How Many of You Are SAVED?

[Frraksurred 10+ year member]

I was saved from christianity... whew.. grew up mormon.. happily Taoist by nature...

So tell me a little about Taoism. Haven't read much on the subject and would rather hear it from some one who is actually involved in it anyway. I didn't realize Taoism and Mormonism had anything in common. Did you go from one to the other?

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[Frraksurred 10+ year member]

Taking some time to think about it? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

:goodorbad

(Lovin' the new smilies)

 

[kevin85193 10+ year member]

i'm catholic.

went to catholic school untill 8th grade.

taught me to give money to the church.

if there were true facts about religion, maybe i would believe it.

just live life to the fullest. you make your own decisions.. who cares about the afterlife is there even is one.. make most of what u have now before its all gone

i hate people who try to make u believe in something and trying to convert you..

bring me concrete facts, then you can try to convert me...

 

[powerslide 10+ year member]

did you nkow, that is was Augustine in the 3rd century AD that grafted pletonic physics into religion. Renee Descartes (Ghost in the Machine hypothesis) was the first to distinguish body and soul, and he was alive MUCH later. The original christian idea was that when you die, your sould does NOT go to heaven. You are just dead. Then, at the second coming, you are resurrected from the dead and given a new body, which ascends with you to heaven, where you will live in eternal bliss for 1000 years.

So, all this soul business, saving peoples souls, souls going to heaven or hell, wasnt even considered when Jesus walked. This was a later addition to legitimize a religion that was being taken apart as people began to further understand the workings of the world around them.

That is all! Have a great day!

 

[james33440 10+ year member]

Well, what evidence do you need?

I have seen people get healed. I have seen people seem to just calm down after getting prayed or just by simply attending church as if there is no more burden on them. That is something that only Jesus Christ can do!

So, give me some examples of what you want as proof.....

BTW, a friend of mine emailed this to me.........

THE POEM

I knelt to pray but not for long, I had too much to do.

I had to hurry and get to work

For bills would soon be due.

So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,

And jumped up off my knees.

My Christian duty was now done

My soul could rest at ease.

All day long I had no time

To spread a word of cheer.

No time to speak of Christ to friends,

They’d laugh at me I’d fear.

No time, no time, too much to do,

That was my constant cry,

No time to give to souls in need.

But at last the time, the time to die.

I went before the Lord, I came, I stood with downcast eyes.

For in his hands God held a book;

It was the book of life.

God looked into his book and said

“Your name I cannot find.

I once was going to write it down...

But never found the time”

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Well, what evidence do you need?I have seen people get healed. I have seen people seem to just calm down after getting prayed or just by simply attending church as if there is no more burden on them.

Did they win an Academy Award for the performances??

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

:goodorbad

 

[powerslide 10+ year member]

what about the 'God part of the brain?' They have discovered a part of the brain that is only active during religious experience. The fact is 1) Human beings, just like all living things will die and 2) human beings have an AWARENESS of this, its a ticking clock in their head, and they find different ways to cope, or else they'd go insane. The spiritual/God part of the brain serves this purpose.

I've seen people heal too. They may have external influence, and religion can be it if you want, but in the end its them healing themselves. Tibetan monks can adjust their own body temperature. If they can perform these feats, what is to say you cant? Perhaps many of these healing 'miracles' have nothing to do with God or Jesus.

Let me re-phrase that: they have a lot to do with those IDEAS, as they may open the potential of your own mind, like a catalyst. But thats not to say that an external force is actually entering you and changing you

 

[Frraksurred 10+ year member]

i'm catholic.went to catholic school untill 8th grade.

taught me to give money to the church.

if there were true facts about religion, maybe i would believe it.

just live life to the fullest. you make your own decisions.. who cares about the afterlife is there even is one.. make most of what u have now before its all gone

i hate people who try to make u believe in something and trying to convert you..

bring me concrete facts, then you can try to convert me...

I've lost count of how many Catholics have said this or something similar to me. I have nothing against Catholics or Catholicism; I do however grieve over what many Churches have turned Christianity into. When the relationship God desires to have with His creation gets reduced to not more then a collection of do's and don'ts, getting up on Sunday and "putting in your time," and the general religious routine that most the world views as Christianity, then God has been misrepresented and people are basing their conclusions about God on a man made substitute.

I didn't know what "life" was until I truly started to get to know God through His word. My idea of life was getting the most pleasure and comfort possible from whatever form I could. The problem is everything I bought, did, used, along with every relationship I "achieved" eventually ceased to please me. They didn't "get me" like they used to, the thrill subsided and I had to look for a bigger thrill. I was just moving from one "fix" to another. In the end "living life to the fullest," at least the way the world defines it, left me empty and unsatisfied. Every person was created by God, to have a relationship with God. Until that "void" is filled, everything you seek to find happiness in will only do so temporarily...and in many cases will hook you into a destructive lifestyle.

The evidence is in the changed lives of millions of true Christians who have a healthy, growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Not a duty list performed to try and appease God so maybe He'll let them into Heaven some day.

 

[noob with an RS 10+ year member]

i'm saved but don't tell anybody.. i don't wanna sound "gay."

