/christ/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Sort of.

This world is a test, and we have free agency. This means God doesn't reward or punish actions (except for exceptions which prove the rule like in the Scriptures). It wouldn't do if God says we have free will and then he just gives you AIDS when you make the wrong choice. Reward and punishment come after life, not during.

That said, God designed the world in a certain way, so there are natural consequences for certain actions. If you adhere closer to the Scriptures, chances are you'll have a better life; which is not to say wralthier or healthier but happier. The opposite is true as well; if you shun His Word you'll likely find a God-shaped hole in your life that you'll try to fill with other stuff.

So illnesses can be considered "curses" or "blessings" depending on the situation, same with death.

>>5729

>This world is a test, and we have free agency. This means God doesn't reward or punish actions (except for exceptions which prove the rule like in the Scriptures). It wouldn't do if God says we have free will and then he just gives you AIDS when you make the wrong choice. Reward and punishment come after life, not during.

So if I am ill, this is not a punishment but a test?

>That said, God designed the world in a certain way, so there are natural consequences for certain actions. If you adhere closer to the Scriptures, chances are you'll have a better life; which is not to say wralthier or healthier but happier. The opposite is true as well; if you shun His Word you'll likely find a God-shaped hole in your life that you'll try to fill with other stuff.

Could you point us to a verse were it says that we should live our life revolving around scripture which scripture exactly and why? The OT? The NT? The Quran? The BoM? The apocrypha? The Talmud? All of them? and how this is rewarded?

What if there are certain aspects of life that are not dealt with there? This is highly likely since it is a 2000year old book.

Why did not Jesus write the Bible when he was here? He had time after all.

>So illnesses can be considered "curses" or "blessings" depending on the situation, same with death.

But I thought that this will be the case in the afterlife but not here?

>>5729

>This means God doesn't reward or punish actions

So usually an illness is just a test, but sometimes it is a punishment?

Can we somehow apply this to our daily life?

Death is ultimately a punishment for the original sin, as well as illness. Illness or death can be a punishment of the individual given various circumstances. For instance, too much drinking might have one punished by sickness. On the other hand, God may permit an illness to achieve some other lofty goal of His Design, like to allow someone to become handicapped from like polio in order to become an advocate for the handicapped. Or a death might occur to prevent future sins, or as a punishment for sin, etc.

>>5743

>Whole of your earthly existence is a test. An Illness is just one ¨question¨ in the test, if you will.

Ok. So if I have a cold it is just bad luck?

> but I'll keep it to the Bible

What's a Bible exactly?

>Just to bring up a few. The Bible, especially the New Testament, is replete with these.

Good verses, but they are talking about adhering to God, not about adhering to a scripture, nor which one it should be, nor that we should only do that and it will magically solve our problems.

What's about people that cannot read or are dumb? Are they excluded from Christianity because they will never comprehend this "scripture" ?

>As for exactly "how" we'll be rewarded, you could get some controversy there. I personally do not think that God blesses people with wealth or riches for following Him; I think those are largely mundane matters affected by mundane things. Any mundane blessings such as wealth or the like would carry the implication of service and charity; which is to say they are for you to help others with.

In the OT this happened though iirc.

>He taught his Disciples, that was enough. The knowledge was the important stuff, and he entrusted them with it for them to pass on as they saw fit.

They did without additional scripture though, and we now need it somehow. When did this become a necessity and why?

>The removal of God's direct hand in this is what is the important take away from what I said. The idea of God watching you and saying "That anon is such a fag, let me strike him with AIDS personally" I would call the exception that proves the rule. Which is to say, this does not happen for most people. God made the world as certain way, He lets it operate, should you make certain choices there will be certain consequences for it (which no doubt God is aware of and foresaw, no doubt), but to personalize it so much as to say "God Himself is cursing me" would be a mistake, I think.

Doesn't this make our daily life meaningless? If God is endless, why are there things in our life that are not important enough for him to be a part of?

Also what's about the bigger picture:

Are plagues divine punishments? Things like the black death, or AIDS, or similar stuff.

Can whole areas and populations be "cursed" like this?

>>5745

>Ok. So if I have a cold it is just bad luck?

Yes.

>What's a Bible exactly?

It is a compilation of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament.

>Good verses, but they are talking about adhering to God, not about adhering to a scripture, nor which one it should be, nor that we should only do that and it will magically solve our problems.

