Signs of the Times..

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout
Book of Ezekiel has: sword, famine, wild beasts & pestilence

@ElwoodBlues Yes.. The OT and NT cover the same future event, Just from two different prophets..

@ElwoodBlues Lord of The Rings has the same.

@Entwistle Are you talking about the nine Ringwraiths AKA Nazgul?

@ElwoodBlues yu’al seem to take comparisons like sunlight to vampires..
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@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout I never know whether I'm communicating with a biblical literalist or someone who sees it as an allegory. I don't think the nine Ringwraiths have much in common with the four horsemen except for mode of transport.

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout this about sums it up for some, I suppose!

@soar2newhighs The Almighty tells me there's a lot of completely deluded folks running around trying to put themselves on pedestals!

@ElwoodBlues

@ElwoodBlues Yes indeed, but hey, nature of the beast(s).

@soar2newhighs Remind me, who is it that drinks blood and eats flesh in church every Sunday??

[quote]Remind me, who is it that drinks blood and eats flesh in church every Sunday??[/quote]

@ElwoodBlues No body does that... Even if they think they are.. They are not..

After I said:
[quote]Remind me, who is it that drinks blood and eats flesh in church every Sunday??[/quote]

@Adstar said
[quote]@ElwoodBlues No body does that... Even if they think they are.. They are not..[/quote]

Are you sure? Do you really think you know more than 260+ popes? More than 1.3 BILLION living Catholics too? It's actually pretty easy to completely disparage millions of peoples' deepest beliefs; I know, I do it too. But what does that say of your own beliefs, @Adstar ? Just as easily dismissed, right?

Is the respect you hold for the beliefs of others a good guide for how much we should respect your beliefs? What, you never held up that mirror??

@ElwoodBlues A[quote]re you sure? Do you really think you know more than 260+ popes? More than 1.3 BILLION living Catholics too? [/quote]

Yes i do, when it comes to the scriptures.. Your mistake is to think popularity makes something correct..

[quote] It's actually pretty easy to completely disparage millions of peoples' deepest beliefs; I know, I do it too.[/quote]

I never do it for fun.. A belief is either true or it is not true..

[quote]But what does that say of your own beliefs, @Adstar ? Just as easily dismissed, right? [/quote]

Irrelevant.. If my belief is truth then it is true.. I could end up as the only person who believed something on earth and if it was true then it would remain true no matter if 8 billion other people did not believe it..

[quote]Is the respect you hold for the beliefs of others a good guide for how much we should respect your beliefs?[/quote]

I don't respect others beliefs if they are false / not truth.. Does not matter a jot to me is a billion people believe something that is wrong..

[quote]What, you never held up that mirror??[/quote]

Whats that got to do with anything? Holding a mirror? This has nothing to do with peoples character or nobility or their intelligence.. This has everything to do with what is and what is not true..

And i think it is incredibly strange that you a disbeliever in God or at lest the Christian idea of God, would try to lecture me about disrespecting others because me believe something different to them and here you are believing in things different to over a billion Christians not to mention religious Jews and muslims.. If you believe that i should be somehow ashamed that i voice a disbelief in a catholic doctrine and am disrespecting catholics for doing so ( which i am not doing by the way). Then for sure you should also condemn yourself in the same way because of your hypocrisy in stating beliefs opposed to mine.. Turn that mirror on yourself..

@Adstar [quote]I don't respect others beliefs if they are false / not truth.. Does not matter a jot to me is a billion people believe something that is wrong.. [/quote] Of course that raises the question of how one tests for truth; I know how we do it in science, but the religious methodology never made sense to me. But I want to address your point about numbers.

So you think your God would have no problem with billions of people being either self-deceived or mislead by a false religion? All these folks praying their hearts out while He ignores those prayers in stony silence? Your God wouldn't want to intervene even if He had only one remaining true believer? I always thought the general Christian approach was to maximize the number of folks going to Heaven, and I found that admirable. Seems I had that wrong though.

@ElwoodBlues
[quote]
So you think your God would have no problem with billions of people being either self-deceived or mislead by a false religion?[/quote]

I never expressed that.. So why do you lie and project thoughts onto me that i never expressed. Oh trying to build a strawman so you can then burn it and declare yourself the winner, lol .. typical..

