Bold 1- Step 1: Destroy a person's self-worth and make them feel like scum AND THEN build them up again even stronger than before!
Bold 2- Step 2: Convince that person that you still love them in spite of the fact that they're so worthless AND THEN they will be made worthwhile through God!
Step 3 already rebutted.

Well if you add on to what I said suddenly it doesn't sound like any cults that you know as there will be something positive coming out of it.

God gives us the gift of faith. We were all given the same amount and some of us chose to invest more into this gift and we received more than double the gift than what we started out with. God gives each and every one of us gifts each according to our ability. If we act upon those gifts or talents then we receive even more! However if we do nothing with it then even the little we do have will be taken from us. Yeah that parable story.

Next 2 lines already been questioned.

Final paragraph: Okay let me rephrase. Somebody is convinced there is nothing after death and they are confronted by death as they are diagnosed with cancer and are given lets just say 3 weeks to live. How will they react in those 3 weeks? Will they react by trying to live life to the fullest in those 3 weeks or will they cry and whimper that their life is coming to and end?

Sinners receive punishment and God is doling it out. That much should be obvious. An omnibenevolent, omnipotent god would be willing and able to forgive all "sins" and thus be able to "save" every person that He loves without forcing them to jump through hoops.


No True Scotsman fallacy. You don't know me. You know nothing about how I worshiped, prayed, and served during that time. Kindly sit down in the corner and be quiet unless you somehow are one of people who actually knew me from that period of my life.


No, God has not given me faith. If I had faith, I would be able to believe in something without evidence. I simply cannot, so there is no faith. And ignoring the hilariously sexual nature of the bolded statement, Matthew 7:7-8 says "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." So if you ask for faith, God should just unload his Faith all over your mouth, so much so that it'd spill out and probably run down your chin, forcing you to pray that you had a towel on hand to clean up afterward. Oh wait, I said I was going to ignore the sexual nature of that bolded part. My bad.

Yes, every single cult promises something good about it. The alien cults promise that the aliens who seeded life on Earth will take them away on their space ship to a land of perfect happiness, for example.


Then I suppose I acted upon my gifts and talents in the wrong way. I must have lost all of my faith in a stock market bubble. I never was very good at investing. But in that case, if God takes away your faith then He is condemning you personally. Are you saying an all-loving God would personally condemn someone to hell and give them no chance for salvation? Seems to me that would be outside the bounds of what one would call an ALL-LOVING god.


That varies from person to person. And that's true for people who believe as well. Even believers don't WANT to die. Everyone mourns at some point, and even surviving believers will mourn a loved one's passing. That's because for all their religious fervor, they know deep down that they're not 100% sure of the afterlife they believe in and know there's a chance that their loved one really could be gone for good. But yeah, not many would ever be willing to admit that.

As for the stuff you say you addressed, I would say that you talked about them but did not actually address them satisfactorily. We'll just have to disagree on those points and move on to something else. No sense beating a dead horse.

It doesnt matter if i knew you or not, im saying if you were truly saved, there isnt an Earthly instance that can turn you away. There isnt. It doesnt matter if i knew you or not.
It doesnt matter if you saw aliens and they told you it was all fake and they made it up, if you were truly saved, nothing would matter and your faith wouldnt ever be completely lost.
I hate to start arguments, but you are seriously mistaken in the fact that you werent saved ever.
Sinners dont recieve punishment jesus is the only that will ever receive punishment of an earthly kind.
In saying that, the only punishment that the bible says they can recieve is being cast into the fire for bearing bad fruit.
And even then, you dont know who is being punished and if they truly are. You dont know who asks for forgiveness when. So you cant say anyone is being punished ever. lol..

Ill only go sit down if you can shut me out.

This post was edited by Tummy on Jul 26 2011 01:40pm

yes

You see, benther, it's all very simple and logical. God gives you faith, you just don't "drink" of it. You have it, but you don't use it, so you don't have any. If you did you use it, only then you would have faith, which you aready have, since it was given. He also tests the faith that he, himself, gives us. Although he gives everyone equal amounts of faith, some lose their faith because they weren't strong of faith to begin with.
Any questions? Hope that cleared up some confusion.

@Italicized: Was that a typo? I never said I wasn't ever saved. I would have said myself that I was saved during that five years after I prayed to God and thanked Jesus for dying on the cross for my own sins. And it sounds like you're assuming I don't know the verses that pertain to "Once Saved, Always Saved. Like I said, you really know nothing about me.

@Bolded: Re-read what you just wrote there. Sinners don't receive any earthly kind of punishment? Really? REALLY? So then what was that whole Genesis flood fiasco, where God murdered just about every single creature on Earth? That sure sounds like a punishment of an earthly kind to me. Or how about the time where a few kids made fun of Elisha's baldness and so God sent a pair of bears to maul 42 children (probably killed them too...)? That's an earthly kind of punishment too. But in any case, I wasn't talking about earthly kinds of punishment. I was clearly talking about the punishments received in the afterlife.

@Underlined: Yes, you can say people are being punished. You can't necessarily say WHO is going to be punished in the afterlife, but there is definitely at least one unforgivable sin, and because of that anyone who commits that sin is DEFINITELY going to be punished for eternity. And who is the one proscribing that punishment? God.


Oh, now I see it. The circular arguments they were making before are so obviously correct!

There may be a creator of some kind but its not what fundamentalists view him as.


but then who created the creator?

which came first the chicken or the egg?

This post was edited by Tyler_Durden_Syndrome on Jul 26 2011 08:04pm

You think that the alien cult would be true to their word? The devil sure isn't and when you find out the truth it is already too late.

God would take what little you have and give it to the person who has 10 times the amount you have after the end has come for you. You do not need the gift of faith in the afterlife. Now for those five years you think you were saved and you had faith, what happened that caused you to give up your faith? I seen people get beaten down and die while putting all their faith and trust in God.

Ofcourse we would all mourn the passing of a loved one but it would give us peace of mind knowing that they are with the Lord. I seen some threads in the Christian Fellowship where the father is convinced his son is going to Hell when he dies. I've heard some talks at bible study where somebody's Grandfather is on their death bed and he doesn't want to die because he hasn't turned his life to Christ and is scared of what will happen on the other side. Seriously you imagine yourself on your death bed wondering what will happen on the other side. Will you finally turn to the Lord then or will you still be spiritually blinded and not ready to give up your soul?

God forgives all who ask it.
Those who dont ask for forgiveness dont get punished, they get what they want, sent to "hell" with the prince of darkness.
Those who ask for forgiveness will always have forgiveness granted. Think about it:
If you think your sin is unforgivable. If you have a sin you think you commited, that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross cant nullify.
Your pride and ego have blinded you, and you will come to a realization before your time comes, they always do. And your sin will be forgiven.