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OK, It all yours, guys. My mind is open to new or old posts.
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heaven...comes from the German, "hafen"... <BR>meaning seaport.... <BR> <BR>like the seaport for the City of Bremen... <BR>is Bremerhafen.... <BR> <BR>hafen = haven = seaport.... <BR> <BR>is heaven, or haven, a safe arrival in "port" after crossing the stormy seas of life, with Christ as one's captain, in a church shaped like the nave (as in navy??) of a church... <BR> <BR>finally we will reach that golden "strand".. <BR>which is the german word for "beach", <BR>as in to be "stranded" on the beach by the receeding tide.... <BR> <BR>and after crossing the story seas of life, we reach the far shore in the "golden" years of our lives.... <BR> <BR>its highly likely we will all reach safe haven someday.... <BR> <BR>maybe the question we all want answered is whether or not there will be lambs lying down with lions, whose carnivorous incisors have been exchanged for molars so they can chew grass...... <BR> <BR>and whether or not we will have wings to fly, making those 12 gates in the walls unnecessary, as well as rendering superfluous those streets of gold way to soft for chariot wheels. <BR> <BR>will there be gold in the pot at the end of the legendary rainbow? <BR><img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/120/1019.jpg" alt=""> <BR> <BR>will there be sex, beer, and pizza up there? <BR> <BR>maybe the first thing we need to know,... <BR>even before we try to discover how to get there... <BR>we need to know where "where" is... <BR> <BR>and <BR> <BR>which way is up?
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
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It's your thread, it's a pretty poor start....
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Each time you made your request it was different:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>... now I want to hear what you, Neal, Elaine and John have in the way of Eternal Salvation.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>... tell me their story that results in salvation.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>From what I can see you, John and Elaine, have created a lot of negativity about the traditional way to salvation<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>... positive statements of how one is saved for eternity.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>Now, you have a clean slate to tell me how people gain eternal life.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>I don't remember any of you giving an alternate way to salvation.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <BR>I will go with two ways to achieve immortality. <BR> <BR>The first way is a two step process. First, have children. Your genes, for as long as the descendants keep reproducing, would theoretically leave an immortal effect on the line. But, since the planet earth only has a couple more billion years left before it becomes uninhabitable the second step is for science to progress enough to enable interstellar travel creating the opportunity for your descendants to migrate to another star system with a habitable planet. <BR> <BR>The second way would be to encourage scientists to complete their research on transferring your mind to a piece of technology. This research would be required to be completed before your body wears out and dies. This would allow your "essence"- your mental processes, personality, feelings, memories, etc to "live" forever. <BR> <BR>Personally, I believe the first scenario is possible but the second scenario is possible in the future but not in time for my case. I believe I will be long dead before the ability to transfer yourself to a piece of technology is a reality. <BR> <BR>By the way, what may be the "traditional way to salvation" varies from belief to belief. For example, a Hindu's route to "salvation" might be via becoming a butterfly, then a dung beetle, then a ....
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What and where is this haven you want us to tell you how to reach? <BR> <BR>why obsess over a destination which is not fully and clearly defined at the risk of failing to enjoy the voyage?...which may be what it's all about. <BR> <BR>we can pinch ourselves to prove the here and now... <BR>but <BR>its much harder to imagine lions having their canines extracted, and replaced with molars. <BR> <BR>and snakes...will there be snakes there? <BR>certainly not poisonous ones...but maybe even the talking variety will be there to converse with the talking donkeys?? <BR> <BR>how about mushrooms...will there be poisonous ones masquerading as edible?...I guess it doesn't matter, because we will have forever to learn which ones to eat. Will I have to eat my spinach up there? <BR> <BR>Will our skin cells continually replenish themselves as the epidermis cells die and flake off? Will we and the cows still have baceria living in our gut to help with digestion? and will some of these bacteria continue to die off in the process? <BR> <BR>Obviously, we will not eat meat...but how about ice cream? omlets? souflee? <BR> <BR>will we have separate bathrooms? showers and urinals for men, jacuzzi tubs and bidets for women, and preening stations for angels wings? <BR> <BR>don't we need better definitions for what constitutes the haven you want to reach? <BR>before we argue over the best way to get there? <BR> <BR>meantime, I'm planning on living forever...however... <BR> <BR>and so far its working. <BR> <BR>(Message edited by john8verse32 on April 20, 2009)
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
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John <BR> <BR>Paul teaches that there will not be bodies of flesh and blood but spirits. Kinda like the invisible demons supposedly running around the earth now. He doesn't seem to teach that there will be eating. Of course this contradicts a lot of what the later gospel writers claimed, like Jesus claiming he will enjoy the fruit of the vine when He returns but....
