Part 39 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

What do you think a piece of cloth with some blood on it proves? Nevermind that many conclude it was debunked years ago as a forgery.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shr...roud was denounced as,damaged by fire in 1532.

But let's say it's not a forgery.... And the blood is ancient. What then? What does that prove to you? How do you go from that to God?

 

Of course there is evidence for a talking serpent ... and you have not the faintest idea what most scholars think .. as evidenced by your claim that it was the devil speaking through the serpent demonstrating that the Bible is not a book for the interpretation impaired such as yourself.

You have everything backwards Mitt -- this a sign of being under the influence of the Snake Charmers. Your claim "most scholars agree" a falsehood.

The Bible is full of Evidence for Talking Dragons .. symbol of Wisdom .. and in the garden the Ancient Primordial Dragon Sophia .. who bestows wisdom on humans .. and is punished for this action .

A monstrous falsehood Brother Mitt -- "Most scholars agree that it was the devil speaking through the the old wise Serpent" --- such is not the path to the Truth, The Way the Light.

which tells us nothing .. Hearken not to parlor tricks and snake charmers who run from the teachings of Jesus .. .. the Shroud of Turin could easily be from an ancient alien human hybrid .. as from Jesus .. who himself may have been one of these .. but that is another story Brother Todd .. not something which is going to serve as a solid foundation. Hearken to the word of Jesus .. and let this serve as a rock solid foundation .. and not to the false words from the hands and mouths of men .. as we know who influences those hands ... Don't we Brother Todd !?

 

Nope, actually you got a problem, well maybe I should say sometimes what is presented in Scripture it's hard for some to understand the ways of God. We must understand that His thoughts are nothing like our thoughts and His ways are far beyond anything we could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher that the earth, so is His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

We Read in Scripture:

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT

We also learn from reading Scripture that God is both kind and severe.

We Read in Scripture:

22 Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off. Romans 11:22 NLT

Ok now that I have injected what we know about God I can proceed with the topic of discussion. The serpent was satan in Genesis chapter 3. He was either possessing the serpent, appearing as a serpent or deceiving our first parents Adam and Eve into believing that it was the serpent who was talking to them but as we know serpents/snakes are not of an intellect that would have enabled them to speak coherently.

We learn from reading Scripture satan is described as a serpent and God had cursed the serpent.

We Read in Scripture:

2 He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years. Revelation 20.2 NLT

9 This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels. Revelation 12:9 NLT

14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. Genesis 3:14 ESV

The fact that the serpent was cursed to crawl on his belly and eat the dust of the earth forever is also a way of indicating that the serpent would be forever despised and looked upon as a despicable and vile creature. Truth be told, that's the way I look upon serpents/snakes and the nastiest serpent ever the devil himself an object of scorn and contempt the one that has been deceiving the whole world.

So the question becomes, "So why did God curse the serpent when He knew it was actually satan who had led our first parents Adam and Eve to sin?

Drum roll......answer: The fate of the serpent is an illustration. The curse of the serpent will one day be the fate of satan himself.

We Read in Scripture:

18 You defiled your sanctuaries with your many sins and your dishonest trade. So I brought fire out from within you, and it consumed you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching. 19 All who knew you are appalled at your fate. You have come to a terrible end, and you will exist no more.” Ezekiel 28:18-19 NLT

10 Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation 20:10 NLT

Ok thanks my jolly good fella for your post.

 

Genesis is the writers' imagined story that attempts to explain how we got into this problem of "good and evil", recognizing that these are of no concern to any other living creature. If you read Genesis with that in mind it isn't too difficult to understand that the "serpent", otherwise referenced as "Satan", is a metaphor for "mind". It is mind that conjures up all manner of stories of how this and that happens, why it happens, and how to deal with it. Mind and its thoughts of personal gain lead us to thoughts and knowledge of "evil". Ethics leads us to thoughts and knowledge of "goodness". So it's all mind. And mind leads us to produce thoughts and plans derived from consideration of the many paths our thoughts and experiences of good and evil take us down as they branch out from the understanding and knowledge of "good and evil" to many and various alternative actions and behaviors. The "tree" of "good and evil" with its many pathways and branches produce our lifestyles which are the "fruit" of that tree of good and evil.

So, once early man left the innocence lived by every other creature who knows nothing of good and evil, mankind "fell from grace" as s/he became responsible for how we deal with good and evil. We live our lives accordingly, sampling what's good and sampling what's evil. We "ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" according to the writer of Genesis. And to that writer, that which is good is of god, and that which is evil is of mind or "Satan".

Compare that to Genesis and you will have the answer to many questions.

 

WAIT! HOLD IT!

You forgot that god knows the end from the beginning and god doesn't change...

Isaiah 42:9 - "Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

Isaiah 46:10 "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure"

James 1:17 - "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

Malachi 3:6 - For I am the LORD, I change not

But you say your god who claims to be unchanging and knows the future will "cut you off" if you stop trusting? WHAT????

Did god create you knowing how you would turn out, or did he create you to see how you turn out?

 

Please provide a link to what you consider an "honest" study. Cause the honest studies I am aware of date the shroud to 1260-1390. If you assert the shroud represents a supernaturally created image of Jesus then you have an obligation to provide proof of your claim.

