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Bo
You are, with respect, judging despite the Bible saying ‘judge not’. You also talk of a ‘cure’ but the past cannot be changed.
You presume to speak for God when you write “you worship yourself and are an abomination to Him whilst you continue in this rebellion”. That tells me ALL that I need to know about the same God that you believe tortures people in hell and is always entirely ‘just’ in doing so. And there are many Bible verses that imply that people who do not ‘worship’ God will be sent to the same hell whether they have committed one or a thousand sins and regardless of what the sins were. That is not fair justice.
Please stop trying to provoke me to anger. I repeat – you do NOT have the right to judge me.
Any further provocations from you are very likely to be ignored by myself.
If God did want me to be angry with him in 2013 he should have prevented that by sparing me crises that came my way in past years. But he did not. I share SOME of the blame for my problems but the REST results from God/Fate and, in one or two cases, other people.
I only mentioned what happened to me because Greg asked for more info. And I only mentioned past mental illness because you sought to judge me – even though we have never met and never will.
Bo,
Didn’t want you to go too far afield. My thoughts are that Depressive Disorder falls under mental illness and it’s something most Christians avoid talking about.
Anyway, you’re welcome. Again, enough said. 🙂
Bo,
You probably don’t need any more people piling on you but I want to say that you seem to be blaming the victim.
Clinical depression is a mental illness and I generally don’t blame people for getting ill.
As for your “pride vs. humility” — I think that is more arguable. As I said, I really don’t know why suffering makes some people draw closer to God and others lose their faith.
I, personally, had a painful, prolonged cancer crisis recently. It never occurred to me to blame God. I don’t claim any moral or spiritual virtue for this.
As for Ashely — who is to say? Doesn’t CS Lewis go fairly extensively into this issue? Faith is relative to how easy it comes to a person. (I forget which of his books, though.) Maybe it’s easy for me and hard for Ashley.
Greg,
I do not consider you to piling on. Here is a resource that you and Sheila might like to read. I thought it was a gentile and comprehensive Christian view. It is three parts.
http://www.ccef.org/basics-about-bipolar-0
Basically, we cannot blame any temptation for our sin. We can be very tempted when we are sick or in pain…I know this for a personal fact. But this does not excuse our sin. We need to humble ourselves and confess and repent of sin whether the temptation was great or small.
Thanks, Bo, I’m reading it now. Is there any thread where we can move the discussion? I can’t find anything similar enough.
Anyone know of an appropriate thread?
Ashley,
You wrote:
“You are, with respect, judging despite the Bible saying ‘judge not’. You also talk of a ‘cure’ but the past cannot be changed.”
When I spoke metaphorically of a cure, it was not concerning your past but your spiritual condition now. But you must see your past sin as sin (attempted suicide is a sin), confess it as such and return to YHWH. I was speaking of a cure to your spiritual condition. As far as what the Bible says, you have a very skewed view, as I have demonstrated many times. The Bible says that we are to judge righteous judgment. It says that we are not to judge against YHWH’s judgment. We do this when we justify sin. I am calling sin, sin. You are guilty of judging by justifying yours and others sin.
You wrote:
“You presume to speak for God when you write “you worship yourself and are an abomination to Him whilst you continue in this rebellion”. That tells me ALL that I need to know about the same God that you believe tortures people in hell and is always entirely ‘just’ in doing so. And there are many Bible verses that imply that people who do not ‘worship’ God will be sent to the same hell whether they have committed one or a thousand sins and regardless of what the sins were. That is not fair justice.”