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Of course, he also teaches that a body dies once and is then judged. Maybe we should be over in Palestine looking for the 2,000 year old Lazarus and those 500 people that were risen from the dead at the crucifixion. <BR> <BR>I guess the child from the OT that was raised from the dead would set the record for longevity. Where's that old man hiding out?
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So you really don't have another answer for the gift of eternal life. I suspected so. TTTHTFAL.... <BR> <BR><img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/clipart/kiss.gif" border=0>
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<font color="0000ff">So you really don't have another answer for the gift of eternal life.</font> <BR> <BR>I don't have a substitute for Islam's 72 virgins either. Neither do you. <BR> <BR>What's really sad is the fact that you do not have the ability to discern falsehoods even when truth and facts and evidence are presented to you. <BR> <BR>Guess I have a difficult time with the idea of delusion. You seem to count the number of delusions you hold dear as a personal asset. <BR> <BR>Show me the dome and I'll think about the possibility of an Adam. <BR> <BR>Otherwise, I'll believe Paul when he says Jesus was appeared from heaven as a spirit, never as a human:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>1 Corinthians 15:45 <font color="ff0000"><font size="+1">The first man was named Adam, and the Scriptures tell us that he was a living person. But</font> <font size="+2">Jesus, who may be called the last Adam, is a life-giving spirit.</font></font> 46 We see that the one with a spiritual body did not come first. He came after the one who had a physical body. 47 The first man was made from the dust of the earth, but the second man came from heaven. 48 Everyone on earth has a body like the body of the one who was made from the dust of the earth. And everyone in heaven has a body like the body of the one who came from heaven. 49 Just as we are like the one who was made out of earth, we will be like the one who came from heaven.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <BR> <BR>Course, by the time the priests had a few centuries to make the man-god myths it left a legacy which still bamboozles gullible people like you two thousand years later. <BR> <BR>Do you want truth? No. You want the best story that gives you hope for another life to make up for this cocked up one you have had. <BR> <BR>I prefer truth over emotional salves.
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I need your answer not more negativity, you really don't have an answer, maybe consult with Elaine and John. <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/clipart/uhoh.gif" border=0> Elaine the one who has never read the Bible from cover to cover. Eh??? <BR> <BR>(Message edited by Bob_2 on April 21, 2009)
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Take this quote of yours and continue it through to the end of the chapter to understand it, Jesus is the life giver, the one who can make the righteous, immortal, and will at the second coming. <BR> <BR><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>49 Just as we are like the one who was made out of earth, we will be like the one who came from heaven.50My friends, I want you to know that our bodies of flesh and blood will decay. This means that they cannot share in God's kingdom, which lasts forever. 51I will explain a mystery to you. Not every one of us will die, but we will all be changed. 52It will happen suddenly, quicker than the blink of an eye. At the sound of the last trumpet the dead will be raised. We will all be changed, so that we will never die again. 53Our dead and decaying bodies will be changed into bodies that won't die or decay. 54The bodies we now have are weak and can die. But they will be changed into bodies that are eternal. Then the Scriptures will come true, <BR> <BR> "Death has lost the battle! <BR> <BR> 55Where is its victory? <BR> <BR> Where is its sting?" <BR> <BR> 56Sin is what gives death its sting, and the Law is the power behind sin. 57But thank God for letting our Lord Jesus Christ give us the victory! <BR> <BR> 58My dear friends, stand firm and don't be shaken. Always keep busy working for the Lord. You know that everything you do for him is worthwhile. <BR> <BR> <BR><!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <BR> <BR> <BR>There is the context of your quote. Jesus came from Heaven, through a virgin if you study the whole Word of God. The chapter isn't about the Virgin Birth, but about conquering death which Jesus did. Being from heaven, he lived on this earth, therefore had to be of a Virgin, no other way.
