Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed. - Mahatma Gandhi

Since she says her flyers are from God, I thought it fitting to leave this here...

In the Summa Theologiae, Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said Greed: "it is a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them... it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man contemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things."

God@TheTweetOfGod

"Jesus died for your sins, but he didn't really die, so it doesn't really count.

See you in hell, suckers."

12:33 am . 07 Jul 19

When Jesus was with His disciples, He healed a blind man and they asked Jesus whether he was blind because of his own sin or his parents sin. Jesus replied that he wasn't blind for his sin or his parents sin, but that the glory of God would be shown through him. This and other examples in scripture show that we don't always know the reason that bad things happen to good people. Job is a classic example of that. Also, if you read the psalms you will see many where the psalmist cries out to God because of wicked people prospering while the righteous were trodden under.

The conclusion of the matter is this: Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. God has made a way for every human being to find forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ. We will never know all of the reasons why God does what He does but we will see the final result when God brings every work into judgment, including every secret thing, for good or for evil.

"Keep off my pen.
This is my quill, and this is my pen. This one's for writing, and this one's for sin."

Brilliant! I love it.

But death calls now, gotta run.

EDIT: You hold on to that pen as tight as you can. But you may want to buy another one just... in.....case.

First, I said that about his arguments....but I'm not saying it DOESN'T apply to the person.

Second, those are my informed opinions supported with factual evidence and etymology, not stated flatly as fact, not repeated as facts. You know that....so no, it doesn't apply.

Discussing anything with Bob is never self serving, it's a distasteful public service. Using verifiable fact to contradict nonsense proffered as fact is a civil responsibility, not an enjoyable privilege.

Keep off my pen.
This is my quill, and this is my pen. This one's for writing, and this one's for sin.

Were you raised in a Christian home? The solution to this problem is that no one is ignorant. That’s what I showed you when I quoted Romans 1:18-21. It teaches that it’s not that you are ignorant of Gods existence, its that you suppress the truth in unrighteousness and thus deceive yourself. You made the comment about the stupidity of the generation of Noahs day rejecting their own mercy, but that is exactly the same thing you are doing by rejecting Jesus Christ.

It’s not about being good enough to come to God. My heart was wretched when God found me but I did respond when He reached out to me. I didn’t respond perfectly but He used it and led me to faith in His Son. If you began to reach out to God He would respond to you in a way you will be able to perceive.

When the bible says God is good, it means He is morally perfect. That is Gods definition of good. No man except one has ever met that definition and therefore is unable to qualify for salvation without an atonement for their sins. The one who met that requirement is the man who never sinned, Jesus Christ.

Well, it’s a fallacy to say that the origin of the message dictates the truth of the message. A good message can be spoken by a bad messenger.

Secondly, it hasn’t been debunked. I know the atheist websites you visit tell you it has been, but it hasn’t. There are good reasons to believe in God that a reasonable person can and should believe .

When I say too difficult, I don’t mean by sheer human effort. Human effort is completely useless in achieving a good result as a Christian. That is why it is found to be too difficult because to come to Christ means taking up your cross and following Him. Yet properly understood it isn’t difficult in the sense that it can’t be done. We can get into a discussion about that in another reply.

You are also using fallacious reasoning to compare Jesus, a historical person, to Xenu, a fever dream of scientology or the flying spaghetti monster. All possibilities are not equal, neither are all Messiahs equally credible. The life of Jesus is a matter of history and not our imaginations. I gave you lines of evidence which you dismiss without even investigating them. Jesus is the prophesied Messiah of the Old Testament. Indeed He is the only possible person who could be the Messiah since He is the only one who fulfilled the 70 weeks of Daniel prophecy which predicted the year of the Messiahs death. Are you interested in talking about that?

When you say you’re a good person, what do you mean by that?

I will do that by giving you an illustration from the scripture. In Mark Chapter 9:17-24 we read about a man who came to Jesus asking Him to heal his demon possessed child:

17 Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit.
18 And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.”
19 He answered him and said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me.”
20 Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.
21 So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?”
And he said, “From childhood.
22 And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

The cure for unbelief in the bible is to ask the Lord to help your unbelief. When you begin to ask God to change your heart so you can believe, He will begin to do a work in your life that will you be able to perceive.

We are all deaf dumb and blind without God bringing light to our understanding. This is how you will be able to comprehend spiritual truth. This happens only through faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus is turning from your sins and turning towards God to be forgiven

God gives people grace in many ways. One of those ways is by communicating His will through the preaching of His word. The hearing of the word imparts faith, which is a gift from God. You're wondering how you believe; when you listen to the word with a good heart God will give you the faith to believe it. He will also confirm His word with supernatural signs and wonders.

I don't know how true your appraisal is of those who have told you about the Lord, but your situation is better than those who have never heard. Plus you have me, newtboy, and I'm sure that makes you feel extremely fortunate. Yet scripture tells us that even if the messenger is bad it doesn't negate your responsibility. Faith and reason are complimentary. I think this quote is true: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found too difficult and not tried.

I can't speak for the myriad of pretenders but there has only ever been one man who died for your sins. Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah that Moses and the prophets wrote about in the Old Testament. There are exact prophecies like the 70 weeks of Daniel which predict the exact date of His death for our sins. I believe what I believe because I have been changed by His grace. That's my only motivation in telling you or anyone about this, because He is real and you can know that for yourself. You can know that by putting even a slight intellectual effort into understanding the problem. You will find that there are good reasons to believe that God is real and good reasons to believe Jesus is who He said He is. I am a flawed vessel but I serve a God who doesn't need me to prove that He is real. He sends me because He is inviting you to seek Him and be saved.

