Peace be upon everyone.
In the Bible, i find an impossible situation:
Jesus said a believer can ask for anything and get it. You can do ANYTHING through prayer.
I don't believe this is true. If someone prays for me to convert to Christianity immediately, i can guarantee you it will not work (because i've seen way too much evidence disproving the religion; no offence intended).
Anyway, the statement Jesus made is flawed. How can believers get anything they want? So if a (insane) Christian prays for the death of black people, do you think a Just God would do that?
Matthew 21:21-22
And Jesus answered and said to them, "Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, `Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen. "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."
Matthew 7:7-8
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
John 14:13-14
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask ANYTHING of me in my name, I will do it.
Luke 11:9
9"So I say to you, (E)ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
10"For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
11"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
12"Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?
13"(F)If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"
Mark 11:
20In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"
22"Have[f] faith in God," Jesus answered. 23"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
All four of the gospels support my point that Jesus will give you anything you want.
Also what if the christian suddenly has a change of heart midst way through the pray and says "Jesus! I pray for you to become pure evil and never good!"...
So in conclusion, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you" (Luke 11:9)
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may God bless you all.
This is a good post since; If Jesus says he is one with the father and the father also says that all humans are his childs - > if we all are in spirit the father then all can alter the world. (just math...)
Too make Jesus or any other soul pure evil - hm , well the souls are not if this world so that is a harder task - can a soul alter another without it self wanting it? I guess that is not to think -so say?
This is more or less the same that is said in the famous book, which I have not read, The Secret, believe, and make it happen. Thelema's "do what you will, and you will get a nice" life is pretty much the same thing. And for many, this is proven true. It has nothing to do with if a god is just or not, is the way of life. And this way of thinking I, I think, is pretty old, and common as well.
- And I am for sure no Christian, but Jesus had some points in his sayings. And that the Christian system has become quite different, than what you actually read in parts of the bible, is an other discution.
| loyal wrote: |
Peace be upon everyone.
In the Bible, i find an impossible situation:
Jesus said a believer can ask for anything and get it. You can do ANYTHING through prayer.
I don't believe this is true. If someone prays for me to convert to Christianity immediately, i can guarantee you it will not work (because i've seen way too much evidence disproving the religion; no offence intended).
Anyway, the statement Jesus made is flawed. How can believers get anything they want? So if a (insane) Christian prays for the death of black people, do you think a Just God would do that?
Matthew 21:21-22
And Jesus answered and said to them, "Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, `Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen. "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."
Matthew 7:7-8
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
John 14:13-14
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask ANYTHING of me in my name, I will do it.
Luke 11:9
9"So I say to you, (E)ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
10"For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
11"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
12"Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?
13"(F)If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"
Mark 11:
20In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"
22"Have[f] faith in God," Jesus answered. 23"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
All four of the gospels support my point that Jesus will give you anything you want.
Also what if the christian suddenly has a change of heart midst way through the pray and says "Jesus! I pray for you to become pure evil and never good!"...
So in conclusion, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you" (Luke 11:9)
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may God bless you all. |
Well loyal, you do have a problem here, and I'll try to tell you what it is. Try not to take offense because I mean none.
Back in the day, the church or whatever religious leaders were the bomb. Meaning they had power, and lots of it. If you wanted to keep that power, you'd do whatever nessacary to keep it, and in order to keep it, you had to have followers. There's no better way to get followers than to tell someone that they can have whatever their hearts desire as long as they believe in that religion. If I was told I could get whatever I wanted by just praying (given that I believed it, which is unlikely for me), I'd be all over it. You'd see me running down the street naked, praying not to get arrested.
The point is that were trying to get people to join the religion, and for most it worked pretty well. | laurenrox wrote: |
Well loyal, you do have a problem here, and I'll try to tell you what it is. Try not to take offense because I mean none.
Back in the day, the church or whatever religious leaders were the bomb. Meaning they had power, and lots of it. If you wanted to keep that power, you'd do whatever nessacary to keep it, and in order to keep it, you had to have followers. There's no better way to get followers than to tell someone that they can have whatever their hearts desire as long as they believe in that religion. If I was told I could get whatever I wanted by just praying (given that I believed it, which is unlikely for me), I'd be all over it. You'd see me running down the street naked, praying not to get arrested.
The point is that were trying to get people to join the religion, and for most it worked pretty well. |
So you think that Jesus just wanted people to follow him and gain power?
I don't think Jesus wanted power. If his whole life purpose was to die, there is not much point in getting power, only to give up by letting yourself be killed. Besides, Jesus never expected to have millions of followers.
Also, Jesus and his followers and paul all seemed to expect that the world would end in a few generations, and paul even went as far as telling people not to marry since the world is gonna end pretty soon anyway. So Jesus cannot have been in it for the power.
may God bless you.Um....yeah.
If you wanted to convert someone, then it wouldn't happen; the free will issue and all that. Also, prayer has been shown to have some therapeutic value, as well as the ability to focus a person towards a specific goal; the best lit I've seen on that aspect has to be Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) and his affirmations method (as described in the Dilbert Future) (not implying that it's a joke, especially as a lot of new-age gurus suggest the method as well, just that he uses the best method for it I've seen).
Of course, it always amuses me that people quoting this almost always forget that not even Jesus was about to push the limit of prayer; when tempted by Satan, Jesus wouldn't pray for certain things to happen on the grounds that it would just be showing off and therefore wouldn't be granted. For that matter, Jesus wouldn't perform a lot of miracles on the grounds that they were by nature prideful and therefore wouldn't happen. The obvious point was that if Jesus, Son of God, wouldn't pray for it, then you shouldn't either...
