And you won't find a greater love for man than that Jesus Christ, The only begotten Son of God died for those people. Christianity isn't a behavior modification program. It's a redemptive program.

Well, I KNOW and have always known that it is wrong to use children sexually. I didn’t need to read it in a book or have someone teach that to me. On the other hand, there are Catholic Priests whom thoroughly read and preached from the Bible, whom were also raping young boys. So, their “faith” and their reading of the Bible didn’t make them understand that it was wrong to rape young boys (or to rape anybody, regardless of age or gender). That is NOT to say that all Priests are pedophiles or that Catholicism is “wrong” or that there is no God. However, if you think a book or a sermon can teach you that raping young boys is fundamentally WRONG then you do not understand how pedophiles work.

Based

Huh?

My favorite topic of debate.

Explain to me how bonded labor or even slavery is "not good" if it can be utilized to a: improve the material life of the bonded/enslaved, and b: free up resources for those more capable of using them towards the generally agreed upon aspirations of mankind?

22er from California that hates God.  Imagine that.

Whosoever will, let him come.

None are beyond redemption. But, scoff at and ignore the Holy Spirit long enough and He will turn you over to a reprobate mind.  You will cease to feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit and will be left alone to your fate.
  Would you be beyond salvation at that point?  IDK, His ways are not our ways.  
  But John 3:16 makes it very clear that God desires ALL to accept Jesus and repent.

Not an atheist but not a church going Christian. Yes I believe in God. I've had God show me signs when I didn't expect it. I've just never been very religious but I have questions. You might be surprised but there are a ton of us out there.

Anywho I prefaced my question so y'all don't think I'm here to bash Christianity. All my best friends were raised in the church.

I've pondered this and I don't know how to reconcile it in my mind. Accepting Jesus Christ in your heart as Lord and savior is the path to redemption from everything I read and hear.

Back on topic.
I am certain that at least a few convicted child molesters regretted their actions while rotting in jail and fearing for their lives. If some of them prayed for redemption and truly turned to God and accepted then will they go to heaven?

It seems like they technically would and that bothers me.  Someone tell me how I'm wrong without an obscure verse that points out a small technicality.

Do believe that they are all just rats in a cage...

I'm more diest than religious as well but I love the Bibles. The question of redemption is complex and  unsettled among the theological. I just rely on Occam's razor.

First there's this: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."

I'd say there's not a whole lot of room for redemption there lol.

Second: Nobody just wakes up one day and decides to rape a child. It's a long festering rot of the soul that culminates with the most vile of all possible sins. When that rot takes complete hold any hope of true redemption is no longer possible. Like cancer, once it consumes a certain percentage of the body there's no longer a cure. In a similar way evil is cancer of the soul. Someone can feign regret, repentance etc. but God cannot be fooled.

See that's the thing. It's clear what the path to salvation is described as but where is the asterisk?

If child molesters are exempt from salvation then who else? Murderers? Rapists?

And we can all say that God decides but since no one has his email address, will we ever know?

Like I said. The simplicity is what bothers me. It's not that clear cut.

But it think it is.

I can say someone who murders during a robbery but then finds a new path and leads a peaceful life is not quite equal to a serial killer.

Robbery/homicide is more akin to an act of war, or simply reversion to animal like behavior. A serial killer on the other hand is purely sadistic. Redemption is possible within the former but not the latter.

Most serial criminals will readily admit that they attempted to stop themselves but couldn't, in these men the soul is consumed by immutable evil. If there is a judgement they will not be able to hide it.

I am amazed that there are still countless people that actually believe that an unknown entity at the center of the universe can read the thoughts in their brain from billions of light-years away.

I'm sure your intellect and understanding of what cannot be seen surpasses men like Tesla, Newton and Einstein.

Pedos, serial killers, just to name a few.

Your understanding being based on what exactly?

I'll give it a try.

From what I have read often times child molesters don't rot in jail, they are killed by their fellow inmates.  Guilty people who have committed other crimes against society say those who commit that crime have to die.  I guess you could say it's the equivalent of grading on a curve.  