Here is a read you might find interesting.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jmbwzg/the-weird-and-fraudulent-world-of-catholic-relics-456

 

What???...you say...lol It's because you're interpretation impaired and can't comprehend what you're reading. And it's rather obvious you don't understand God's immutability.

No worries, I'm here to help steer you onto the right track.

The immutability of God is related to His omniscience. When someone changes his/her mind it is usually because new information has come to light that was not previously known or because the circumstances have changed and require a different attitude or action.

Because God is omniscient, He cannot learn something new that He did not already know. So, when the Bible speaks of God changing His mind, it must be understood that the circumstance or situation has changed, not God.

Now let me put up Romans 11:22 because that's the verse you're referring to:

We Read in Scripture:

22 Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off. Romans 11:22 NLT

When Romans 11:22 speak of God being kind to someone who trust His kindness but then goes on to say "but if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off" it is simply describing a change of dispensation and outward dealing toward someone who has changed, not God and in this case as it pertains to this verse in Scripture a stoppage of trust in God will result in God "cutting off" a person who stopped their trust in Him.

What I like to do now is present all the attributes of our Creator Almighty God. This comes from a post I made several years ago.

Ok thanks Kode for your post.

 

Why and when did the creator god create Satan, and where is heaven?

 

Ah! Got it! God is omniscient and didn't know a situation would change so he asked us to do something else, knowing we wouldn't! OF COURSE!!!!

And you say I'm the one who doesn't understand. WTF do you think "omniscient" means?????

Why would your "god" create the world and everything in it, KNOWING what would happen, KNOWING what each of us would do, and not only ask us to do otherwise, but PUNISH us for doing what he created us to do after asking us to do differently, KNOWING we wouldn't?!!

And you don't see anything troubling in this. (?)

 

Let's remember #2 - infinite god.

3. Unchanging. Let's remember that too because we will need it shortly.

4. Perfect.

5. Inscrutable. ... Meaning if something seems to be contradictory or illogical; if there's a conflict; . . . it's because you can't understand god so don't try. So the bible is meaningless since god "dictated it" and we can't understand god. And he sometimes means the opposite of what he said.

6. "No respecter of persons" doesn't mean what you say it does. It means individuals referred to as "the natural man" is of no reality to god.

7. "all-powerful and can do anything that pleases Him" -like contradict his other above "unchangeable" nature to be otherwise?

8. Omnipresent which is the same as #2 - infinite. Can god be where you are? Can god occupy the same space as a sinner does? Is god within all of us? Or is he LIMITED from some places?

9. Omniscient - perfect knowledge of the past, present, and future. Let's remember this one too!

10. God is one. Obviously that would HAVE TO BE true if god is omnipresent (infinite). So then god is within and unrepentant sinner too because if god is omnipresent then there is no place from which god is limited or absent. So the Holy Spirit IS god, as is the Christ: one being; one Self and no other. But you don't actually believe this Mitt. I stated that the Trinity is simply our different views of "god" and you said I was wrong. Now you say I was correct. Egad.

11. Our sins had to be forgiven? Really? You said god is perfect, god is pure, god knows the end from the beginning, so he created each of us to be as we are because he is omnipotent and omniscient and his will is therefore done without exception. So we do what he created us each to do and then we have to be forgiven for doing it??????? Just a touch of schizophrenia maybe?

12. "All of His creation put together cannot thwart His purposes." . . . . ––which is what I just said in #11. "His will is done without exception". Thank you for stressing that point. So is it his will that we do evil and that we sin or not?

14. Trinity. Refer to #10 above.

15. Cannot lie. So is he love and pure and unchanging, or is he wrathful sometimes, making him a liar regarding purity and unchangeability?

16. "God sees all evil and it angers Him." So right away you indicate god is a liar after saying he cannot lie. Is god love and pure and unchanging, or does he change and become angry sometimes? YOU said God sees all evil and evil changes him! It angers Him! WHICH IS IT?

17. "God is gracious, and His grace includes His goodness, kindness, mercy, and love." And since he is unchanging and is pure that cannot change BUT he is angered sometimes and so he is wrathful sometimes.

Either all this is bullshit or as I said, there's just a touch of schizophrenia involved.

So what can your defense of this be, Mitt, other than denial?

 

Do you realize that using the bolded to try to make excuses for the immoral and to dress them up as moral is the same reasoning that drove planes into buildings on 9/11? The Lord works in mysterious ways. He wants suffering and all sorts of immoral things because it serves some mysterious greater good, ya?

 

You have a rather irritating habit of saying "you just don't understand plain English as well as I do". I, for one, have adequately demonstrated that you are really the one who willfully confuses, accepts contradictions, expresses same, and is incapable of grasping the spiritual meaning hidden ever so slightly in the words of the bible. I suggest you refrain from telling people they just don't understand the words in the future.

 

Why did Abraham's god need to discuss the number of righteous people in Gomorrah with Abraham when they shared a meal together, and then go down to count them if he was omniscient and omnipresent - Genesis 18? Or was Abraham's god neither omniscient or omnipresent?

