• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

Can not being in the correct denomination cause someone to not be saved?

Fracturing, splinterig was never God's plan for the church, even though we see it in the NT and Paul outright predicts it in Acts 20.
Of course. Every human puts their self-interest first which gives us 8 billion paths. Much simpler to do as God said and put His will first.
Upvote 0

nessie and cryptozoology

Evidence please!
All on youtube...check it out..tons from reliable site....




These are the only ones i follow...
Upvote 0

Blood Type & Christianity

Given that transubstantiation is a miracle, I'm not sure that blood typing restrictions would necessarily apply. It's not a transfusion or an ordinary medical procedure, so the miracle can be wrought even if it doesn't physically "make sense" for it to have such effects.
I agree with that. Still, I would like to know Jesus' blood type, and O negative makes the most sense to me, spiritually, symbolically, physically.
Upvote 0

What happens if someone dies before they became a believer, is it their fault?

That is not what the Bible teaches.
It teaches not to put our will ahead of the Will of God. Both elohim and man failed to obey. To force either to have done so would have eliminated our usefulness as servants if we no longer had the freedom to be creative in fulfilling our appointed tasks. For instance Adam would have named everything the same name, not having the ability to think beyond instinct.

God did give us a choice in the matter when it came to the tree of knowledge, yet scripture just says don't or else, rather than give understanding as to why. This, no doubt, was because man in their state of mind at the time without the knowledge could not comprehend the reasons for being told not to eat of the wrong tree anyway. Now we can, not only having the knowledge, but also the results of failure to do so in the entire Bible, and are again given a choice to repent or not, this time having an understanding why putting our will ahead of the Will of God will lead to death..
Upvote 0

The Return of Latin and Why It Matters

That's great for you, but there are many others like me who have to try and translate Latin into English in their minds.
It removes them from prayer. Some are not capable of translating the words. We're supposed to serve the least of our
brothers and sisters.
Thanks for the input! That makes sense.
Upvote 0

I hate being homosexual. It's an awful life

I've been struggling with this for many years despite so many prayers, reading the Bible, etc. It's a horrible, sexualized community with no substance. I try to keep to myself and not bother anyone, yet people in the homosexual world keep coming into my life causing turmoil. Please pray for me.
Praying for you my friend. May God continue to give you strength

1 Pet 4:1 Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. 3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. 4 In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you;

1 Pet 4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing
  • Agree
Reactions: Clare73
Upvote 0

Hell doesn't exist and there is no eternal suffering, instead bad peolle just cease to exist

Romans 8:7 states that the "carnal mind" is hostile to God and cannot submit to His law.

You say that the "us" is "we humans", but that's dead wrong as the verse above clearly shows.
That is why they are commanded to repent. We all have that choice while alive.
Upvote 0

Time and Timelessness Becoming One

First let us consider what time consists of. Time is made of before and after. You can also say it consists of the present, which should be before and after some time as well. So, time is made of before and after.

Now let us consider the planck time. Which tells us that time has a minimum, called the planck time.That would mean that at some point in time, before and after ceases to exist.

Some might say, poetically, that at some point time and timelessness become one and make a child. Meaning making confusion. Confusion being the logical response to the coming together of time and timelessness.

P.S. If what I am saying doesn't sound familiar or easily comprehendible. I suggest reading about Zeno's paradox about time and the planck time. That should make it more comprehensive.

What would have happened to Adam and Eve and Cain after death?

I get the impression that there are different versions of the afterlife throughout the Bible but I guess Christians would view it in a way that makes sure it is consistent and logical.
I think some people who identify as Christian believe this.
However, if you like we can examine the verses where you see different version, and see if we can establish if there are different, or the same.
In my research, there are the same in the "OT", but there is one difference in the "NT"

Though the Sadducees (who were Jews) apparently didn't believe in the afterlife. I'm not sure eternal torment is in the Old Testament.
I haven't seen it, but people say they believe it's there.
God said "They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter my mind / heart." Jeremiah 7:31
We can look at that a little closer, as well.
Hopefully more persons will respond to your questions, and any presented scriptures.