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<font color="0000ff">I need your answer not more negativity....</font> <BR> <BR>I gave you my answer. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">... you really don't have an answer</font> <BR> <BR>Just because you don't like my answer does not mean that I have not given an answer.
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<font color="0000ff">Jesus came from Heaven, through a virgin if you study the whole Word of God.</font> <BR> <BR>The writers of the New Testament believed that the Hebrew Bible was the Word of God and gnostic John claimed Jesus was The Word. I don't remember any writer of the NT claim that what they were writing was The Word of God. Seems pretty clear that they were writing the words of men. It was the catholics who slapped their choice of letters and stories onto the Hebrew Bible and then pronounced the whole production to be The Word of God. <BR> <BR>The deranged Constantine got the vigilantes together and told them to decide on doctrine and books. I seriously doubt that any god was leading a man who murdered his own wife and son. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">The chapter isn't about the Virgin Birth....</font> <BR> <BR>Paul didn't know about the virgin birth myth. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">Being from heaven, he lived on this earth, therefore had to be of a Virgin, no other way.</font> <BR> <BR>I thought God could do anything. If so, there most certainly be other ways than having the Holy Spirit be a sperm donor.
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One has to study the whole of the Bible, you are doing "word worship", as with the word "dome". Jesus was real with qualities of a man/God. He was touched while here as that man/God. When he died, He was touched before His final ascension to heaven by Thomas. <BR> <BR>This could only happen by a Virgin Birth.
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<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>This "word worship" helps people to have confidence, but they don't understand the text. And as long as they worship words, instead of worshiping God as revealed in Jesus Christ, they feel safe. <BR><!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.atomorrow.net/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=5&post=3960#POST3960" target=_top>http://www.atomorrow.net/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?t pc=5&post=3960#POST3960</a> <BR> <BR>In your "translation" you are performing "word worship" as this scholar is talking about. What is the concept, you are missing what is being said.
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<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/" target=_top>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/</a> 2.46.html <BR> <BR>Eugene A. Nida is not a household name, but the 84-year-old resident of Belgium has influenced the Bibles read by most Christians around the world. The "premier linguist and translation consultant," as the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions styles him, writes mostly about technical topics: descriptive linguistics, cross-cultural communications, translation theory, and semantics. However, the translations he helped shape in over 200 languages make it easier for many millions of lay Christians and nonbelievers to grasp the meaning of the Bible. <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>I think he is a lot more reliable on the meanings of the scripture than Neal Walls.
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<font color="0000ff">One has to study the whole of the Bible....</font> <BR> <BR>How are you an authority on the need to study the whole of the Bible? You are so far out in la-la land that you think you are normal. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">... you are doing "word worship", as with the word "dome".</font> <BR> <BR>The dome and the waters above the dome are written about in Psalms and Isaiah in addition to Genesis. Enoch, praised as a prophet in the Book of Jude, quoted verbatim in the Book of Jude, and lamented by Ellen as probably lost to humanity forever, goes into great detail about the dome. You should read it sometime. <BR> <BR>Oh, right, you don't read books. Sorry. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">Jesus was real with qualities of a man/God. He was touched while here as that man/God. When he died, He was touched before His final ascension to heaven by Thomas.</font> <BR> <BR>Not according to the authentic letters of Paul, the earliest writer in the NT. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">This could only happen by a Virgin Birth.</font> <BR> <BR>Could you explain that please.
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God, if He sent His Son to live on earth, what was the vechicle. Wasn't He from Nazareth and Bethlem, where people knew Him and His adopted carpenter father, who travelled together as a family to Jerusalem, discussed the truth with scholars of the time, and purged the temple of money changers. He was the product of a virgin birth, even Joseph was afraid of the perception of that fact, yeah that's a good one, Mary, the Holy Spirit moved on me, this is God's Son. Joseph sweated that until an angel settled him down about what was really happening.
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<font color="0000ff">God, if He sent His Son to live on earth....</font> <BR> <BR>Jesus never lived on this earth IMO (and Paul's).
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You are truly then to be pitied, if you believe that. Have fun with your immortality, your children. What else can I say. If that is your message, how empty!!!! Especially to those whose kids spit in their face, even when given every benefit in life.
