does anyone else find it difficult to have faith when the world is so awful xxxx

@TheWildEcho Yes, I really don't know how people can be happy and have hope without God.

@Carazaa Believe it or not, many of us are happy and have hope without God. You don't have to understand it, but you do have to accept it.

@LeopoldBloom Sure, but when I see animal abuse, and hate towards the poor and discrimination, and homelessness, and natural disasters it makes me sad, Jesus said these things would happen. I know we are at the end and that gives me hope. Jesus is coming soon to take us to heaven.

@Carazaa Those things have always happened. It's not like animal abuse and poor people didn't exist until now.

@LeopoldBloom Not in my homeland!

@Carazaa Religious participation in the US is higher than in Sweden. The more religious a society is, the more violent. The most peaceful countries are the most atheistic ones.

@LeopoldBloom No, Scandinavia did not have much crime for hundreds of years, God blessed them, and now they forgot their God and they have more and more trouble.

@Carazaa Yes, when the Vikings were in charge, they committed crimes in other countries.

@LeopoldBloom Scandinavia was Christianized around year 1000 AD before that they were plundering and killing, I was talking about SINCE Scandinavia became Christian 1000-2000 AD, but since 2000 AD they have forgotten God. God says that if we forget him he will let our enemies enslave us.

Jeremiah 15:14 14I will enslave you to your enemies in a land you do not know, for my anger will kindle a fire that will burn against you."

@Carazaa And for the first 600 years of Scandinavian Christianity, they were Roman Catholics because Protestantism didn't exist yet. But you don't think Catholicism is even Christianity. You can't have it both ways. According to you, Scandinavia wasn't exposed to true Christianity until the 17th century. Until then they were pagans of various types, first Nordic, then Catholic. Right?

@LeopoldBloom The Bible is 6000 years old, and Bible verses were in Sweden before there was the first church in 1100 AD.

@Carazaa The Bible is not 6000 years old by any stretch of the imagination. The Old Testament was first written down in the 8th century B.C., making those books 2700 years old. The most recent books of the OT were written in the first century B.C. The New Testament was written afterwards. The Bible as we know it today was finally codified in the 4th century A.D. The main form of Christianity in Western Europe was Catholicism until the 16th century when Protestantism appeared.

@LeopoldBloom

God has given us the names of every generation's from Adam and Eve to Jesus, and it is verified.

The Torah was written down in scrolls by Moses and other of God's chosen men and women as God spoke to them before Jesus was born.

Long before Jesus was born, God told Isaiah, and the other Israelites that his own arm would save humanity and be the slaughtered lamb.

The Apostles put their own eyewitness accounts of the miracles, hence many accounts of the same miracles in books and letters before they died. It's verified.

Only the church of Philadelphia was faithful as Jesus said to Paul in Revelation.

All the 66 scrolls of the Bible were preserved by Scribes and shared by mouth by Paul and other Godly men throughout the world.

Around 1400 Guttenberg made a press that copied The Holy Bible, and it has gone out to every country. But the Gospel went out to England and Europe and the Middle East before that.

God has saved people since the world began, and still saves. And that is the church God has called. There are saved people in many churches, and probably also in the catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Calvary, Baptist churches. People were saved before there was a Roman Catholic Church.

"By Grace are we saved, through faith, and that not by ourselves, it is a gift from God."

@Carazaa The generations starting from Adam are only "verified" by the Bible itself. By that standard, Harry Potter is a real person.

The Torah was written during the Babylonian exile as an origin story for the Jews. There is no historical evidence that the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt. It's inconceivable that the Egyptian records wouldn't have mentioned this.

You still haven't addressed my point that the only significant form of Christianity in Western Europe for 1600 years was Roman Catholicism.

As for your last line, "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" James 2:14-20

@LeopoldBloom

I addressed your point very well. Read it again.

And regarding work...Jesus said "You must be born again" John:3 AND "If anyone loves me he will keep my word" John 14:21 He is saying here that true Christians are known by their work, but do not enter heaven because of our deeds but only if we have been forgiven because of JESUS WORK ON THE CROSS.

@Carazaa That's one opinion, sola fide. It's not the only one. You're not God's representative on earth where you get to say who a "true Christian" is.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Matthew 7:1-3

@LeopoldBloom Yes I am God's representative on earth

@Carazaa yes, and you're doing a good job!!

@TheWildEcho Thanks, I am not sure but all we can do is try our best. We sow seeds, God will make them grow. He says

@Carazaa That's pretty arrogant. No wonder there have been so many religious wars.

@LeopoldBloom I hope your day gets better,

@Carazaa It will, as soon as God's self-appointed spokespeople realize that they have no more authority than anyone else.

@LeopoldBloom God listens, be nice

@LeopoldBloom Isaiah 43:10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me."