Any Christian Aspies here?

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They call it the dark ages for a reason you know.

I know Christianity is true because God's Spirit lives in me and assures me that it is true. And you can know it is true, too, because God is knocking at the door of your heart, telling you the same thing. If you are sincerely seeking God, then God will give you assurance that the gospel is true. Now, to try to show you it's true, I'll share with you some arguments and evidence that I really find convincing. But should my arguments seem weak and unconvincing to you, that's my fault, not God's. It only shows that I'm a poor apologist, not that the gospel is untrue. Whatever you think of my arguments, God still loves you and holds you accountable. I'll do my best to present good arguments to you. But ultimately you have to deal, not with arguments, but with God himself.

Please do not acuse me of being self righteous, a hypocrite, and wanting to damn you all to hell, firstly I dont belive in hell as the place God assigned to have man tortured forever, I dont belive a God of Love would allow such a place, I belive Hell means grave, the abode of the uncontious dead waithing for the ressurection at the end of the 1000 years.

Secondly, if I though you where all going to hell and wanted such, I would keep my mouth shut and let you get on with it, no, rather, I expose myself to ridicle in the hope that more people might leave the broad road that is leading to destruction, and find the narrow and crampted road to life, that few find.

The poster that mentioned thier being a Trinity in the first few lines of Genisis, firstly, are you sure the Holy Spirit is a person?, or might it be the forcve God uses to acomplish his work, he gives his followers Holy Spirit and we then display the fruits of the Spirit.
Now if there is one Spirit, do we only get it one at a time?, no, we all get it, its not a single entity, think of other Biblical uses of the term Spirit, like the spirit of the air, or when God gave Saul a bad spirit, or the Spirit of the Devil.
As for "Us" making the world, I know there is a scripture that says Jesus was the first act of Gods creation, then together they made everything else, hense, "us".

Heres something along those lines, 14In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

15Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

"firstborn of Creation"!, thats Jesus.

Heres that scripture I mentioned earlier where the Pope claims to sit at the right hand of God, but its really Jesus, its where the saying "right hand man" comes from
1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

How about what happens at the end of the 1000 year reign when the restored creation is given back to the Father by the subservient son?

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet.”[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

Or what about the scene in Heaven in Daniel when the son of man, whom Iam sure you know is Jesus, is brought before the Ancient of Days who is God, and God gives Jesus the Kingdom, this doesnt sound to me like Jesus is God himself only seperating for him to come to earth!

9 “As I looked,

“thrones were set in place,
and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
His clothing was as white as snow;
the hair of his head was white like wool.
His throne was flaming with fire,
and its wheels were all ablaze.
10 A river of fire was flowing,
coming out from before him.
Thousands upon thousands attended him;
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The court was seated,
and the books were opened.

11 “Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. 12 (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time.)

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,[a] coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Though these man made religions tell you God is a Trinity the same as all the pagan gods where trinities, I find the Bible says otherwise and I wish all Christians to follow Jesus not a man.
I have a notebook but its at work, I have pages of similar scriptures that if shown to a child, that child would say Jesus isnt God, hes Gods son, and didnt Jesus say you have to be like a child to come to him?
So Iam not interested in any clever word play to show Jesus is God allmighty, I belive only what jumps out at me from Gods word.

[quote="Nambo"]Please do not acuse me of being self righteous, a hypocrite, and wanting to damn you all to hell, firstly I dont belive in hell as the place God assigned to have man tortured forever, I dont belive a God of Love would allow such a place, I belive Hell means grave, the abode of the uncontious dead waithing for the ressurection at the end of the 1000 years.

/quote]

Our kind of humans have been around for about a quarter of a million years. Is the First Human who died still waiting for the millenium. And should we hold our breaths?

ruveyn

I cannot reply to scoffing any better than a Jewish Holy man, so let me quote him :-

3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.

Then you are GREATLY deceived. Jesus was not "created" by God as you say. Jesus was "with God" and "was God." Not "a god." "Was God," and therefore IS God. That's in the gospel according to John.