 

Permit me first to answer your question "When did Almighty God the Creator create satan?"

I hope you don't mind me altering your question just a tad, it's the same question but worded a tad differently.

The answer is unknown all we can say is that it was before Almighty God created our physical world because satan who was formerly the angel lucifer was already present in the garden of Eden in his fallen state.

Let me present a video from my favorite Christian Ministry, they will answer the question, "When did God create the angels?"



Ok thanks Mitty for your question, I will continue later on to respond to your other two questions.

 

And he was initially created by God, who knew all this would happen, bieng omniscient and all, so clearly intending it.
And the serpent, and all serpents afterwards are punished for what not they, but Satan in the form of them did in that garden.
And what Satan did in that garden was tempt Adam and Eve to eat the "Fruit of knowledge of good and evil".
So, not yet having that knowledge, they can't have known good from evil, but were somehow expected to know its good to obey God.....
And then all of humanity is declared "fallen" because of these two people eating that forbiden fruit.
Until Jesus comes along and his vicarious suffering somehow makes it all ok, and gets God to forgive man for what these two did.

So many layers of immorality that it is hard to keep count.
Yet Christians think they hold themselves to higher moral standards than the rest of us. Riiiight.

 

Answer: Is unknown because we do not have verses in Scripture that give us a geographical location but the short answer to this question is: "Heaven is where our Creator Almighty God is."

You might ponder and ask, "How would one get to heaven someday?

Answer: We are allowed access into heaven someday through faith in Lord Savior Jesus Christ.

We Read in Scripture:

16 "For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 NLT

28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, John 10:28 NLT

25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. John 11:25 NLT

6 Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me." John 14:6 NLT

You might ponder again and ask, "What kind of place is heaven?"

Answer: Heaven is a place of "no mores". There will be no more tears, no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain. All these things are gone forever.

We Read in Scripture:

4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” Revelation 21:4 NLT

Ok thanks Mitty for your question, I will answer your last question shortly.

 

1. Mitt, is "heaven" different from "the kingdom of God"?

 

But why was Lucifer created billions of years ago, given that Earth is billions of years old?

And when and where was the garden of Eden, given that our aborigines arrived here over 50,000 years ago and the extinction of dinosaurs occurred over 65 million years ago?

 

IOW Moses and Noah and David etc never went to heaven since they didn't believe in Jesus.

 

We cannot know for sure why Almighty God the Creator created satan. There are no verses in Scripture that our Creator Almighty God explicitly tells us why He created satan.

But what we know is that satan before his fall was the angel Lucifer who like everyone else (angles, humans) have free will and made his own choices. Our Creator Almighty God did not create Lucifer as the devil, for He created him good. When God created, it is true that all He created was good.

We Read in Scripture:

31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! Genesis 1:31 NLT

One of the good things God made was creatures who had the freedom to choose good.

In order to have a real choice, God had to allow there to be something besides good to choose. So, God allowed these free angels and humans to choose good or reject good (evil).

If God had not allowed for the possibility of evil, both mankind and angels would be serving God out of obligation, not choice. He did not want "robots" that simply did His will because of their "programming".

How could God love programmed robots? So He gave us free will and choose whether or not we wanted to serve Him.

And so the angel Lucifer using his freedom of free will chose to become bad/evil and he became satan the devil the fallen angel who was booted (expelled) out of heaven along with other fallen angels by God.

We Read in Scripture:

16 Your rich commerce led you to violence, and you sinned. So I banished you in disgrace from the mountain of God. I expelled you, O mighty guardian, from your place among the stones of fire. 17 Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty. Your wisdom was corrupted by your love of splendor. So I threw you to the ground and exposed you to the curious gaze of kings. Ezekiel 28:16-17 NLT

15 Instead, you will be brought down to the place of the dead, down to its lowest depths. Isaiah 14:15 NLT

Ok thanks Mitty for your post.

 

It's actually deeply troubling the way some people read a magical and symbolic myth like it's a history lesson.

 

No, all people who lived prior to Lord Jesus before He became the Savior went to heaven.

Our Creator Almighty God was being fair when He held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for He was looking ahead and including them in what He would do in this present time. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for He Himself is fair and just, and He declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

We Read in Scripture:

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. Romans 3:23-26 NLT

Ok thanks Mitty for your post.

 

This brings to mind a story a lady once told me. She went to a remote village in Africa to volunteer in a program to end an outbreak of some disease. While there a missionary group came through to preach Jesus to the village people, most of whom never heard of him. She overheard a missionary as he finished preaching to a small group of people and heard him tell the group that now they had Jesus who would save them from sin and hell if they accepted him. A young woman in the group asked him what would have happened to her when she died if she had never heard of Jesus and he replied that she would have automatically gone to heaven. The young woman then asked "then why did you tell me about Jesus? Why didn't you just leave us alone?"

 

IOW all Hindus and Buddhists and Julius Caesar and unbelievers went to heaven.

 

Why not just send Jesus immediately? And why does mere belief in him make evil people ok with God? Catholic priest rapists in heaven, and Ghandi in hell eh? Faith and obedience to power over empathy, kindness, and fairness eh?