People expect God to grade on a curve, too.  But He has already told us He isn't going to do that.  "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."  When God created man, man was without sin.  There was fellowship between God and man.  But, man turned his back on God and went his own way and did his own thing.  Man sinned against God.  All the terrible things that occur in the world are a result of sin.  When you turn your back on the One who is holy and righteous and walk in the opposite direction you head toward depravity and unrighteousness and who can deny that is what we are seeing every day?  When you turn your back on the One who is life where are you heading?  towards death.  People are dying every day.

All people are sinners, but they condemn others who commit sins they don't commit.  It's hypocrisy.

God is without sin and condemns all sin.  You mention child molesters, and who would want to be friends or have any sort of a relationship with a child molester?  No one in their right mind.

God simply has higher standards.  God doesn't want a relationship with sinners of any sort.  Yet, God offers forgiveness to sinners.

When God saves a sinner He gives them a new birth.  He makes them new creatures.  From the inside.  That isn't apparent yet, because the saved soul still exists in that old body of flesh that has those sinful desires.  The more a saved soul loves and appreciates what God has done for him - the more he will control those desires with the help of the Holy Spirit that God places within the saved person.

Creation has an expiration date.  At some point God is going to destroy it and remake it anew.  Those who have humbled themselves and have turned to God and have trusted what He did to save sinners - Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again from the dead - will enjoy perfect fellowship with God and with one another, in all of creation where no sin exists.

Mankind owed a debt to God that they could not pay.  God could pay the debt but he was not man.  God became man - Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, while remaining fully God - and as both He could pay for the sins of the world.  He paid for the sins of simple liars and thieves (which includes all of us) and He paid for the sins of the child molester and the mass murderer.

Anyone who trusts what God did to pay for their sins is forgiven.  And when they do God makes them new creatures in Christ.

And I am amazed that there are people who understand they need help to comprehend things in the physical world (think carbon monoxide detectors and night vision) and don't think they need anything to have any comprehension about things in the spiritual world (think God's help).

He loves me so much he will send me to eternal damnation?

What a douche.

Here get a dose of reality.

https://youtube.com/@OwenMorganTelltale

Including the genocide, murder, rape, child burnt offering, incest, slavery, killing disobedient children, magic, forbidding women to speak, adultry promoted by God, adultry God said to kill someone over, and rules against wearing clothing of mixed materials?

 You spend your whole life rejecting Him and when you die, He says "Ok, have it your way" and He's the douche?  

Rejecting who or what, now? God hasn't shown up and asked me for help or to submit to him or to live a certain way, and he hasn't shown a single shred of existence either.

I'm not rejecting anything. I'm just playing it how I see it.

I honestly don't care either way. God exists? Cool. I'm mostly in line with the teachings of the supposed Christ and his son. God doesn't exist? Cool. I'm going to keep doing my own thing.

 He has given you an entire Bible that explains everything, IF you will read it and apply it.  "Doing my own thing" won't get you into Heaven.
Proverbs 3:5
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding "
 Good luck.

 I'll be praying for you.

Men gave you the bible, and it's been edited, translated and rewritten several times.

Thank you for the well thought out response.  I get what you're saying.  I've heard well reasoned and learned explanations before and they leave me where I am. Troubled by the conclusion. I guess as it's always been said, "who am I to judge?" God is the only one who can.

On a side note, why do atheists not show a little bit of restraint in these threads? Yeah it's GD and all but it's obnoxious. Not even funny.

Ironic that they choose to poke fun at the lack of tolerance by the left.

Not sure that applies.  No one would show restraint if someone posted a satanic thread.  They wouldn’t be tolerant.

There is also a designated safe space for these types of threads where they won't be trolled or mocked.

The whole point of posting something in GD is to put your thick skin and big boy pants on and be ready for a counter point or some ridicule.

Getting called a retard is just another Tuesday in GD, that's what makes it fun here.

The number of would be secular inquisitor posts here is ... interesting.

"You can't do that in public! Hide it from me!"