People who have difficult hangups on Biblical minutia are typically cult members. You have been taught "another gospel," and that is of Satan and the anti-Christ. I will be happy to help you gain a proper perspective based only on the Bible, but first I suggest you find a church that teaches sound Biblical doctrine. There are many out there, all of which appeals to different kinds of people. I'm not personally crazy about so-called "seeker sensitive" non-denominational churches, and I wouldn't dare associate myself with so-called "emergent churches." But it could be a non-denominational church might be best suited to you. Personally, I belong to a Southern Baptist Convention church and I'm very happy there, but I've also visited a Pentecostal church, United Methodist churches (my wife was raised Methodist before joining a Baptist church), and I find the charismatics like Hillsong, Gateway, New Life, and other megachurches NOT associated with the "smiling preacher" appealing (though this is mostly because of the music--I am a church musician, after all).

As to what a loving God would and wouldn't do: If I were to be eternally separated from God, I'd much rather be SOMEWHERE in which I could be allowed to exist at all. And when you talk to the unbelievers on this website, you'll notice that they wouldn't want to be with the God of the Bible (Yahweh) even if He showed up today. A good and loving God will not FORCE people to stay in Heaven in His presence who hate him. Hell/Sheol/Gehenna/whatever you want to call it is a merciful alternative. Denying Hell exists completely ignores any mention of "Gehenna," "the Pit," and the "lake of fire." That tells me you do not believe the Bible. Hell is not a place God sends unbelievers--it is a place they send themselves. I believe that God does all He can to draw all people to Him. It is their choices regarding what they do with God that He respects. Thus a loving God would allow people to suffer an eternity away from His presence in what we refer to as Hell because it is the best merciful alternative. Further, annihilation is just cruel. And if God just lets everyone in Heaven, that makes God unjust. Logically, if you really believe the Bible, Hell (Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, etc.) is unfortunate but necessary.

Contemporary Christians generally don't put much emphasis on Hell. If we are winning souls for God, then "why the hell" worry about it, right? But eternal separation from God is something we fear--not for ourselves, but for those we do not wish to become cursed with this separation.

As I said, I'll be happy to discuss this further with you here or in PM if you wish. I believe it's important to have a proper understanding of the Bible. But whatever cult you're in that has taught you this nonsense, you'll do better with a more positive scriptural influence.

I actually agree with the intent of what you are saying. If you consider "Christianity" to be a system or religion or structure or man-made way of doing things (as opposed to simply loving Jesus and accepting his free gift of eternal life, no strings attached) then I'd agree. Faith alone saves you, not works. Its very very clear right there in the Bible. People who hate the Bible really don't know what it says. They focus on a few scary passages and don't read the whole love story for what it really is. I think you're a lot closer to understanding true faith in Christ than most who already call themselves "Christians". And I mean that as a compliment.

I'm familiar with the passages speaking of works, and its very easy to see that works is a predictable response to salvation, not a requirement for it. I'm really not interested in getting into the whole works-based salvation thing. Its a done deal. Christ already did the work to save us. Its arrogance to think that it was somehow insufficient and that WE can complete the work of Christ by working to achieve our own salvation.

Agreed.

And don't even point out that even Satan and his angels believe in Jesus. First of all, the angels are created beings who aren't strangers to God's presence and divine will. Their rebellion is an unforgivable blasphemy. Second, even if they were somehow eligible for salvation, the Bible indicates that they will never allow themselves to accept God's forgiveness and grace. Just like many human unbelievers, they are acquainted with who Jesus is. But knowing the name of someone who appears in a history book or a story doesn't mean you freely accept or acknowledge the gift that person offers. Satan and his angels know who Jesus is. They just refuse to submit to Him, which is really all our faith is at its most fundamental level.

And if you want further evidence of "Hell," etc., what about the exorcism of Legion? The demons admitted to knowing who Jesus was and understood perfectly well that Jesus was in a place of authority over them. He's one with God (the Father), after all. So if there is no "Hell," why did they beg Him not to send them "to the abyss"?