HM
| loyal wrote: |
| laurenrox wrote: |
Well loyal, you do have a problem here, and I'll try to tell you what it is. Try not to take offense because I mean none.
Back in the day, the church or whatever religious leaders were the bomb. Meaning they had power, and lots of it. If you wanted to keep that power, you'd do whatever nessacary to keep it, and in order to keep it, you had to have followers. There's no better way to get followers than to tell someone that they can have whatever their hearts desire as long as they believe in that religion. If I was told I could get whatever I wanted by just praying (given that I believed it, which is unlikely for me), I'd be all over it. You'd see me running down the street naked, praying not to get arrested.
The point is that were trying to get people to join the religion, and for most it worked pretty well. |
So you think that Jesus just wanted people to follow him and gain power?
I don't think Jesus wanted power. If his whole life purpose was to die, there is not much point in getting power, only to give up by letting yourself be killed. Besides, Jesus never expected to have millions of followers.
Also, Jesus and his followers and paul all seemed to expect that the world would end in a few generations, and paul even went as far as telling people not to marry since the world is gonna end pretty soon anyway. So Jesus cannot have been in it for the power.
may God bless you. |
I think you misunderstood me. Jesus didn't want power, the Church did. You gotta remember, The Bible was written by men, not God himself. I'm saying that the leaders of the Church wanted power, not Jesus. | laurenrox wrote: |
I think you misunderstood me. Jesus didn't want power, the Church did. You gotta remember, The Bible was written by men, not God himself. I'm saying that the leaders of the Church wanted power, not Jesus. |
You're confusing different types of power. The kind of power granted through prayer is not the temporal kind (ie, being large and in charge) but the more miraculous kind (healing, weather, solace, etc.). Prayer may give you some power, but it's a mix of prayer and helping yourself...
HMLol, I just happened to be IMing HereticMonkey when I read his reply, and then we got on the topic of what he wrote... So I'll just post the convo here...
HereticMonkey is tregorysullivan and I'm Redmagic89.
| Quote: |
Redmagic89 (1:41:56 AM): You're confusing different types of power. The kind of power granted through prayer is not the temporal kind (ie, being large and in charge) but the more miraculous kind (healing, weather, solace, etc.). Prayer may give you some power, but it's a mix of prayer and helping yourself...
Redmagic89 (1:42:05 AM): and what are you trying to say exactally?
tregorysullivan (1:42:31 AM): That political power wasn't necessarily the desired effect...
Redmagic89 (1:43:06 AM): ... and what was?
tregorysullivan (1:44:21 AM): The same as pretty much all other prayer: A way to put the problem in the hands of the deity, and thus release it from the mind of the supplicant...and the occasional miracle...
Redmagic89 (1:44:33 AM): i hardly think so...
Redmagic89 (1:44:52 AM): otherwise they would've been more specific...
tregorysullivan (1:45:02 AM): AH...but they were...
Redmagic89 (1:45:33 AM): And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask ANYTHING of me in my name, I will do it
Redmagic89 (1:45:35 AM): nope
Redmagic89 (1:45:50 AM): it says ANYTHING
tregorysullivan (1:46:00 AM): No disagreement there...
Redmagic89 (1:46:12 AM): that's hardly specific
tregorysullivan (1:46:56 AM): That's sort of my point, strangely...I'm saying that it could be used for anything, whereas you appear to limit it to the political realm...
Redmagic89 (1:47:14 AM): no, no, no
Redmagic89 (1:47:23 AM): i'm not saying that they used prayer to gain political power
Redmagic89 (1:50:03 AM): well, not in that sense anyway... what i'm saying is that some religious leaders that wrote The Bible put their own spin on it. SO, if you put, "if you believe in God and pray, he'll grant you any wish," in there, then you're going to get a shit load of followers, and they knew that. And the more people they had to support the church, the better off they were.
tregorysullivan (1:51:32 AM): Yeah; it;s been argued that Solomon and the Baby is one of the best "Don't Mess With Us" stories ever, as it was supposed to act as a warning to neighboring countries...Not as direct as it seems, but...
Redmagic89 (1:51:59 AM): yeah... i think you got my message a little confused there lol
Redmagic89 (1:52:15 AM): u mind if i post this convo in the reply?
Redmagic89 (1:52:20 AM): well, just this part of it?
tregorysullivan (1:52:26 AM): Yeah...Sure... |
So we reached a bit an agreement on that, as you can see. 
... What IM client is that? AIM?
may God bless you
Yep; I'm available as long as I'm on and my Writing status isn't up...
I would point out an interesting paradox: As gods got more powerful, they granted fewer and fewer miracles, while at the same encouraging more independence on one's self. So the more totemic gods (like village guardians) were always available, almost always granted whatever desires their worshippers desired. The Greek and Egyptian gods, which were more generalized (having spheres of influence that covered the entire known world) could be counted on to grant miracles, but only within their sphere and not all the time (sometimes sacrifices had to be made or the gods were fickle). When you hit the metagods (monotheistic deities, such as Jehovah, Buddha, or even Zoroaster, who may or may not have an adversarial being), the deities were omnipotent, yet granted miracles rarely (usually to make a point or when the believers were in serious trouble, and even then it may not happen), but encouraged their believers to be hardy and more independent of their god.
Just as an observation...
HM
