Did God Create Man Or Did Man Create God?

ktm rider wrote:That is EXACTLY why it is called FAITH ( and not fact) You have to have FAITH that it is fact.

I am in no way pointing this comment at anyone personally.... but, anyone that says "believe as I do or you are wrong" has created a world where we have no free will and we are in line to be controlled by others or at the very minimum by our EGO creating external enemies so we can convince ourselves to do battle with our fellow man (either literally or physically).

Simply put free will threatens organized religion, governments and any other form of control, unless of course those entities can create rules or laws that make the consequence for exercising that free will match the ideology they are selling. And guess what that is exactly what is done.

Its real simple, the rules in life are the Ten Commandments & God is the boss.

Ahh, yes, the pain and suffering question. This is a question that everyone tries to answer but can not. Some say that God made us to be free. free to think on our own, Free to follow on our own and free to worship on our own. Others claim that without pain and suffering how could anyone possibly know pleasure and joy?

Others claim it has to do with Adam and his disobedience....
I have no idea. if i did I would be giving the sermon in D.C. this week and not the current Pope.

ktm rider wrote:

Devil5052 wrote:I think we would all like to believe your interpretation, but some of us just cvan't or don't know.

That is EXACTLY why it is called FAITH ( and not fact) You have to have FAITH that it is fact.

"I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Matthaus wrote:

ktm rider wrote:That is EXACTLY why it is called FAITH ( and not fact) You have to have FAITH that it is fact.

I am in no way pointing this comment at anyone personally.... but, anyone that says "believe as I do or you are wrong" has created a world where we have no free will and we are in line to be controlled by others or at the very minimum by our EGO creating external enemies so we can convince ourselves to do battle with our fellow man (either literally or physically).

Simply put free will threatens organized religion, governments and any other form of control, unless of course those entities can create rules or laws that make the consequence for exercising that free will match the ideology they are selling. And guess what that is exactly what is done.

If you read what devil5052 posted you will see I am not saying he is wrong. You are taking my answer out of context. he said he would like to believe my interpretation but some of us can't or just don't know.

I don't know either that is why it is called FAITH. that is all I was saying...

We have a good, intelligent an honest discussion going here. Let's try to keep it unemotional & realize that noone here is attacking anyone personaly or their faith. We are merely asking questions. (If questions are not allowed in a discusson of religeon, than how can any people ever be swayed to be believers?)

Devil5052 wrote:We have a good, intelligent an honest discussion going here. Let's try to keep it unemotional & realize that noone here is attacking anyone personaly or their faith. We are merely asking questions. (If questions are not allowed in a discusson of religeon, than how can any people ever be swayed to be believers?)

I am not trying to sway you at all. You can think whatever you want to think. Just don't stand beside me on Judgement day. .I will deny knowing you whatsoever. !

look at this whole thing this way. Lets say I worship my entire life and believe in God my whole life. Come to find out once i die there isn't any God at all. Nothing Zilch. What am I really out? Nothing.
Now what if I decide to say there is no God and I never worship at all my entire life and then, come to find out that there is a heaven and a God??????????? UH OH !!! not a good thing....

This is NOT why I worship God. It is a personal thing that can not be described.

Besides, I would not really want you to worship God simply because I convinced you to do so. I want you to want to worship God because You wanted to for YOU and ONLY YOU...

"...anyone that says "believe as I do or you are wrong" has created a world where we have no free will and we are in line to be controlled by others or at the very minimum by our EGO creating external enemies so we can convince ourselves to do battle with our fellow man (either literally or physically)..."

Sounds like Islam to a "T"...

I may have missed the answer to the question I posted earlier & if I did, maybe someone would point it out to me. If not I'll paste it again here:

If there is a benevolent God watching over us here on earth, please explain how Auschvitz, 9/11, wars, disease & all other horrors occured on his watch?

This is a serious question & one that most of us who are not faithfull & others who are just unsure would really lik an answer to, beyond the "Lord works in ways we can't understand" answer that is usually given.

ktm rider wrote:Ahh, yes, the pain and suffering question. This is a question that everyone tries to answer but can not. Some say that God made us to be free. free to think on our own, Free to follow on our own and free to worship on our own. Others claim that without pain and suffering how could anyone possibly know pleasure and joy?

Others claim it has to do with Adam and his disobedience....
I have no idea. if i did I would be giving the sermon in D.C. this week and not the current Pope.

Again this is where you have to have Faith. No one ever said this was a free easy ride and their would n't be tough times...

I thought that I wouldn't enjoy this discussion when I first saw it, but actually this is a nice diversion.

SPC I don't disagree with your right to believe that, I believe we all are able use our own hearts to discern what is true, and GOD is not waiting to smite us if we wander off what is printed in the Bible (which is a whole other topic about how man has perverted GOD's word).

KTM Rider, yep that is the essence of the discussion with Christians on this topic, of course the other religions have their own set of consequences and results from free will. (and I didn't direct my comments at you only used it for my own purpose )

I believe that ultimately the universe will show us the natural laws of GOD's love and we will each have our own perspective and actions as a result of that awareness. If religion helps you reach that... the more power to you, but don't tell me I can't follow my own beliefs as long as they are not harming others.

And as to the question about how does GOD allow bad things to happen to good people? We have humanizing a supreme being that is beyond our comprehension to a large extent, of course we would not understand why things happen.

Hey......Is this a great forum or what!! Where else can you learn how to light & shakedown a coalstove, what is the best coal to buy, is there a God & what happens after we die!!?!

You cant beat it!!

Agree DEvil, and where else but in a free country can a man with the screen name Devil start that discussion.

At the risk of saying something political in a discussion on religion... what is wrong with Islam? If we feel it is so wrong why do we embrace some of it's nations and kick the *censored* out of others? Maybe we should treat it like we did Communism and close off our borders to it and retreat?

Again I will say it, our EGO creates external enemies so we can justify our actions against them. Has really nothing to do with religion IMO

Matthaus wrote: and GOD is not waiting to smite us if we wander off what is printed in the Bible (which is a whole other topic about how man has perverted GOD's word).
.

I think you are correct here also. How can a book be written by mere mortals 100 years after the fact and it be 100% accurate? I believe in most of what is written, (i.e. the ressurection) but I'm a bit skeptical on the whole Noahs Ark thing.
Remember playing "telephone" as a kid ? You got in a line of about 10 kids and the first kid whispered something to the second kid and then he whispered it to the third kid and so on. By the time it got to the last kid it was totally out of context but had some truth to it still. I think this was the case with the Bible.

By the way I forgot to add to the first post I put on this thread, I respect every coal forum member and their opinions as fellow human beings, and have no problems with any of the ideology expressed.

Matthaus wrote:... what is wrong with Islam? If we feel it is so wrong why do we embrace some of it's nations and kick the *censored* out of others? Maybe we should treat it like we did Communism and close off our borders to it and retreat?

there isn't anything wrong with Islam. It is radical Islamics that is the problem. They take the Quran to its most literal sense. They believe that if you are not Muslim it is their duty to rid you from the earth..

There ar ealso so many different "Sects" to Islam. Some are not all that bad and some are totally over the top. Atleast that is the way it works here at work. ( I work at a Federal Penitentiary) and this is a big deal here in the joint....