my life.
Church actually puts a taunt taste in my mouth when I must go for Family events.
I find it funny how El Shadday states those metaphors while every other Christian believes the bible word for word as if the Holy Spirit had a pen.
Like how the Earth is really 10,000 years old
It baffles me why an omnipotent creator would create an entire galaxy for his chosen children to inhabit only 0.0000000000000000000000000000015% of its area, for only 0.00004% of its history.

This post was edited by S3th on Jul 29 2014 09:16am

supported 101%
rational understanding is that we should all have.

Hey GUYS! I am back from my trip to Alaska! sorry I haven't responded...internet was .70$ a minute so yea....

Yes I do not plan on having sex until marriage because we believe sex is meant to be between a man and a woman in a marriage relationship for life.
No I don't believe sex is just to make babies; it is suppose to be an enjoyable experience of connection and intimacy between a man and his wife.

I would say just be honest with the God you believe 80% of the time. I honestly believe if someone reaches out to God hoping with a 50/50 shot that God exists, God will come true. Then that person will believe 60/40...or more. I can honestly say I don't fully believe every time I pray that I am hearing God and such, but through my experiences I am honest with the God I assume is there and keep pressing into more of him. God doesn't ask for you to have it all together when you come...God expects jaded hearts from a jaded world. He then heals them and teaches people just how real he is. So just be genuine with him.
"Blessing comes through rain drops" is a very good song. I truly believe God loves hearing a drunken man yell at God for not showing up in his family life and begging God to show up over a self righteous man who believes he has got it all together.

No I am saying that God does not condemn eternally those he finds righteous. In our time period, no one is found righteous unless they have accepted the free gift of Jesus's sacrifice. Anyone who has done this AKA "Christians" will not be eternally condemned.
Those who aren't righteous will be eternally condemned. Temporary punishments and discipline do not need to match these eternal outcomes.

God can judge something he created. He isn't judging himself because he gave men and women free will. He judges the choices of people not their greatness.

I believe God sees all time as 1 instant, but it is hard to think about because God created time and is therefore "outside"/ not defined by time. It's like if I drew a picture of a stick man and tried to explain how far around his waist is or how deep into the pitcure he needs to go. We can't understand God's outside dimensions no more then a 2d object could understand a 3d object.

Ya I thought of this question a lot before making the thread in the first place. I know many people of this forum won't step foot in a church and will probably not be encountered by many Christians who actually act like what they say. I wanted to provide a way to attempt to answer some tough questions that some people may have. I also am using this thread as a way to work out exactly what I believe and why. By being forced to examine things from non christian perspectives it allows me to challenge and test my faith and see what areas I need to examine more. But I agree with you, many people do things like this to find out how much holier they are then others...Honestly I have shared my testimony on here before and I am definitely not the "holier-then-though" type. I have been free from addiction and my past and that is why I am on here. And I love video games =p.

Sad =( been trying really hard to keep this clean, flame free and informative. I have spent quite a few hours in responses on this thread already.