Anyway I'm interested in that kind of thing. I guess it also is about God's mercy for people in the Old Testament.
That is a good question.
What do you think of Jesus; words here... Matthew 12:41, 42; Luke 10:13-15; Luke 11:31, 32
Upvote 0

My Introduction

Welcome to CF...I'm a bit suspicious of your project, truth be told. I simply don't see how we could construct an unbiased method for investigating testimonial evidence in a consistent fashion because there is far too much that goes into the calculus of it all. It seems similarly foolhardy as Bayesian analysis, for many of the same reasons mostly involving determining background probabilities and burdens. We may be able to establish some agent-centered competences such as seat, shape, and situation but doing so reliably after the fact is highly unlikely.
Upvote 0

Enter Your Birthdate Here to Find Out What Was Happening the Day You Were Born...

I was wondering if anything interesting on the news was going on when I was born, and decided to create this website for fun. The purpose is to show people what was going on when they were born. With this website I've found out that it was a pretty slow news day on my birthday, but I bet it would feel cool to know a historical event happened on your birthday.

The data used in this project is provided by the New York Times API. They have by far the best API I was able to find, with articles dating back to the 1950s. There weren't any other major newspapers that had an API with close to as much data. The closest was the Guardian API, but theirs only went back to the 1990s. I decided to only use articles from the New York Times because their API was by far the best. This tool works if you have a birthday after the 1950s or so.

Some important dates in history I'd recommend looking up on this website are:

Continued below.
  • Friendly
Reactions: Delvianna

Who then can be saved?

2 Thess is speaking about people like you, who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus. all you have done so far is reject the gospel and make false accusations.
All I have done is proclaim thew gospel and you respond with slander. You have never identified a single error in my theology, so you just resort to making false accusations.

If you had something to offer, you would correct me, but it's obvious you have nothing to offer.

Wow, you don't even know what theology means. And you believe there are many gods, so we are worlds apart. You can have your religion all to yourself, it is an abomination to me.
It's almost amusing. You don't even attempt to perform the due diglence required in order to find out the truth for yourself, and then still endeavor to take the moral high ground like some kind of priggish Pharisee, while accusing me of your own fault.

Again, Insitutes is theology, systematic theology, and 2 Thess 1:8-10 specifically states, over and against your position, that those in hell will be "shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed."

Oh well, this discussion has descended into one of those rare moments when I'll express my distaste with the ignore button.
Upvote 0

There’s a Giant Flaw in Human History

The made a couple of assumptions and all science does. They did not just assume limestone. They also accounted for the pink granite in the chambers and shafts.

This stone has high piezoelectric effect under pressure. Its the position of the chambers, shafts and stones that generate the concentratede effect in the Kings chamber. The quartz crystals in pink granite is known for its high piezoelectric effect.
Piezoelectric effects come from the crystal structure. The effects can't be added or concentrated unless the crystals were aligned and connected electrically. Granite is filled with crystals of random orientation. The piezoelectric effects can't be "concentrated".

But its not just the stones. Its also the location of the pyramids themselves on a high electromagnetic location. Over a minreal rich natural subterrainian water way deposit. All this is not just some coincident and accident. The Egyptians were chemists and physicists as well in their own way.
Rocks are make of minerals Steve.
As the scientists who did the research said and not popular science "Ancient Egyptians were the original--albeit unknowing--nanotechnologists."
Which was a silly thing to say. I'm not even sure who said this or in what context, but there are two possibilities given the long conversation we've had with you.

1. The modeling of the long EM wave response to the giant pile of limestone blocks as an inspiration to build nano-pyramids. Even if everything you've quoted about Egyptians making a EM focusing device was true (and it almost certainly is not), it still wouldn't make the Egyptians "nanotechnologists", but "macrotechnologists". Therefore calling Egyptians "nanotechnologists" is silly.

2. Many composite materials contain small amounts of nanoparticles that have outsized effects on their properties, which is part of what "nanotechnology" is about when done deliberately. (There was a story about a odd glass I saw recently that contained nanoparticles that gave it peculiar properties, but the ancient makers had no idea about them and only knew that a particular set of inputs and procedures could result in it.) If Egyptian materials had "nanoparticles" in them, it was accidental and not knowingly. At best they were "accidental" nanotechnologists, but to call them that is silly.
Upvote 0

In this TikTok test of a baby formula emergency, one Catholic church really stood out...

(OSV News) — A TikTok content creator’s following exploded after she posted videos of her informal study on whether churches across the country would give baby formula to a mother whose 2-month-old infant had not eaten in more than half a day.

Of the dozens of churches Nikalie Monroe called, nine said yes including at least three that are Catholic.

