What’s Jesus Done For You?
That's what an atheist recently asked. According to this, this person who denies the existence of God in his life, I'm no better off than anyone else in the world, including him. (((wry smile)))
Because of my relationship with Jesus, I have the freedom to have wonderful, deep and abiding peace. I have the freedom to have peace in the thick of adversity, peace in the midst of conflict, peace in the face of opposition, peace beneath the weight of every burden. I have the freedom to lie down and sleep in peace knowing that the Creator of the Universe provides for my safety.
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"Because of my relationship with Jesus..."
ReplyDelete=
Because I believe in an imaginary friend...
And when you die, you'll have a relationship with another man, sounds almost gay doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteMatthew 12:34 - “How can you who are evil say anything good. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The evil man brings evil out of the evil that is stored up in him. But I tell you that you will have to give account on the day of Judgement for every careless word you have spoken. Words can be your salvation, or words can also be your damnation.”
ReplyDelete"For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."
ReplyDeleteThis statement alone should have been a red flag indicator, indicating that the heart speaks, where as we know through medical research today that the heart is a pump and only pumps blood.
The heart does not speak, it does not wax cold, it does not have strings, nor a rudder to guide someone, these are all metaphorical lies used by the bible writers to manipulate the way a person feels and thinks. In which you fell for completely, if you're a grown adult, you should know better yourself.
Using metaphors instead of truth is being dishonest, which the bible is full of metaphorical lies.
Again metaphorical lies should be an indicator that the bible is in no way honest and not a representation of truth.
Also not one word of the bible was written by a god nor jesus, another indicator that the bible is a fraud. Christianity is the biggest hoax ever devised in the history of mankind.
Titus 1:15 - To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
ReplyDelete"Using metaphors is being dishonest"
ReplyDeleteAnd this is a principle that you apply to all the literature you read?
"And this is a principle that you apply to all the literature you read?"
ReplyDeleteOh so you agree that the Bible is just some literature? Good to know that we can look at it for what it is... stories.
Liteature - noun - writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.
ReplyDeleteAre you able to answer the question? In any and all literature that you read, assuming that you do read, is metaphor equal to dishonesty? Or do you apply special conditions to the Bible?
This is interesting, can I answer instead of the Anon who said it was dishonest?
ReplyDeletePerhaps what he meant was that it's dishonest to use metaphor when the text is not supposed to be one...
So the answer to your question is obviously no... Metaphor is not always dishonest. Why are you asking such a !$&!$&!$&$ question?
Perhaps you could answer a question then...
How do you know that one part of the Bible is a metaphor and not the other?
Let's say... hum... Jesus rose from the dead. Metaphor or not?
Ok ok, let's cut the suspense, you're a Christian, you believe it was not a metaphor, but what evidence do you have to believe that?
Hum, we already know this answer too... ok ok, what evidence do you have beside:
"Some people were impressed enough to write about it and share it with other people?"
Anything else?
I don't read.
ReplyDeleteHugo, you're not serious - are you?
ReplyDeleteSurely you know that at that time, in that culture "the heart" as it was used in this sentence means:
the person
the esssence
the being
exactly as it is still used in our culture.
"Take it to heart."
"His heart was in the right place."
"Her heart wasn't in it."
"He wears his heart on his sleeve."
Can anyone really be so stupid as to believe that the speaker of these expressions or the sentences in the Bible is referring to the physical heart - and what’s more, can anyone be so stupid as to believe that the speaker is attempting to be dishonest for using a metaphor?
I know that you're an intelligent man Hugo, so why are you pretending to not know the difference between symbolic and literal phrases in the Bible? Why are you pretending to not be able to differentiate between metaphor, irony, or hyperbole? If you’re suggesting that you can’t tell that this is where a poem ends and a moral directive begins, if you’re suggesting that you can’t understand that a political diatribe is different from romantic literature, well, talk about dishonest.
You’re a better man than that.
:( I had answered yesterday night but it was lost; perhaps because I was not signed it since I was using my gf's computer, just like this morning...
ReplyDeleteOh well, in short, you are right, I don't really understand why the Anon said it was dishonest to use a metaphor such as "the hearth" since it's obvious that it is a symbol.
The issue is that parts of the Bible that are obviously metaphorical are taken literally by believers. This is why I find it pretty ironic to read you say:
"why are you pretending to not know the difference between symbolic and literal phrases in the Bible? Why are you pretending to not be able to differentiate between metaphor, irony, or hyperbole?"
With all due respect, you're the one who needs to answer these questions; you're the one who makes an exception for the Bible since you believe, for example, that a virgin birth and a resurrection are events that took place in reality, and not symbols used to describe the nature of a Personal Creator God.
I know all your arguments that can come right after such questions; how people could not have lied, how a resurrection would be the only thing impressive enough to write about it, and so on... but it always go back to the same idea: they were living at different times, in a completely different context, and were already believers of magic, daemons, angels, and so on.
So even a persecutor of Christian turning to a Christian is not surprising, and especially not convincing as proof that the resurrection took place. The only contemporary evidence we have are texts, and you have a bias toward these texts because of your personal experience, your feelings and your sense of morality that must come from a divine source according to you.
The Bible can be used as a very positive guide to teach good behavior, but it can also be used as an easy cope-out for using our own reason to answer difficult questions that require context and analysis. Unfortunately, on many issues you fall in the category of people who prefer to take the easy way... regarding homosexuality for example.
You mentioned that it was "wrong" many times, without any argument whatsoever since the only reason you can say it is wrong is because the Bible says so. That's a shortcut, a way to prevent you from even thinking about it, about why it still exists after millions of years of evolution, and whether they should be considered equal or not in terms of union.
Anyway, that's way too long for nothing as I used to do... hence why I prefer not to comment here anymore too much.
Enjoy Jesus in your life but if you could try to see pass the "us vs them" mentality it would make you a much better person already... but that's just the pointless opinion of a single human being you have no reason to care about.