Hmm… what a strange Idea. The Bible testifies of God, that's what its all about. To follow the Bible and its precepts is to follow Jesus Christ, which is to follow God; and so you do your best to live by the commandments that God has specifically given, as well as following the general example of Jesus Christ.

>What's about people that cannot read or are dumb? Are they excluded from Christianity because they will never comprehend this "scripture" ?

You may always have someone else read it for you, that's how it was for the vast majority of human history. God takes into consideration the opportunities one might have to receive the Gospel as well, people with it will be judged differently than those without it.

As for the dumb or mentally retarded? Sentimentality aside, I'd simply say "hope for the best". You do your best to educate them and hope that they do. The more emotional amongst us might be quick to say God will save and grant them everything due to their illness, but I couldn't back that up with Scripture. Now that's mainline Christendom, which is dualistic and either you are saved or damned.

I'd say someone who cannot understand the Gospel will most likely end up in the Terrestrial Kingdom or the Lowest level of the Celestial Kingdom at best.. Certainly they cannot be exalted.

>In the OT this happened though iirc.

Sure, remember what I said though, these Scriptures are exceptional. Which is to say, I don't think we should expect such direct intervention as people who are, well, exceptional. Should they happen though, we shouldn't expect them to happen all the time, or see every act of fortune or misfortune as God's direct praise and reprimand in one's life.

>When did this become a necessity and why?

After they killed the Source of that Scripture, they lived on His teachings. Eventually, they wrote them down so that you and I could have them as well. Simply put.

>If God is endless, why are there things in our life that are not important enough for him to be a part of?

Hmm… I might have to get into LDS only stuff. I'll let another poster focus on their denomination's view.

Far as LDS is concerned, this whole existence is a test to see if you have what it takes to become a God. God designs the testing grounds, he gives you a "manual" of sorts and a community to help you and says Good luck to you. That's what I meant to say by the universe was built a certain way and there's consequences for everything. Which means, God designed it so that if you do these things, you'll be happier one way or the other. Ex. You read your Scriptures every day and take the Sacrament once a week. You may find it easier to understand how to deal with life's tough choices, or even have "lucky breaks" more often as a direct result because of it.

So, in a sense, God is a part of everything. He's certainly watching and listening and willing to help should you do the right things, but YOU are the one being tested here, things fall squarely on you. Hardest thing though is to realize you still can't do it without Jesus Christ. It gets way mystical after that though, for many LDS people at least, though I can't cal myself among them.

>>5746

Maybe. There would have to be something wrong with a people on a fundamental level for God to do something like that; which again would not be the norm. So much so that you would feel doubt and anger even since some of the people would appear to be innocent, children and the like.

>he did not have that dissease for anything his parent did, but for the worship of God

or something like that. I think its in Matthew.

>>5747

>It is a compilation of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament.

>Hmm… what a strange Idea. The Bible testifies of God, that's what its all about. To follow the Bible and its precepts is to follow Jesus Christ, which is to follow God; and so you do your best to live by the commandments that God has specifically given, as well as following the general example of Jesus Christ.

>After they killed the Source of that Scripture, they lived on His teachings. Eventually, they wrote them down so that you and I could have them as well. Simply put.

That's some nice opinions here. Any scriptorical evidence to back it up?

>>5768

Yeah, here it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

>>5769

This is not scriptorical evidence, unless wikipedia is part of scripture, which it might as well be so far.

>>5777

I don't understand what it is that you're asking for. You want proof that the Bible contains the Hebrew Old Testament and the Christian New Testament, that its about Jesus and that it was written by His followers?

>>5777

Essentially, I don't understand what your counter-claim is, so I don't even know where to start. You've asked me about the subject of diseases and such, but instead of addressing that you're asking me to provide some sort of validation for the Bible.

The Bible…

Come to think of it, I should have found it odd and abnormal when a poster with the "Christian" flag asks "What's a Bible exactly?". What's your game?

>>5778

Yes.

>>5779

>Essentially, I don't understand what your counter-claim is, so I don't even know where to start.

There is no counter claim, I asked you a question and your answer is that I have to live my life according to scripture, but there is no scriptorical evidence for that so far.

>>5730

>Could you point us to a verse were it says that we should live our life revolving around scripture which scripture exactly and why? The OT? The NT? The Quran? The BoM? The apocrypha? The Talmud? All of them? and how this is rewarded?

>

>What if there are certain aspects of life that are not dealt with there? This is highly likely since it is a 2000year old book.