Romans 10:9-10

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved

When you do that, believing that Jesus died for your sins, God will save you and make you a new person. You're good if you don't care where you are going after you die, if you leave it as you believe up to chance. Yet the evidence that God exists is undeniable, and the coming of His Son Jesus Christ was predicted by prophecies going back thousands of years. So you're not really leaving it up to chance because the scripture tells you that you have no excuse for ignorance.

Romans 1:18-20

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse

You would say, I am sure, that you haven't seen any evidence for God but the scripture says you have and you have suppressed the truth about it. I believe scripture and in our conversations I am sorry to say you are always poisoning the well of reasoned debate with mockery and ridicule. What is behind that is a heavy bias and angst which keeps you from seeing who God is. Being obstinate against the truth of Gods word is foolish. Why not give God the benefit of the doubt and at least ask Him to show you if what I have been telling you all of these years is true?

When you want to paint your own picture, it's helpful to leave out a few details. An important detail that you left out is that it took Noah 100 years to build the Ark. The scripture tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and he pleaded with the people of the pre-flood world to escape the coming judgment. He didn't have a single convert proving the truth of what God had said about that world:

Genesis 6:5

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually

You also mentioned that you think Gods requirements are impossible. That is true except for one exception; they are not impossible when the Lord Jesus Christ has come into your life and changed you. As a Christian who is far from perfect I meet Gods requirements. His requirement is this, that we believe in His Son Jesus Christ and live for Him.

It's impossible without Christ to do what God wants. If you have Christ in your life you are well able to meet Gods requirements because what God is looking for is faith. He requires that you repent from your sins and receive the forgiveness He has provided for you through Christ. When you do that God will adopt you as His son and give you eternal life. That isn't the MO of a despot.

We here in America like to believe we are good people morally and that is how people present themselves in the public square. Yet we see all of the crime statistics and civil unrest in the country which is the spillover from the greatest character crisis this nation has ever faced. God sees it all, every wicked thing done in the dark and He knows what man is really like. It takes humility to admit that about yourself and realize that God is right about the carnality and futility of what men do in this world. It is only through Christ that men have received light to do what is eternally significant instead of living for their own selfish ends.

THE test? Hardly. That's not even the only test for your small sect.
If you've been saved, "born again" then sin again, or question dogma or your own belief, you have to do it all over again....according to your particular group's belief...right? It's not a one and done thing, it's a constant subjugation and supplication, incessant adoration by the congregation, suffering degradation without protestation.

What happens when one side has been saved and doesn't change but the other side no longer believes after surgery?

There is no innocent....we are all guilty of the sin of existence.

Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon say the F-35’s superiority over its rivals lies in its ability to remain undetected, giving it “first look, first shot, first kill.”

Hugh Harkins, a highly respected author on military combat aircraft, called that claim “a marketing and publicity gimmick” in his book on Russia’s Sukhoi Su-35S, a potential opponent of the F-35. He also wrote, “In real terms an aircraft in the class of the F-35 cannot compete with the Su-35S for out and out performance such as speed, climb, altitude, and maneuverability.”

Other critics have been even harsher. Pierre Sprey, a cofounding member of the so-called “fighter mafia” at the Pentagon and a co-designer of the F-16, calls the F-35 an “inherently a terrible airplane” that is the product of “an exceptionally dumb piece of Air Force PR spin.” He has said the F-35 would likely lose a close-in combat encounter to a well-flown MiG-21, a 1950s Soviet fighter design.

Robert Dorr, an Air Force veteran, career diplomat and military air combat historian, wrote in his book “Air Power Abandoned,” “The F-35 demonstrates repeatedly that it can’t live up to promises made for it. … It’s that bad.”

The development of the F-35 has been a mess by any measurement. There are numerous reasons, but they all come back to what F-35 critics would call the jet's original sin: the Pentagon's attempt to make a one-size-fits-all warplane, a Joint Strike Fighter.

History is littered with illustrations of multi-mission aircraft that never quite measured up. Take Germany's WWII Junkers Ju-88, or the 1970s Panavia Tornado, or even the original F/A-18. Today the Hornet is a mainstay of the American military, but when it debuted it lacked the range and payload of the A-7 Corsair and acceleration and climb performance of the F-4 Phantom it was meant to replace.

Yeah, the F/A-18 was trash when it first came out and it took YEARS and multiple changes/fixes to allow it to fully outperform the decades old aircraft it was designed to beat when it was released.

The F35 is not the best at anything it does, it is designed to fully be mediocre at all roles in order to allow it to be a single solution aircraft. That may change with more money, time, and data retrieved from hours spent in actual combat, but as it stands it is what it was designed to be. A jack of all trades and master of none, not something I would want to be flying in a role where I could encounter a master of that role.

As @ChaosEngine says, it is far beyond time that we move to a design where the pilot is not in the plane. There is no reason at this time that we cannot field a plane that could successfully perform it's role with the pilot in a secure location nearby. Such planes could be built cheaper, could perform in g-forces that humans cannot withstand, and would be expendable in a way that current planes are not. However, this would mean that our corporate welfare system for huge defense contractors would take a massive hit. We can't have that, can we?