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<font color="0000ff">If that is your message, how empty!!!!</font> <BR> <BR>I treasure evidence and reason over the musings and theories of barbarians long discredited. <BR> <BR>I don't understand how you could think that being rid of the necessity of denying scientific facts all around us every single day is somehow empty. You are so far outside reality that you could join up with the Taliban tomorrow without even missing a beat.
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Bob <BR> <BR>You have had family members die, correct? <BR> <BR>When they told you the news did you refuse to accept the true facts, based on the evidence of a dead body, and instead tell the bearer of the bad tidings that what they were saying was terrible, a bad outcome, and to come back with a more appealing story about the state of your family member's health? <BR> <BR>I didn't think so. Yet, that is what you are chiding us for. You don't like how reality is so you cling to the stories of long ago written by ignorant people from the bronze age. <BR> <BR>Now THAT is sad and pathetic.
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No, I think the hope of eternal life is exciting, and the thought of seeing again that loved one in eternity is a wonderful belief and hope. How empty to believe all you can do to have immortality is to produce what might end up being a wayward child, that ends up not honoring you on your death bed or in later life. If that is your answer, it is Darwinistic, naturalistic and essentially what is being called the New Atheism, making our lives totally secular, with not belief in God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. That is your choice, as your signature quote reminds you of your free will choice, given you by God.
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<font color="0000ff">No, I think the hope of eternal life is exciting....</font> <BR> <BR>The hope of winning Powerball must REALLY turn you on. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">... and the thought of seeing again that loved one in eternity is a wonderful belief and hope.</font> <BR> <BR>There are many examples of beliefs and hopes which have no basis in fact or reality. Being a wonderful belief has nor bearing on whether the belief is true or false. Based on every single piece of evidence known your belief is without foundation and utterly false. IOW, a delusion. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">How empty to believe all you can do to have immortality is to produce what might end up being a wayward child, that ends up not honoring you on your death bed or in later life.</font> <BR> <BR>Again, you are making assertions as if you are an expert when in fact you know nothing about what its like to be a realist. As someone that has been a believer and a nonbeliever in the teachings of the genocidal maniacs I can assure you that it is much more satisfying and fulfilling to accept what nature tells us instead of what some ancient nomads claimed. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">If that is your answer, it is Darwinistic....</font> <BR> <BR>That is completely false. This has nothing to do with evolution. It has everything to do with whether the claims made by this ancient tribe about their deity are true or false. They claim that these gods built a dome and put an ocean in the sky. We know that is false. Then a few verses later they claim that the sky gods created all the animals and made a man and woman in their image. We know the dome theory of the cosmos is false yet you expect a rational person to accept the claims made a few verses later about the magic start to the human branch of the great apes, aka MAN? That is absurd. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">... naturalistic....</font> <BR> <BR>That is true. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">... and essentially what is being called the New Atheism....</font> <BR> <BR>That assertion is false. You could be a Deist like George Washington, believing that a deity was the First Cause. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">...making our lives totally secular, with not belief in God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit.</font> <BR> <BR>That is true. The idea of The Way, the Teacher (the messiah which in christianity is called Jesus), the Holy Spirit, the dualistic Light & Darkness, millenialism, baptism, demons, the devil, an end time battle, etc are all Persian Zoroastrianism. Oh, and the Magi were Zoroastrian priests. So, Yes, I do not believe in Zorastrianism. <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">That is your choice, as your signature quote reminds you of your free will choice, given you by God.</font> <BR> <BR>Tell me how much free will a peasant has under a dictatorial, tyrant king? Not much. <BR> <BR>The Biblical theory of God is that of a dictator. A tyrant king. Not only is this king going to kill you because of something a long-dead legendary ancestor did, but if you don't do exactly what the king says he is going to raise your spirit up from the dirt and throw it into a lake of fire. <BR> <BR>And you want to go live with this tyrant. That is close to being the most retarded goal in the history of world religions. Wouldn't it be better to believe that you were going to be reincarnated as a dung beetle?
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Choice, eh, <BR> <BR>1. Genocidial Maniacs and Slime Pond Tending <BR> <BR>2. God who hates sin and some Goatherders <BR> <BR>I think I can work better with the latter.
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