My point in bringing that up is that often times people will point out that Satan believes in Jesus/God in order to make the argument that something more than faith is necessary for salvation, i.e. works. Paul said that faith alone is sufficient. When Paul talks about works, he's referring strictly to works "of the Law," that is, the OT. When James mentions works, he's referring to deeds that reflect the condition of the heart. If we are children of God, then we WANT to do the commandments of Jesus and do good things for other image-bearers of God (all people). We love others because God loves us, and the "love" in the Bible referred to an ACTION, a doing of something, and not just some kind of warm fuzzy feeling you get when you're around someone you like. If we do not have faith in the sufficiency of Jesus' atonement for the remission of sins, then all the good works in the world are fleeting and futile because no amount of worldly good is ever good enough.

When James says "faith without works is dead," he might mean one (or both) of two different things. On the one hand, a heaven-bound believer may become exhausted through life circumstances and lack the emotional zeal and physical drive to live a Christian life. His faith is dead in the sense that he's given all he has to give and has lost that spark of life that made his faith "alive." By encouraging someone with a "dead" faith, they may regain their former spiritual vitality and continue to openly and actively (and joyfully) serve God. The other sense one's faith might be dead is when someone got caught up in the emotional fire of religion, made an open statement of faith, but never made a decisive commitment to give their hearts and lives over to Christ. That person's faith is like a stillborn baby. They don't do any kind of "works" or deeds not simply because their faith is dead but rather because their faith was never alive to begin with. They never truly trusted their lives to God and thus are not motivated to serve Him in any kind of meaningful way. That's all that James means. It is truly sad that this ONE tiny part of the Bible has become so overly stressed that people actually believe that such works of faith are necessary for salvation.

I also think this twisted scripture largely ignores the context in which James was writing. James was writing to Christian JEWS, not Gentile Christians. These were people who were already religious to begin with, people who knew and followed the Law of Moses. They didn't have a problem with doing works of the Law. James was just warning against professing one's self as a believer but doing nothing in response to that faith.

Faith alone is sufficient. To say that Satan believes in Jesus is only to say that Satan knows who He is. Satan, however, has no faith in Jesus and stands in opposition to God and Jesus as our accuser and our adversary. To suggest that doing "works" is required for salvation is to perpetuate a lie and distort the gospel.

Last edited by AngelRho on 03 Dec 2010, 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's not so much that we can do works to complete what Christ did, as much as the fact that we can do works to reject what Christ did. Even St. Paul could have rejected Christ's gift of salvation late in his life and not have been saved. A person can accept God, but later in life, can reject God through sin. Since God gives us free will and choice, he will not force someone who has rejected him to go to Heaven.

It is possible to pay lip service to accepting God and later reject God and the Holy Spirit. But that only means that the person did not make any kind of real commitment nor have any genuine belief to begin with. To make such a decision that there is no God with such finality even after God's work has been done in your life and you yourself have experienced God is to commit an unforgivable sin. You can't come back from that one.

Now, if that thought scares you, then that's a good sign because it means your abandonment of God is not complete. The kind of people who have committed an unforgivable sin (you know, "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit") are the kind of people who don't WANT to come back.

My personal opinion, though, is this bothers more people than those who are willing to admit to it. Someone who is a TRUE believer will be unable to reject God, and those who haven't completely made up their minds still have a chance.