Ashley, you have proven that you worship yourself by your own words on this thread. You claim to be your own judge and decider of right and wrong. That is claiming to be your own elohim/god. As for those that are thrown in the lake of fire in the end, they go there willingly. They chose the broad path that leads to destruction. Neither you nor I, nor anyone that we know, only committed one sin or only a thousand sins. We are sinful to the core. We have a spiritual disease that is killing us and contaminating the whole world. There is a cure. If we refuse the cure we will be quarantined from those that accept the cure. The lake of fire will rid the creation of the horrible disease called sin. Injustice on YHWH’s part would be to allow sin to continue to ruin all of humanity forever. There is no such thing as “fair justice.” There is fair, which means that we all get the same amount of something whether we deserved it or not. And there is justice which means that we get what we deserve.
What do we do with something that has no more useful purpose? We trash it. If we come to the end of our life on earth and there is no way to reform or recycle us, we go to the trash fire. That is what we justly deserve. We all deserve the justice of the trash fire. But because of the mercy of our Creator, He offers us the opportunity to be recycled/reformed/born again. If we decide that we do not want to place ourselves into the hands of the Creator to be molded and reformed into something useful in the world to come, we seal our own fate. YHWH offers us justice or mercy. To partake of the mercy, we must join His family and turn our backs on Satan’s household. Justice will be served to the Devil and all those that choose to be a part of his kingdom…real justice, not “fair justice” and not fair. The reason that you will not receive any inheritance in the kingdom of YWHH is because you are not part of the family. You will receive the inheritance of the Devil’s family simply because you refuse to join YHWH’s family.
You can whine and scream about fairness or “fair justice,” but it is a very shallow plea because everybody gets better than they deserve. Those that stay in the Devil’s family get to enjoy the pleasures of a prideful, sinful life instead of receiving immediate judgment. It is YHWH’s mercy and grace that allows you time to come to your senses. Those that join YHWH’s family will also get better than they deserve, but not in this life. They will receive suffering in this world that is cursed by sin. They will forgo the pleasures of sin for a season and die to their own selfish desires while learning to be obedient children of the household of YHWH…but they will receive life everlasting.
You wrote:
“Please stop trying to provoke me to anger. I repeat – you do NOT have the right to judge me.”
I Have not judged you. I have warned you. You are bringing judgment upon yourself. You are judging me to have no right to say what I have told you. You are guilty of what you disdain. I have a responsibility to warn you. You have no right to rebel against the one who gave you life. I am not trying to provoke you to anger. You are angry because you do not like the truth.
You wrote:
“Any further provocations from you are very likely to be ignored by myself.”
You can ignore me if you like. Please do not ignore the truth.
You wrote:
“If God did[n’t] want me to be angry with him in 2013 he should have prevented that by sparing me crises that came my way in past years. But he did not. I share SOME of the blame for my problems but the REST results from God/Fate and, in one or two cases, other people.”
There you go judging YHWH again…being your own god. You do not have the right to tell Him what He ought to have done. The tribulations that have come to you come to us all. It is part of living on a planet that we allowed sin into and continue to let it reign in. Pharaoh continued to harden his heart every time YHWH tried to get his attention. He was too prideful to repent and humble himself. He was destroyed in the end. The same will be your fate if you continue to harden your heart. YHWH does not promise us that we will be spared hardship and tribulation in this life. To do that, he would have to take away mankind’s free choice. He promises to make it up to us in the new heavens and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The problems in this world are because of sin…and we are personally to blame for the part we play in allowing sin to continue. Our choosing to go our own way and worship ourselves as elohim/gods is the problem…and YHWH will not take our choice to do this away while we live. Once we die, our choice has been finalized and we will not be able to persist in damaging ourselves and others.
You wrote:
“I only mentioned what happened to me because Greg asked for more info. And I only mentioned past mental illness because you sought to judge me – even though we have never met and never will.”
I did not seek to judge you, nor am I. I am warning you and telling you the truth. You are using your “mental illness” and other tribulations as an excuse to sin and rebel against your Creator. Nebuchadnezzar was given a “mental illness” to get his attention…to humble him. Maybe the same thing was designed for you and you hardened yourself in your pride like Pharaoh instead.
Hopefully you will come to your senses before it is too late. Hopefully we will meet in the kingdom of heaven.