So how does living my life according to whatever scripture is make me healthy?

>>5780

You must be really, and I mean really new to Christianity if you don't yet understand what the Bible is. Here is an online version of it that you may read.

https://archive.org/details/KingJamesBibleKJVBiblePDF

> I asked you a question and your answer is that I have to live my life according to scripture, but there is no scriptorical evidence for that so far.

I think the issue here is the belief on your part that you can follow Jesus Christ without following the Scriptures, which is, well, incorrect. Also, the idea of doing anything that is mentioned here is following the Scriptures¨. For example:

>Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

If you do this, you are following the Scriptures. There is no difference between following God, following Jesus Christ and following the Scriptures.

Do you understand? Also important, I should ask, because I see now I shouldn't make assumptions. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in God?

>>5782

Again, this is a nice opinion to have, but do you have any scriptorical evidence to back it up?

What is scripture? Why should anyone orientate his life according to it?

>Do you understand? Also important, I should ask, because I see now I shouldn't make assumptions. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in God?

I am not important here at all. My questions are not related to me, they are just questions, and there seems to be no answer in scripture to them, so your advice is unscriptorical it seems.

>>5783

>>5783

No friend, I think that's about it for me. I can tell you that if you read the entire series of books under the Title of "The New Testament", the questions you asked me ought to be answered.

Then, after we're both operating under the Axiomatic Assumption that God exists, that Jesus Christ is His Son and that the Bible is the Word of God, *then* we may proceed with the other conversation.

>>5785

>then when you already have the same idea about everything that I have, then I will start telling you what you already believe to know

Ok.

>>5787

There's really no reason to get snarky anon. Its just misleading to use a flag that says you are a Christian and then pull the rug out from under the discussion by attacking the fundamentals that are implied to be agreed upon.

Hand you been open about your views I would have taken that into consideration.

>>5788

>There's really no reason to get snarky anon

I'm not trying to be, sorry.

> the fundamentals that are implied to be agreed upon.

Where is this implied?

>>5789

By using a Christian flag, there are a few things that you tell other posters. It tells them, at the very least, that you believe in God, that you believe in Jesus Christ (who is Divine), that you know what the Bible is and that you believe it is at least somewhat Divine.

If you don't believe these things, that's fine, just use a different flag and it will let people know. They're supposed to make discussion easier.

To be fair, friends, i see every stone that the lord may send in my way, just as a challenge for me to overcome and become a better Christian.

I don't fear death, nor disease, the lord has already chosen the day in which i will perish, that's why i don't fear challenge or danger, they're all signs of the lord.

Let's talk about mental illnesses.

What causes them? In the past they were viewed as a punishment by the Gods.

Should we view them as this too a punishment by the gods/demons or should we consider them a punishment by God? Or neither?

>>5722

>Is illness a punishment by the Lord?

No. God doesn't punish people in this world. You become ill for more mundane reasons.

>Is death a punishment by the Lord?

Many would say yes, that it is the result of eating of the Forbidden Fruit, whether you take that literally or not. The actual event need not be a literal eating of a fruit. I personally see it as growing up and realising our mortality. In that sense, death isn't a punishment, but the logical consequence of our not being God. Death is required if you want to join God, so death itself can hardly be a punishment if it is the required means to reach God. There's physical death and there's "death", meaning cessation of all existence of someone, and those are different. Christ vanquished death of the latter sort, by going through the former.

Reminder that Job is a poem (fiction), in case that comes up.

>>5805

Some are clearly genetic and there's no mystery about them. Others leave experts confused. I see no reason why genuine genetic mental illnesses cannot coexist with demon-induced mental states, which, while I don't deny them, I haven't found convincing evidence for, only exorcist testimonies that chill the spine.

Malachi Martin explains that any of the possessed are responsible for their possession, that none can get possessed without agreement (much like vampires can't enter a home without being let in), but all examples of possession in the Gospels show none of that: the possessed are not reproached for anything by Christ and nothing suggests they brought it on themselves.

Martin's credibility is put to the test in many ways, so I no longer know what to think of him and his work.

>>5791

>the lord has already chosen the day in which i will perish

If you die by your own choices, which in most cases we do, then the Lord hasn't chosen it, you did.

Natural death will depend a lot on how healthy you live. The difference can be 40 years and more. Don't blame the Lord for those burgers, brother.