And before anyone says it, this is NOT "no true Scotsman." The "no true Scotsman" fallacy only applies to an undesirable circumstance. If salvation has actually been accepted as a free gift, then that person has given himself or herself completely over to God and trusts that God will not let him or her go. When it comes to salvation, if you can take yourself back then your giving of yourself was conditional and never complete--hence you are not a TRUE child of God, whereas true and faithful submission are total and unconditional. If a Christian does something that you don't like, as in for instance he slaps your momma, you may accuse him of not being a true Christian because "no true Christian would ever do that," but your judgment is based on something you don't like (slapping your momma) rather than the condition of his soul. He may have had a momentary lapse of faith or regression into past behavior (we aren't PERFECT, after all), or your momma may have said something about his momma he didn't like, or maybe he was just slapping at a mosquito that just happened to be on her face, or it might even have been an epileptic seizure and it was a complete accident. But none of those things have anything to do directly with his faith in Jesus. It just means you don't like either him or what he did. And in that case the "no true Scotsman" fallacy would apply. On the other hand, someone could go to church because they like the music and the sermons make them feel good and they like to be nice people and even call themselves "Christian." But if they do not believe in Christ, they aren't Christian anyway because the one thing they lack to be a true Christian is the most important thing.

Your argument negates the fact that all humans have free will. It also negates the fact that God is all forgiving and will forgive anything if asked. A devout person can truely reject God and commit grave sins but if they repent and ask God for forgiveness, they can still be saved. They might have to spend some time in Purgatory (another Biblical, Catholic belief) to be further purified, but they can still go to Heaven. That is why Jesus personally instituted the sacrament of Confession (yet another Biblical Catholic belief).

All people have free will. They can accept God and reject God. God's mercy is infinite, but he will not oppose our free will. If we reject him, he won't force us to be with him in the afterlife, but if we repent and come back to him, we will be welcomed with open arms.

It doesn't negate free will at all. It just means that I freely and willfully give up my free will and place it at Jesus' feet and invite Him through the Holy Spirit to take complete control of my life--my wants and desires, everything I say and do. I want to be totally submissive and subject to God's reign over my life. I believe that true believers do likewise. Maybe not in so many words, and maybe not perfectly. But they do try and I think God accepts the intent of the believer.

Now, as I said, we are still human and victim to a fallen human nature--so I don't mean to imply that we always or consistently subject ourselves to God's will. A term we Baptists used to throw around back in the day was "backsliding." I don't hear that term much anymore, but it basically refers to a cycle in which believers fall back into temptation or lose their fire for God. But that doesn't mean they've fallen from grace. It just means that they are growing and maturing slowly and that God is always at work in their life. There is, in fact, strong Biblical evidence against "falling from grace." The wording is something to the effect of "crucifying Christ twice." It's in the epistles somewhere, I just can't remember offhand where. The idea is once-forgiven, always forgiven, and if a person goes back on their profession of faith they were never really saved to begin with and perhaps never will be--not because God is unwilling to forgive, but because the person is unwilling to ask.

There is no need for Purgatory and no mention of it in the Bible. Jesus told the repentant criminal "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Note the word "TODAY." Instant, one-way trip, no stop lights, no speed limits, no waiting rooms. Today. Now, there IS an intermediary spiritual state of existence understood in the OT as a place of rest ("Sheol," aka "Hades") but by all indications it is a paradisiacal plane of existence in the presence of God rather than some torturous waiting room.

Other than that--I'm not going to get into a lot of arguing against Catholic doctrine. As long as an organized religion teaches that the body and blood of Christ is the path of salvation, you're good with me.

You can invite it all you want, but the Holy Spirit won't control you. Neither will Jesus. Jesus wants people to follow him of their own free will, not mindless robots. Had that been the case, there would be no need for Jesus to die for our sins because Adam and Eve would not have sinned in the first place.

It was not until the time of John Calvin that anyone would claim that it was impossible for a true Christian to lose his salvation. That teaching, which was not even shared by Martin Luther and his followers, was a theological novelty of the mid sixteenth century, a teaching which would have been condemned as a dangerous heresy by all previous generations of Christians. It would drive people to the despair of thinking that, if they had committed grave sins, they had never been true Christians. Further, they would suffer similar anxiety over any subsequent conversion, since their first would not have been genuine, according to this teaching. Or it would drive them into thinking that their grave sins were really not grave at all, for no true Christian could have committed such sins.

In time the "once saved, always saved" teaching even degenerated in many Evangelical circles to the point that some would claim that a Christian could commit grave sins and still remain saved, sin did not injure his relationship with God at all.