God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and be saved... BUT millions of people decide not to.. God cannot save anyone who rejects his salvation..

[quote] All these folks praying their hearts out while He ignores those prayers in stony silence?[/quote]

Many think they will be heard because of their man words.. I used to pray like that when i was a catholic, doing decads of the rosary was a thing for me back when i blasphemed God by praying to dead people and not directly to the LORD Himself.. Also one must pray in the will of God.. No point praying to God as a religous person if you do not trust 100% in the atonement of the LORD Jesus Christ.. (1 John 5:14) "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that,[c=7700B2][u] if we ask any thing according to his will[/u][/c], he heareth us:"

[quote]Your God wouldn't want to intervene even if He had only one remaining true believer?[/quote]

No.. why even pose this question...

[quote] I always thought the general Christian approach was to maximize the number of folks going to Heaven, and I found that admirable. Seems I had that wrong though.[/quote]

It is my desire to see the maximum number of people have eternal life with Jesus... And i am a Christian.. So your thinking was right.. So why do you now think you where wrong? Very strange.. Nothing i have expressed would lead you to think you where wrong.. maybe you are simply trying to mis-represent me in the old build a strawman tactic again?

@Adstar
[quote]I never expressed that.. So why do you lie and project thoughts onto me that i never expressed. [/quote] To me it seemed implicit in the claim that 1.3 billion Catholics have it wrong. And I assume you believe 1.9 billion Muslims and 1.15 billion Hindus have it wrong too. So it seems to me that you are convinced that the vast vast majority of the world's believers have it wrong. And, frankly, it's been that way for thousands of years. If God weren't OK with this state of affairs, why let it persist for thousands of years?

I happen to agree with you that the vast vast majority of the world's believers most likely have it wrong. I'm just going one step further and saying, most likely, ALL of the world's believers have it wrong. Our positions really aren't that far apart.

I can't help noticing that a system for saving souls that fails to save 99.99% of souls just ain't working. Which leads me to conclude that most likely, there is no system for saving souls.

@ElwoodBlues [quote]To me it seemed implicit in the claim that 1.3 billion Catholics have it wrong. And I assume you believe 1.9 billion Muslims and 1.15 billion Hindus have it wrong too. So it seems to me that you are convinced that the vast vast majority of the world's believers have it wrong. And, frankly, it's been that way for thousands of years. If God weren't OK with this state of affairs, why let it persist for thousands of years?[/quote]

For the ones He foreknew WOULD believe in and accept His Way of salvation... They have to be born and end reach the point of accepting His will...

[quote]I happen to agree with you that the vast vast majority of the world's believers most likely have it wrong. I'm just going one step further and saying, most likely, ALL of the world's believers have it wrong. Our positions really aren't that far apart. [/quote]

Well if that was the case then i would start wondering why God would allow it to continue.. But i know that is not the actual situation.. His followers may be very few indeed but they exist.. Jesus even told us in the Bible that there would be very few people with faith on the day He returns..

[quote]I can't help noticing that a system for saving souls that fails to save 99.99% of souls just ain't working. [/quote]

It works at a rate of 100% for those who have acccepted it...

But those who disbelieve in Jesus their disbelief has them already condemned.. If you tell your children to wear seat belts in the car and they don't and the car crashes they will die..

(John 3:18) "¶ [c=BF0000]He that believeth on him is not condemned: but [c=7700B2]he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God[/c][/c]."

[quote]Which leads me to conclude that most likely, there is no system for saving souls.
[/quote]

There is.. But a lot of people are too proud to admit they need to adopt the system to be saved..

As the scriptures state.. ""Wherefore he saith: [c=7700B2]God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble[/c]""

@Adstar [quote] If you tell your children to wear seat belts in the car and they don't and the car crashes they will die.. [/quote] That's really a terrible analogy, and here's why. There's not just one message my kids are getting. It's not just the binary of seatbelts or no seatbelts.

To get away from cars, we're being told to follow Buddha. We're being told to follow Krishna. We're being told to follow Allah. We're being told to follow Rev Moon.

