Dan's Stuff

[noski]

Kevin,
Did some research on the Hebrew Ten Commandments.
The word is 'ratsakh' which means 'illegal killing'. So murder is a better word than kill.
But the word for commandment is not the word used . The word,or words used mean 'The ten words, or the Ten sayings. Just what I found.

[noski]

SD,
You said you had 'proof' your sins are forgiven. What would that be? Just trying to get some understanding...

[albpilot]

Mar 31, 2010 9:04:12 GMT -5 noski said:

SD,
You said you had 'proof' your sins are forgiven. What would that be? Just trying to get some understanding...

The 'proof' comes in the belief. If you are a believer, you are saved and your sins are forgiven. At this point, it falls into the textbook definition of faith - believing in something that you cannot prove physically.

I'm a believer. I have faith that my sins were forgiven by the sacrifice Christ payed for my sins on the cross. But I can't 'prove' it to you in the way you mean.

[KevinR]

Indeed I agree with Rick, that the proof is pretty much dependent on where one falls as it relates to faith. If you believe in Christ, and you believe in the Bible, there is tons of proof that our sins are forgiven, including promises from God that he has removed our sins from us "As far as the east is from the west." That's pretty far.

But if you don't believe then you wouldn't accept that as proof as in a scientific standard of something observable. But then again a lot of sins themselves aren't observable. Such as if we sin in thought.

Also, I don't know that you completely understood what SD was saying. I think he was asking you what proof you would have that your sins are forgiven apart from Christ, or what atonement you would be offering for your sins. Possibly I'm misunderstanding him too, but that's how I read his post.

[noski]

Do you have to ask for forgiveness or does it just happen because you believe Christ died for future sins?

[Stephen]

Christ's sacrifice was intended as redemption for all sin. The point at which it is committed is irrelevant. This, I grant you, is premised on the theory that Jesus was the prophesied Jewish messiah and was divine. However, accepting that premise, scripture is pretty clear that the intent was to provide redemption for all sin, past, present and future.

[noski]

But do you have to ask for forgiveness?

[Stephen]

"If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." - Romans 10:9-10

[albpilot]

Apr 1, 2010 10:11:55 GMT -5 noski said:

Do you have to ask for forgiveness or does it just happen because you believe Christ died for future sins?

I'm sorry I'm not coming to the mini-con, I'd welcome an in depth conversation with you about this Dan.

[noski]

But do you you have to ask God for forgiveness ? Yes or no...

[albpilot]

Apr 5, 2010 10:30:23 GMT -5 noski said:

But do you you have to ask God for forgiveness ? Yes or no...

Continually, if you are a member of the human race.

[noski]

OK. Thanks for your responses SD. :-)

[noski]

(BTW, it was SD who asked about 'proof'. I said I didn't need proof ,implying I have faith.
(concerning forgiveness of sins)

[noski]

Watched a tv show(religious scholars were interviewed) concerning James, brother of Jesus, and his attempt to reconcile Jesus' teachings with Jewish beliefs ie. he believed Jesus was a Messiah, was a human, not God,trying to define a true Judeo-Christian faith. It wasn't until Paul came along that the big push to accept Jesus as God appeared. So who do you believe? The man who was chosen by Jesus to be an apostle. One who lived with , ate with and was taught by Jesus himself or a man who never met Jesus? Yes, this is a loaded question, but just as Stephen often asks people to question what the US government tells its citizens as opposed to what is actually true, I am questioning what organized religion expects me to believe. But you knew that already ;-).

[Stephen]

Some of Paul's writings may pre-date the Gospels. That one is debatable, but let's assume for a moment that this is the case.

In this instance, the religious scholars you reference are asking us to believe that Jesus' own brother apparently rejected his divinity until Paul came along and proclaimed Jesus to be God, after which he emphatically supports Jesus' divinity. That seems a bit silly. As his brother, one would expect James to have made up his mind long before Paul started writing.

Matthew 16/26 and Mark 14 - among others - are pretty explicit claims to divinity. Pretty much everyone agrees to that. So we're back to the same debate we had before. There are only three possibilities:

1) Jesus' claim of divinity was true.
2) Jesus' claim of divinity was false.
3) The authors of the Gospels lied and Jesus never made any such claim.

The first claim cannot be refuted. I have chosen to believe this particular view.

The second claim cannot be refuted. I do not believe this view, but I cannot disprove it either.

The third claim can be largely refuted and is unsound. In order to believe that Jesus' claims to divinity were manufactured by the authors of scripture, one must also accept that the references to his miracles were artificial as well. After all, if he is not God, walking on water becomes a bit problematic.

Therefore, in order to believe the third claim listed above, one must accept that much of the New Testament is totally fabricated, especially the repeated accounts of Jesus' ministry and miracles. Jesus was extremely well known in his day, to the extent that he was publicly executed and spawned scores of writings on his life. And these writings were in general public circulation within one generation of Jesus' lifetime.

Therefore, in order to believe claim number three listed above, one must accept the ridiculous premise that outrageous claims were widely made regarding a well known public figure who was publicly executed, yet there are no contemporary writings whatsoever that refute the assertions about his life. That assumption is as ludicrous as believing that someone could write a series of best selling books today claiming that John F Kennedy was a 7-foot red-headed Chinaman, yet not a single newspaper, book or literary work would ever be released refuting the claim. The notion is absurd.

So logic and evidence point strongly to claims one or two listed above. Jesus did, in fact, claim to be God. He was either telling the truth or he was telling a lie. That is the question of the ages.