Fortunately, man Christians today reject Calvin’s error, acknowledging that there are at least some mortal sins, sins which kill the spiritual life of the soul and deprive a person of salvation, unless he repents. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals all acknowledge the possibility of mortal sin at least in some form. Only Presbyterians, Baptists, and those who have been influenced by these two sects reject the reality of mortal sin.

The early Church Fathers, of course, were unanimous in teaching the reality of mortal sin. They had to embrace the doctrine of mortal sin precisely because they recognized not only the salvific power of baptism but also the damning power of certain serious sins. The Church taught that "baptism . . . now saves you" (1 Pet. 3:21). However, since during the persecutions some baptized people denied Christ, and since Christ taught that "whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 10:33), the Church Fathers recognized that it was possible to lose the grace of salvation after baptism.

The idea that one could never lose salvation would have been unimaginable to them, since it was evident from the Bible that baptism saves, that the baptized can deny Christ, and that those who deny Christ will not be saved unless they repent, as did Peter.

It was equally unthinkable to predestinarian thinkers, such as Augustine, who, just two years before he died, taught in his book The Gift of Perseverance that not all who were predestined to come to God’s grace were predestined to remain with him until glory. This was, in fact, the teaching of all the high predestinarians (Augustine, Fulgentius, Aquinas, Luther) until the time of Calvin.

The word purgatory is nowhere found in Scripture. This is true, and yet it does not disprove the existence of purgatory or the fact that belief in it has always been part of Church teaching. The words Trinity and Incarnation aren’t in Scripture either, yet those doctrines are clearly taught in it. Likewise, Scripture teaches that purgatory exists, even if it doesn’t use that word and even if 1 Peter 3:19 refers to a place other than purgatory.

Christ refers to the sinner who "will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come" (Matt. 12:32), suggesting that one can be freed after death of the consequences of one’s sins. Similarly, Paul tells us that, when we are judged, each man’s work will be tried. And what happens if a righteous man’s work fails the test? "He will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor 3:15). Now this loss, this penalty, can’t refer to consignment to hell, since no one is saved there; and heaven can’t be meant, since there is no suffering ("fire") there. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory alone explains this passage.

Then, of course, there is the Bible’s approval of prayers for the dead: "In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the dead to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin" (2 Macc. 12:43–45). Prayers are not needed by those in heaven, and no one can help those in hell. That means some people must be in a third condition, at least temporarily. This verse so clearly illustrates the existence of purgatory that, at the time of the Reformation, Protestants had to cut the books of the Maccabees out of their Bibles in order to avoid accepting the doctrine.

Prayers for the dead and the consequent doctrine of purgatory have been part of the true religion since before the time of Christ. Not only can we show it was practiced by the Jews of the time of the Maccabees, but it has even been retained by Orthodox Jews today, who recite a prayer known as the Mourner’s Kaddish for eleven months after the death of a loved one so that the loved one may be purified. It was not the Catholic Church that added the doctrine of purgatory. Rather, any change in the original teaching has taken place in the Protestant churches, which rejected a doctrine that had always been believed by Jews and Christians.

The Maccabees are apocrypha. Everyone knows that. The reasons why apocryphal books were cut from the Bible had to do with whether the scripture in question was actually inspired by God, accepted by the previous religious leadership (i.e. Jewish priests) as inspired, or had some clear qualification such as apostolic authorship or at least some ties to the "fathers." In fact, the Maccabees were not among the earliest used books circulated among the first Christians. The later date of adoption of the Maccabees into the canon suggests that they were used in support of the doctrine of prayers for the dead. What's funny about the passage you cited is that it only vaguely supports prayers for the dead if it's understood out of context!! !

So no, the only "support" for prayers for the dead comes through support from scriptures that never really had any kind of meaningful value and the divine inspiration of which is even questionable. Since the doctrines which use them as support have no repeatable support anywhere else in scripture, whether it should even BE considered valid doctrine is highly questionable. I'll just stick with my plain "Protestant" Bible, thank you.