All those 1.3 billion Catholics are told they're playin' it safer if they drink the wine and chew the wafer (apologies to Tom Lehrer). Everybody is telling them that's what scripture says to do, that's the path to salvation. But you're telling them NO! You're telling them that when they die they'll discover they and their whole community have spent their whole lives on the wrong path. Same with the Muslims. Same with the Buddhists.

You're telling me the path to salvation is obvious, while, at the same time, you're telling me that 99.99% of people get it wrong. If the path to salvation were clear, people would be able to agree on it. If the path to salvation were clear, a lot more than .01% would find it.

You're asking me to believe in a Merciful God who's system consigns 99.99% to eternal damnation amidst hellfire & brimstone. I got news for ya, buddy. That God ain't merciful. That God is a contradiction in terms.

[quote]God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble[/quote] Reminds me of my favorite quote from Hazel Motes in [u]Wise Blood:[/u] "I reckon you think you been redeemed." The moment people think they've found the path to salvation they become proud. And we see that all over the US today.

@ElwoodBlues
[quote]That's really a terrible analogy, and here's why. There's not just one message my kids are getting. It's not just the binary of seatbelts or no seatbelts. [/quote]

Well no analogy is perfect but the way of salvation is basically a binary message.. The only way to eternity with God is by believing Jesus and trusting in the atonement He secured by his death on the cross.. That's a pretty simple message that a lot of people reject by their own free will..

[quote]
To get away from cars, we're being told to follow Buddha. We're being told to follow Krishna. We're being told to follow Allah. We're being told to follow Rev Moon. [/quote]

And atheists say don't follow anyone but yourself.. You can be told by 20 different people to follow 20 different things but in the end The Individual must decide in who they trust.. So the overriding message is [c=7700B2]make a choice[/c]..

[quote]All those 1.3 billion Catholics are told they're playin' it safer if they drink the wine and chew the wafer (apologies to Tom Lehrer). Everybody is telling them that's what scripture says to do, that's the path to salvation. But you're telling them NO! You're telling them that when they die they'll discover they and their whole community have spent their whole lives on the wrong path. Same with the Muslims. Same with the Buddhists.
[/quote]

Yep.. Yep.. and Yep.. So they can decide to investigate the Bible and check it and see if it aligns with their religious teachings.. Same with muslims and buddhists.. the Bible is now online and in nearly all the languages of the earth..


[quote]You're telling me the path to salvation is obvious, while, at the same time, you're telling me that 99.99% of people get it wrong.[/quote]

I never said it was obvious.. I said there is only one Way.. and i never said anything about percentages the 99.99 figure is your doing..

[quote]I got news for ya, buddy. That God ain't merciful. That God is a contradiction in terms.[/quote]

God is merciful. incredibly merciful.. He offers salvation as a gift we do not have to earn by our own efforts.. He even suffered death to pay the penalty for our sins.. Salvation for free.. Easy as drinking water.. guys like Adolph hitler or Joh starlin or Pol pot could have believed and accepted God gift of salvation on their death beds and they would have been forgiven all their evil.. But as i said above.. for some weird reason people simply refuse to accept Gods gift of salvation.. As the old saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink..

@Adstar All in all it reminds me of a passage from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This is the Planning Dept speaking with Arthur Dent about the plans to demolish his house:
[quote]“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'” [/quote]

Yes, sometimes you can blame the people for ignoring the message. But when 99.99% of the people are missing the message, it's time to blame the messenger.

@ElwoodBlues If one had heard /read the Word of God.. If someone has had the Way of salvation offered to them then they have no excuse.. People like you Elwoodblues have no excuse, you have diselieved the LORD Jesus and rejected His atonement.. The Word is not down in some basement for you.. It is right in your face..

@Adstar When I said that sometimes you can blame the people for ignoring the message. but when 99.99% of the people are missing the message, it's time to blame the messenger, what I intended to convey is this.

I believe your conception of salvation is deeply flawed. I believe a merciful God would NEVER create a system that consigned 99.99% of souls to eternal damnation. I don't know if God exists, but whether or not He or She does, I'm convinced your narrow conception of Him/Her is DEAD WRONG.