Shalom
Bo is in my opinion ‘bullying for God’ (he will insist that he is being ‘biblical’ and yes indeed he IS) and I am not going spend time I don’t have responding in detail to his very lengthy post other than denying – AGAIN – most of his unpleasant accusations. Yes I am currently angry with God. No, that does not mean I ‘worship myself’.
This thread is supposed to be about the science claims of Jonathan Sarfati, not mental illness.
Please see my post here, times at 7.48 pm GMT on 4 Dec. I consider CMI – Sarfati is their chief scientist – to be rather arrogant Christians.
http://forums.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2970&start=690
Your ‘warning’ of me also JUDGED me. Re-read your OWN words, Bo. Christians like you believe that you can decide the truth about ANYBODY they have not met and decide that they are committing terrible SINS against God merely be speaking truthfully – the Bible categorises and stereotypes ALL who are not Christian or (in my case) EX Christian as ‘evil’ and ‘deserving’ of eternal torture by a ‘just’ and ‘loving’) god who ‘hates’ ‘sin’ so much he tortures dead sinners.
The Christian god is a tyrant and you are his spokesperson. That is the truth. God wants me to be silent about the truth (like you).
Any further response by Bo WILL be ignored by me – unless of course he recognises the ACCURACY of what I am saying and my sincerely-held opinion of the Christian god.
I have nothing further to say on this topic.
When someone says that it is wrong to judge them when another points out their sin, they are actually judging the person to be sinning that simply relayed the information, though they are actually justifying themselves and their sin, which is what the Bible condemns as judging.
Romans 2
1 Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that justifies sin: for wherein thou justifies another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that justifies doest the same things.
2 But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that justifies them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Just thought you would like to know.
Bo,
>>Basically, we cannot blame any temptation for our sin. We can be very tempted when we are sick or in pain…I know this for a personal fact. But this does not excuse our sin.
I certainly don’t think mental illness is a sin and most suicides I’m aware of are a symptom of depression. It’s certainly not some sort of free-will choice, so I have a hard time considering it a sin.
This is where you and I differ in our Christian worldview. I leave these kind of judgements up to God. I don’t feel any need to call-out suicidal people as sinners.
ashley,
I have read quite a few of your posts and I am not at all clear about what you believe, regarding God.
Are you rejecting God, altogether? Or just the Fundamentalist view of God?
If you don’t believe in God, how can you blame him for your suffering? Yet, you seem to.
Or, have you rejected the Fundamentalist concept of God?
If so, welcome to the club! I don’t think you have to believe in a literal 6-day creation or a talking snake to be a follower of Jesus. It think it is safe to say that hundreds of millions of Christians don’t.
Personally I’m willing to entertain the notion that attempting to do away with oneself may be sinful in that it destroys a life if successful (but it’s not destruction against the person’s in questions will). A suicide in some cases might emotionally harm others or be a symptom of rebellion against God. In my case I was ill such that I felt pretty convinced that God WANTED me dead by my own hand (I assumed that what I did would ‘succeed’). I do not feel that way now just that God may want me to suffer in day to day life and perhaps in my eventual death – but weirdly I feel just as ‘safe’ when out and about using a wheelchair as not.
I suggest that each case is pretty much unique circumstantially. God’s justice, if you base it on the Bible, takes NO account of circumstances as far as I can see. But some suicides are hardly sinful – eg a soldier who could escape death in battle does not in thus sacrifices himself knowing that his colleagues are likely to escape death in the process (one may perhaps call that something other than suicide I suppose but the person failed to save himself for altruistic motives).
Sorry – I wasn’t intending to say more on this.