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

I didn't know what "life" was until I truly started to get to know God through His word. My idea of life was getting the most pleasure and comfort possible from whatever form I could. The problem is everything I bought, did, used, along with every relationship I "achieved" eventually ceased to please me. They didn't "get me" like they used to, the thrill subsided and I had to look for a bigger thrill. I was just moving from one "fix" to another. In the end "living life to the fullest," at least the way the world defines it, left me empty and unsatisfied. Every person was created by God, to have a relationship with God. Until that "void" is filled, everything you seek to find happiness in will only do so temporarily...and in many cases will hook you into a destructive lifestyle.

Ever wonder if you don't feel that way because of your mind-set rather than anything spritual actually happening between you and "god"?? You know, the whole "I think therefore I am" thing.

 

[Frraksurred 10+ year member]

did you nkow, that is was Augustine in the 3rd century AD that grafted pletonic physics into religion. Renee Descartes (Ghost in the Machine hypothesis) was the first to distinguish body and soul, and he was alive MUCH later...
So, all this soul business, saving peoples souls, souls going to heaven or hell, wasnt even considered when Jesus walked. This was a later addition to legitimize a religion that was being taken apart as people began to further understand the workings of the world around them.

You seem to have read just enough imformation to be dangerous. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif You have some halftruths, but have swallowed them into a conslusion that, no offense, is simply inaccurate.

The word "soul" itself may be a more modern equivilent to what was used in the original languages in the Bible, but the definitions are the same. The principal of the soul is recorded in even the earliest writtings of the Old Testiment, dating back as much as 4500 years B.C. Jesus was recorded by His own disciples as teaching about a man's soul. A good example of this would be Matthew 16:26 ("What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?"). Luke 16:19-31 records some of Jesus' teaching on where souls end up. The principle and teaching were around long before Augustine or Descartes and their interpretations only managed to muddy the water.

The original christian idea was that when you die, your sould does NOT go to heaven. You are just dead. Then, at the second coming, you are resurrected from the dead and given a new body, which ascends with you to heaven, where you will live in eternal bliss for 1000 years.

This is mostly correct. The teaching originally, as taught by Christ, is the same today. When a faithful believer dies, his or her body "sleeps" in death, while their spirit joins Christ in Heaven. At Christ's second coming, as you said, the bodies are rejoined with their person's spirit and are transformed from "perishable" into "imperishable." The "1000 years of "bliss" you mention must refer to the millenium of peace where Satan shall be bound but we are still on this earth. Upon his release the final battle shall take place after which Heaven and earth shall be destroyed and recreated in their origianl untainted state (next week of creation talked about in the last chapters of Revelations). There shall be an eternity of more then just "bliss" at that point This world and this life is just the beginning of many things to follow. You could call this boot camp where we are not only being trained but tested to see what we will be able to handle and be responsible for. There will be no sitting on a cloud struming a harp. God has a great deal more He wants to do, only we will be a much bigger part of the process.

 

[Frraksurred 10+ year member]

Ever wonder if you don't feel that way because of your mind-set rather than anything spritual actually happening between you and "god"?? You know, the whole "I think therefore I am" thing.

I wasn't working inside of any religious or spiritual "mindset" at the time. I was just a young guy who wanted to have fun. It was all about getting the most out of life. I experienced a lot of things, both moral and immoral, but the end result was inevitably the same. We are created with a God shaped hole inside of us. Many have spent their lives trying to fill it with every other thing or person under the sun...and still felt as though nothing and no one had. Until they open their hearts to Christ and let Him fill it. People on the outside then see a changed life, what you can't see on the inside is the peace and satisfaction that help bring that change. That's something you can't talk yourself into. Even "the power of suggestion" explanation doesn't hold consistent water because to stay convinced of something you have to see continued evidence. "Fruit" as the Bible would call it, and that only follows something that is real, not a fallacy you bought into in your head.

 

[Frraksurred 10+ year member]

i'm saved but don't tell anybody.. i don't wanna sound "gay."

Gay... or ashamed of the cross?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Even "the power of suggestion" explanation doesn't hold consistent water because to stay convinced of something you have to see continued evidence; "fruit" as the Bible would call it.

Play with me for a moment.......assuming there is no god and the Bible isn't accurate, and it is through "the power of suggestion", the Bible could be that evidence.

 

[powerslide 10+ year member]

wow, I enjoy hearing opinions for actual educated believers as opposed to simple zealots.

I do have some difficulty believing that 1) Jesus was the son of a God and 2) the bible is the word of that God.

It does not seem fair to me to say that Jesus died for us and that we should worship him, where countless others have sacrificed their lives for humanity in similar fashion.

Jesus was a very influential man indeed- he brought religion to EVERYONE, away from the original faith that stated only the chosen could be saved. It is easy to see how someone like this could be deified after his death.

>

Here is where I stand personally- if there is a God, I am him. And so are you. The true meaning of that can even be taken loosely from the religion, that states everyone has a personal connection with God. What happened to you, through whatever catalyst you choose (be it religion, meditation, whatever), is a connection with your own greater self. I also am a believer in relativism- that is that there is no objective truth. That what is right and what is wrong are actually equal and opposite - their interpretation is relative. This is another reason I cannot believe in a high power that is 'all good' or 'right.'

>

Opening your heart to Christ and letting him in... perhaps that is actually just a vehicle to opening yourself. I agree with what you say about a hole inside of us. I believe that all humans have huge potential, and many never realize it. I also believe that the feeling of religious experience is a true and valid feeling, but dont believe that it is neccessarily an outside source, but in many cases an outside stimulus.

What do you think on this?