Robert, I know that the grace of God is the only way to be saved, but do not believe that He made a list of people that were "elected" by Him. Jesus said that He was the path to Salvation, and all that believed in Him would be saved. That is where I stand. That pre-election thing was a good schtick used by the human authors of the Bible. If God will only acknowledge those that He, supposedly, elected, why did He allow any humans that were not elected to be born? A little bit of logic is not bad. Yes, you can make the argument that He gave man free will, but that had nothing to do with the new born. If God knew that they were going to turn from the purity of babes, into murderers, thieves, rapists, etc. then why would He complicate His own creation?
Apparently, you are just as straight laced, narrow minded, and cock sure of what are just your beliefs, as brian, and james. None of us will know the absolute truth until we die, and to assume that one knows the truth before that time, is sheer folly. Jesus said that we would not know the truth until arriving in heaven, and to paraphrase what he said, we, as human beings, can't handle the truth. Basing all of your beliefs on a book written by, and tampered with, by human beings doesn't make much sense. It is those that wrote the bible that said it was the word of God.
If you are sure, in your own mind, that you are going to heaven, then you indicate a great degree of pomposity. Where did the humility go?
I never said anything about getting to heaven because of works, so why did you bring that up? As I said above, the only way to salvation, is by the grace of the Supreme Being, and the belief in Jesus Christ as lord, and savior. How does that promote another gospel of Jesus, when He was the one to say it, according to the apostles.
I believe in God, and Jesus, but cannot accept the entire bible as being accurate because of all the meddling, altering, and interpreting, done by flawed human beings, and I don't really care what you have to say about that.
If you, really, think that brian, and james, are indicative of true, and good, Christians, you don't get out enough. They repel many that might turn to Christ, because of their peculiar slant on what is, and what isn't. |