In reply to Greg just now I consider myself ‘agnostic’ ie I simply do not KNOW – I don’t know that there isn’t a God merely tend to doubt it. Unlike some, I embraced evangelical Christianity once and it ended badly for whatever reason – and everything I experienced of ‘God’ could be explained psychologically. I sort of hope there’s no God as he doesn’t seem very friendly or tolerant and the idea seems far-fetched, but at the same time want to BLAME him for personal crises and suffering in the world eg deadly typhoons and the like if he DOES exist (any god that exists) and is ‘hiding’. Not all that rational I admit. I am not out to attack Christians (some Christian friends were very supportive when I was ill even if they may have thought part of the blame lay with me), only those – online not in person – who as I see it deny science and attack scientists or are highly judgmental including of other professing Christians whose theology is less hardline, sound or rigorous.
Not prepared to go off on another tangent there about my past, sorry.
>>God’s justice, if you base it on the Bible, takes NO account of circumstances as far as I can see.
I see the Bible differently. Yes, it judges sin but it also offers grace. And I have a very high view of grace.
I believe that the grace of God is sufficient for whatever sin you may have committed. I’m just not sure that suicide is sin — especially when it is a symptom of a mental illness.
I still would like to know what you believe about God.
Are you an atheist? If so, I’m not sure why you even care what people around here think.
Oh, I see you answered my question. I guess we cross-posted.
As for explaining faith as mere psychologically — I totally agree with you.
A believer and an atheist can look at that exact same think as see it very differently.
I am a creationist, myself, and when I look through a telescope or a microscope, I marvel and see the hand of God.
An atheist can look at exactly the same thing, marvel, and see not evidence of God.
It why I think it’s ultimately futile to argue over the existence of God. Either you perceive him or you don’t.
And, I should add, I believe in evolution. I see no contradiction between evolution and creationism.
God created life on earth using evolution.
While the people here consider this some wild-haired heresy, this is a very common Christian belief.
A scientist teacher Christian friend slowly drifted from creationism to at least openness to evolution and his faith has not been undermined as far as I can see (one of his own children has mental health issues and he says he doesn’t blame God for that).
I attended (secular) university after a fundamentalist bible school and was delighted to discover that a some of my science professors were Christians.
It was very helpful, for me, to learn that I didn’t have to reject science to follow Jesus or believe in the bible.
I have spent my life following science and studying the bible.
This is no problem for me because I don’t confuse faith with science.
Dr. Sarfati, as intelligent as he obviously is, makes this crucial mistake. When one confuses theology with science they either have bad theology or bad science — or both!
It was pretty clear from the show, that Sarfati has really bad science.
I should add — it isn’t just fundamentalist Christians who confuse faith and science. Some atheists makes this mistake as well, when they believe that science somehow disproves God.
Ironically, despite all the arguing, the two groups share this in common.
I’m hardly going to take Greg Allen’s word about the quality of science; I need no instructions from him. But evidently he needs instructions on the biblical meaning of faith, which was never contrasted with reason, logic, or evidence; but with sight.
AH-R was never an evangelical Christian—he always embraced evolution. But as with Darwin, the mixing of long-ages and evolution with the Bible can’t provide a satisfactory explanation for the existence of both evil/pain and a loving God. Only the biblical (‘young-earth’) creationist position can: that the evil, death, and suffering in the world comes from Adam’s sin. See my recent comprehensive article Why would a loving God allow death and suffering?.
“AH-R was never an evangelical Christian—he always embraced evolution”. I see Jonathan is making up his own ‘facts’ again. I did not consider the question of origins (the ‘how’) when I was a sincere evangelical Christian – before it dawned on me that God must either have rejected me or must not exist. I like to think I was never a bigot though.
I am also confused by Dr Sarfati’s statement regarding those who embrace evolution (because they strongly believe it to be a proper science theory) – is he saying they cannot be a Christian AT ALL or merely that they cannot be an ‘evangelical’ Christian?
I very much suspect I will not get a clear answer.
Ashley,
Did you click on Jonathan’s link about suffering? You might find it helpful.
Shalom
In a word, no. I will have a glance now.