TikTok series on churches’ response to request for baby formula​

The short videos show a screen grab listing of the Google-searched church on the screen with Monroe, of Kentucky, on a call, asking for baby formula.

In the noncontrolled study, the real mom of two little boys sometimes used a recording of a crying baby in the background and did not read from a prepared script. Once she received a “yes” (or sometimes a “no”) she would reveal to the person on the line that the inquiry was a hypothetical scenario and describe her test.

Monroe, an Army veteran, explained to OSV News she decided to try the study to see what the church response would be to a food emergency with, at that time, the impending suspension of SNAP — the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, on Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown.

SNAP is a major part of the nation’s social safety net that provides food support for 42 million Americans. During the 43-day shutdown, SNAP ran out of funds needed to fully fund it in November — a situation that shifted the burden of alleviating hunger entirely on churches, ministries and food pantries. The shutdown ended Nov. 12 after a funding deal was reached in Congress, allowing SNAP funds to be issued to recipients later in November.

Monroe’s test lasted seven days, starting Oct. 31.

“I did have some more that I called that last day on the Friday,” she said. “I just didn’t post all the calls that day because they were all nos, and it was depressing. … I just decided, that day, I wasn’t going to call anymore about the baby formula. That was; it was hard.”

Monroe, a drug addiction counselor, said the overwhelming ratio of “noes” (79%) over “yeses” (21%) was not unexpected.

Continued below.

The Saving results of the Death of Christ !

You're pointing out your own incoherence. You say that one can "thwart the enablement," but then you also say "even though enabled." That's a contradiction. If the enablement has been thwarted, then it never occurred. If it has occurred, then it was not thwarted.

So what do you mean, then, by "even though enabled"? Who's enabled? Not the one who's thwarted God's attempt to enable them...

The category of "resistance" belongs to the exercise of an ability, not to the creation of the ability itself. I have repeatedly pointed out, with no real acknowledgement that I can recall, that John 6:44 concerns the latter. The Father's act of drawing is the granting of the capacity to come, not the coming itself. To speak of "resisting" the generation of the capacity is meaningless. It smuggles in the second category into the first and muddles the syntax of the text.

Then you're only being a bit eristic here. I explained my poorly worded intended meaning with "thwart the enablement": that even though enabled, a person can refuse to act on it. IOW, I specifically denied that one would be ""resisting" the generation of the capacity".
You keep answering a question I'm not asking and affirming a proposition I never denied. You still have not yet addressed the actual issue here: whether the Father's act of enabling in John 6:44 succeeds or can fail. This is a relevant question given how you chose to define ἑλκύω going all the way back to post #42.
Only because in post #33 you first brought up the word in attempting to establish or force an intrinsic link between it and the act necessarily being accomplished:
This is too soft a definition of ἑλκύω. The lexical range of ἑλκύω is primarily in the realm of "drag" or "haul" (see John 21:6, 11; Acts 16:19; James 2:6). It's a term that expresses decisive action resulting in movement, not gentle persuasion. Even when used metaphorically, as in John 6:44 and 12:32, the same strength of meaning carries through, because the drawing accomplishes its intent.
Can you please answer the actual question I have been asking you? Can the Father's act of granting the ability to come fail?

If it can, then you beg the question when saying "having been given the ability." We're not talking about the implications of that ability. We're talking about whether the ability itself even exists.
I have answered it, more than once. Either way, yes, the ability exists. God grants it. Again, whether or not I possess the ability to succeed at something, does not mean that I'll necessarily even begin to act on that ability. For that matter, everyone has the ability to believe with no excuse according to Paul in Rom 1-but that still doesnt mean they will.
The final clause, κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ("and I will raise him up on the last day"), is not part of the condition, but its logical consequence. Grammatically, the αὐτὸν ("him") in both ἑλκύσῃ ("draws") and ἀναστήσω ("will raise") refers to the same person. Thus, the one drawn is the one raised. This is easily seen if restating the logic of the verse contrapositively: "If he is able to come, then the Father [has drawn] him, and I will raise him up."
The verse can also logically be rendered thusly:

"If he has come, then the Father has drawn him, and I will raise him up."

This does not preclude the ability to come but to refuse anyway, to refuse to open the door when He knocks, to put it differently.
  • Like
Reactions: Fervent
Upvote 0

Filter

Forum statistics

Threads
5,878,522
Messages
65,419,128
Members
276,387
Latest member
breastcancer