If the apostle paul hadn't done any of the multiple killings his group was involved with, he was definitely supporting them in that act.

Also, king david intentionally had bathshebas husban wrongfully killed to cover up what he (david) had done, and yet God had mercy on him and saved him.

God doesn't care one bit for your or my pearl clutching at all. He will save whoever he wants to, and our fee-fees don't matter at all in that.

He justifies the unjust by taking the punishment they deserve. His sacrifice can cover any and all sins.

The one unforgvable sin is rejecting that sacrifice.

Including Government Institutions and Parties.

Who are those that can demonstrate the truth of their claims?

Let's get out there and stone some sinners!

So, a single-source document that also claims a talking snake, a magic apple, a pregnant virgin and a flood that covered Mount Everest. No eye-witness accounts, no physical evidence. Is there any corroboration whatsoever that would make it more credible than, say, the Quran, or Harry Potter?

@Rodent

On top of The Scriptures, you also have several other sources for the historicity of Jesus including the works of Jewish historian Josephus and Roman historian Tacitus, who both lived shortly after the time of Jesus and wrote in reference to him and his followers. Those historic records still exist today. These were two different men, who lived in two different nations, and spoke two different languages, and their historical texts proceeded from two different sources.

I get not believing The Bible, but you would have to also concluded that these two different men who never met, told lies and those same lies have also been maintained for 2000 years.

Don't they just mention Jesus as a historical figure? That's easy enough to swallow - the Romans crucified a lot of people, including a bunch who thought they were messiahs.

Or are you saying that they corroborate the alleged magical BS? Because they lived generations afterwards and couldn't have seen any of it even if it had happened.

It's sad to see the ignorance that many show by trying to say the Bible
is the only writings that spoke about the various events in the Bible.

Perhaps they have never picked up a history book and only watch TV

How do you reconcile yourself to the fact that early Christians, including the apostles, where themselves tortured and killed? That's a fair bit of dedication to their fiction novels I'd say. And the people that witnessed these men get tortured and killed because of their totally wild fiction stories decided they wanted in on that action? Then through all this the word spread through the world and ultimately led to your very existence.

The reasoning that they where written for status, revenge or control is not historically supported in any way.

So what "is" these other "writings" that will make us less "ignorant"?

It took three dictionaries before I found this in the urban dictionary.

Copium

A metaphorical opiate inhaled when faced with loss, failure or defeat, especially in sports, politics and other tribal settings.

The effects of copium include, but are not limited to: extreme rationalizations for the defeat, outlandish theories of conspiracy supposedly perpetrated by the opposing side, extreme rage directed at the other side, unconvincing allegations of fraud and abuse in the system, and rejection of the system as a whole.

-Supporters of the losing candidate claim they didn’t legitimately lose the election; they say it was due to foreign interference and election fraud. They’re clearly high on copium.

What is there for me to reconcile?

I've watched in living color on TV the Branch Davidians burn to death. I've been to Jonestown, Guyana, where a thousand people drank poison. I live near Salem, where the last witch executions in America took place. I remember when the Heaven's Gate cult committed mass suicide so they could fly away on a comet. I don't understand how any of those things could inspire anyone to take up nutty religious beliefs. And yet people do it every day, and some of them convince others and become cult leaders, and some of them spread like viruses and become major religions. Go figure. There's something in the human mind that finds magical thinking irresistible.

How did it lead to my "very existence"? People were reproducing long before anyone thought up your religion.

Matthew 7:13-14 New International Version (NIV)
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

It's not that there are those who can never be saved but there are many who refuse to give up their sins to Jesus Christ.
Accepting his free offer of reconciliation to our Creator.

That is all life is really about...being reconciled to God.

The bible says many will refuse beguiled away by the world system (The Swamp).

We are all Swamp denizens (to greater or lesser degrees) until Christ saves us.

Only the arrogant believe in their own innocence.

Simple question:

Is America better off with God, or without God?

Attached File


You do know there is a separate religion subforum here on ARFcom, right?

https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Religion/135/

Welcome to my ignore list.

In a country armed with nuclear weapons, what role should superstition play?