JDay123 at BellSouth.net (Jd) wrote:
>>>Then you cannot say with certainty that God did indeed choose "ALL
>>>of mankind" if you read that in a Bible which is not 100% accurate.
>>>>Nothing can be said with certainty. You might be a butterfly dreaming
>>you are "Jd" and posting on the Internet. There might be no Bible at
>>all, and it might be a figment of your imagination, or you might be a
>>figment of mine.
>>Uncertainty is a law of quantum mechanics devolped by Heisenberg.
>Scientists operate within the realm of probabilities and therefore
>restrict themselves from certainty.
The "butterfly dreaming" thing came from some ancient Chinese
philosopher.
>>If the Bible is true, then I see no basis for a claim of selective
>>grace. If the Bible is not true, then it may or may not matter, but I
>>choose to have faith anyway.
>>Faith in something that may not be true?
If there were proof that it is true, then it would not be faith.
>Unbelief which comes by doubt and uncertainty may very well be
>predicated on the rejection of the existence of truth. Truth also
>comes via the spoken word, for if it were not so, Jesus would have
>to had written his thoughts down with pen and ink. Instead, he
>preached.
Unfortunately the spoken word that is not written cannot be testified
to. My understanding is that the Talmud that you anti-Semites condemn
started as nothing other than the remembrance of the spoken word that
had been passed down for centuries, finally being written down so that
it might not be lost in the Jewish diaspora. The Old Testament that
we have is those oral traditions which was written down at the time of
the Babylonian captivity, and after the return for the same reason.
>The Hebrews in the wilderness were preached to as were the folks in
>Jesus' day...
Yep. And some of the oldest parts of the Talmud are the record of
those teachings (and the rest of the Talmud is the commentary trying
to figure out what those teachings meant)
>For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the
>word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in
>them that heard it. (Hebrews 4:2)
Which is why many or even most of the Talmudic interpretations might
not be acceptable to Christians.
>... which should immediately make anyone interested in truth ask the
>question "what is the gospel?" if they previously thought that the
>"gospel" is only relevant to NT teachings. Obviously, the element
>of certain truth is contained within the phraseology "word preached"
>and is not limited to NT theology (or scientific review which is
>limited by uncertainties). Otherwise, how could many of the OT
>characters have aquired the status of "saints" as is revealed in
>both OT and NT scriptures?
I don't think any OT characters are considered "saints". They are
considered "patriarchs" or "prophets".
>>>>>>Of course there have been plenty of evangelists who seem to have been
>>>>>>speaking of God in order to access the till of donations.
>>>>>>Well, you could say the same for "scientists" i.e. they are only
>>>>>spreading rumors so they can get more and bigger research dollars
>>>>>from Uncle Sam via the tax payers.
>>>>>>>If you don't like it, make sure you never use any modern medicine, or
>>>>a computer, or anything else which would probably not exist without
>>>>those Uncle Sam Research dollars.
>>>>>>Well if you don't like evangelists, you don't think the Bible is
>>>100% accurate,
>>>>I didn't say that, but it is correct.
>>Are you certain?
"don't think" is not a statement of certainty. I see no reason to
believe the Bible to be 100% accurate, and considerable reason to
doubt that it is.
>>>maybe you should swallow copious amounts of pills of every sort
>>>before your feet hit the floor every morning and patiently wait for
>>>me to fire up my computer and send you some truth.
>>>>I have no particular reason to believe that you have any "truth".
>>Hmmm... let's see. I'll bet that's one thing you're certain about,
>right?
No.
lojbab