Personally, I believe God doesn't know the future for the simple reason that it doesn't exist and our universe is not deterministic, which also allows for free will. The future doesn't exist, it's a project present but remains nothing more than a concept. God is timeless, which doesn't mean He is in the future. Besides, if God knew the future, along with our universe existing in time, it would force God to never deviate from what He foresaw He would do, which is hardly tenable.

>>5805

I think given the things depicted in the Scriptures, it would be reasonable for any person to assume that these things are punishments from God. I would argue that even if, they'd have to be punishments for you own actions and thoughts, not things you might do in the future or things your parents have done.

In this case, I'm inclined to think that these things by en large happen for purely mundane reasons, and any divine intervention would be the exception that proves the rule.

>>5821

Not to deviate it completely, but the way that it has been explained to me is that God knows you so darn well, so intimately that He can anticipate with inhuman accuracy what it is you are going to *choose* to do; the fact that He can read your thoughts also contributes to this.

You're right that its not a Dr. Manhattan type of thing, where God's only a puppet that can see the strings. Free will is real. God has it and so do we.

>>5830

>I think given the things depicted in the Scriptures, it would be reasonable for any person to assume that these things are punishments from God.

So if a 4-year-old boy gets terminal cancer, we are to regard it as a punishment from God? I don't see why. Why would some people be punished down here and others not? If God does punish people on earth during their lives, then everybody should get punished for their acts via some illness, but this clearly doesn't happen. A baby who develops malformations while being a fetus, unable to even make a decision, cannot be a candidate for punishment for things he can't have done.

>Not to deviate it completely, but the way that it has been explained to me is that God knows you so darn well, so intimately that He can anticipate with inhuman accuracy what it is you are going to *choose* to do; the fact that He can read your thoughts also contributes to this.

The other problem with this is that if God knows what you will do, if He knows, for instance, that you won't respond to His call, and will doom yourself to Hell, He necessarily shares the blame in your damnation, and I cannot imagine God being blamable for sin even partially. If you know that trying to help some suicidal person will only lead to his suicide, and you still proceed, leading to his death, then you make yourself responsible, because you knew it was going to happen. If humans are deterministic even in their free will, then that makes God responsible in a way He shouldn't be. If, however, humans and their free will are truly unpredictable and share of the divine in this, then God remains good and we remain fully responsible for our choices, without staining God with them. That is my current belief, to preserve our freedom and God's goodness.

>>5864

>He necessarily shares the blame in your damnation,

"no"

God's "allknowingship" does not remove free will. You know a rock falls when you throw it, so when a kid throws a rock above his head you know its coming back to hit him, but that does remove the kids free will to throw the ball in the first place.

>>5871

>God's "allknowingship" does not remove free will.

I didn't say it did. If a child uses his free will to go pet a fire, and you know what he's going for, and you let him do it, you share responsibility in letting him. Anyone who lets a child use his free will to jump off a window to fly amongst the clouds only to crash against the concrete and die will face prison time.

There is no way you can just stand there and let it happen without being guilty of sin, and that is why God can't have omniscience in that sense, also because the future literally does not exist.

>>5864

>So if a 4-year-old boy gets terminal cancer, we are to regard it as a punishment from God?

Notice I said I disagree with this belief, but that I can see why people would think that its reasonable. Although, I was thinking more of people in the vast majority of human history were disease and early death were a lot more common; that's closer to the scenario you described. Everyone is wicked, everyone gets sick, only the ones who are better than most has God blessed with good health and power to rule over the others (think Nobles and kings). Also; and this is more "folk-doctrine" rather than anything Scripturally tenable, but the idea of sin being passed on from mother or father to their children was fairly popular back in the day.

> He necessarily shares the blame in your damnation

Not really, God has made the voluntary choicen, knowing that may will fall, to allow free will because its necessary for humans to raise themselves. Satan's plan was for everyone to be automatons, directly under his control so that we would all be forced to follow the Law, everyone would be forced to be good, thus "exalting everyone". But the process requires for people to do it on their own, to make their own mistakes and suffer for their sins, as well as having their triumphs be truly their ( which isn't the case if God is an interventionist).

Essentially, you might be able to blame God from your perspective, but I think He's fully aware of that and simply chose Free Will as a better alternative to complete slavery. God being limited in knowledge is, unfortunately, not an option.

This pretty much is based on Exaltation being worth it tough. Being worth a third of His Children forever lost to Satan and Hell, and even more of them lost here on earth, so that a few might come back 3 times better to the Celestial Kingdom, and even fewer still become Gods.

Trippy stuff overall.