The boulder question comes from a lack of understanding the difference between omnipotence and sovereignty.
This is going to sound weird, but God is not omnipotent. There are things He can't do. He can't stop being Himself. He can't act contradictory to His own nature. I personally argue that He can't violate the laws of logic because they are an intrinsic part of His being.
What God is is sovereign. That means He has complete control and command over anything else in existence. If He makes a boulder, He can manipulate it however He wishes because He is sovereign. He can't make a boulder that He can't lift, else He would immediately cease to be God.
You don't need an external source of influence.
When God told Adam and Eve to not eat of the Tree (and to keep the Garden, and subdue the earth), they could choose to follow any or none of those commands. Satan was the specific catalyst for the Fall, but it could have happened from Adam and Eve just deciding on their own that they wanted to do their own thing. Man's Fall could have happened with or without Satan.
Before Christ's sacrifice, there was an afterlife of sorts that had two sections, one for the lost and one for the OT believers. The former doesn't really have a name, but the latter is called Abraham's Bosom, and the realm as a whole is called Sheol in the OT. This concept got conflated with Greek notions of Hades and Tartarus. Given the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, Tartarus is an apt comparison to the place where the lost are tormented.
After Christ's death, He took the souls that were in Abraham's Bosom into heaven proper. The lost are left behind in what we now call hell. After the Millennium, these souls will be called up to the great white throne for judgment. Since they didn't trust Christ, they and hell itself will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity.
I'm sorry, but there's no room in scripture for the lost to be saved after physical death. It's common for Christians to concoct schemes whereby the lost get a second chance, or that they all get saved in the end (universal salvation). They mean well, as no one wants anyone to be in fiery torment for eternity. But the Bible indicates that this life is the only life you have to make the right choice.
God made Man in His image, and ordered the angels to serve them.
I don't know of any verses indicating that angels are ordered to serve us.
Lucifer, prideful of his own beauty, and envious of God's (at least perceived) favoritism of Man, and of God's position, started a rebellion in heaven and was/will be cast down into the lake of fire(aka Hell).
We don't know if these were Satan's motives, a lot of that stuff is just conjecture. All we know is that he thought he could be like the Most High (Isaiah 14:14).
my conclusion: God, with full knowledge of what lucifer would do/become created him and set him on the path that led to his downfall, and to the Sin of Mankind.
God knew what Satan and later Adam would do, but that doesn't mean that He set them on their respective paths. Foreknowledge of what you're going to do doesn't mean anything's forcing you to make that choice. Foreknowledge is just a side effect of God existing outside of space and time.
God created both angels and man with free will. He gives us the choice to serve Him or not because He wants us to love Him. You can't truly love Him if you're a robot predestined to do what you will do. Creating us with free will also created the potential for sin, but did not guarantee sin itself.
Sin and evil aren't even really things by themselves. They are the absence of God's goodness just as darkness is the absence of light.
Hope this helps.
I’ve lost count of the number of underage girls found in barracks.
no evidence of a grand pedo conspiracy.
Well, which is it then?
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We will not eliminate Satan, that is something God has promised to do, and will accomplish by Himself.
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No such thing as free energy, no such thing as a free lunch. Energy costs will hopefully drop substantially as we’ll be able to drill more oil, but not free.
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Every single “source” that has ever promoted Med beds has turned out to be a complete scam artist. None of their predictions have come true; they are the flat earthers of the alternate medicine industry.
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Frequencies do not heal the body. Anyone using the term “frequency” without explaining which specific frequency they’re talking about, and what specifically is vibrating, is a scam artist who doesn’t understand physics or biology at all. More often than not this is Eastern/New Age religion and philosophy masked by scientific sounding terminology to make it look sophisticated.
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We do not have latent superpowers from God. God’s gift to us is that we can love Him and have fellowship with Him, but even this is only made possible through the blood of Jesus Christ, not magically awakened pineal glands. See the above point on Eastern philosophy.
At this point I just want 2 things:
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To live without having to worry about the recession cycle that central banks impose on our economy.
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To actually get my whole paycheck, no taxes deducted.
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Now that I think about it, the cessation of human trafficking should be top priority.
Would the Founding Fathers approve of perpetual spooks running our government? Would they approve of a continuously standing army? I think not.
Name one problem that any federal agency or military has solved without causing said problem in the first place. Name one.
If there are openings in intelligence agencies after all is said and done, that means white hats didn’t do their job.
NO intelligence agencies, NO federal police outside of DC, NO standing military. If any of those are allowed to survive in any capacity, in a few decades at most we’ll be right back where we started.
Bringing awareness to child trafficking… causes more child trafficking? What a retarded take.
Because anonymity allows people to say things that aren't true without repercussions. Or, it allows people to say the darkest part of their sinful heart without risking their reputation.
Not irl consequences perhaps, but if someone uses an online name to lie or say stupid crap, it’s going to damage the reputation of their online persona. Look to all of the drama surrounding Fishyman for evidence of that. (Not saying that he always lies and says stupid things, but he is controversial despite being anonymous here). There are a number of trolls, shills, and idiots here that illustrate the same idea.
If a private (non government) company wanted to introduce a voluntary system like the one you describe, I wouldn’t personally have a problem with that. There are still two issues though:
- Most social media companies may technically be privately/ publicly owned, but in reality they are extensions of the government/mainstream media.
- Your system does not directly prohibit censorship, nor does it even guarantee that anons stay anons if the CEO changes his mind at the behest of his Congressional pals.
The foundation of this issue is that Elon said he would preserve the privacy of people who want to be anonymous, and Dr Peterson has publicly come out against that. He’s against the fact that you and I both comment anonymously on the internet because “muh dark tetrad” psychobabble. I just think that telling other people what they can and can’t do online is generally a bad idea and invasion of 1A rights.
And if you don’t like the “filth” that comes with anonymity, then you don’t have to look at it. It’s that simple.
Dr Peterson: communists and government censorship are bad.
Also Dr Peterson: no one should be anonymous on the internet.
Why is he like this?!?
Reading things in context is a lost art. The entire rest of the chapter is about judging things.
Here’s the problem with the whole “Biden is an actor” theory:
If it is publicly revealed that Biden had actually been an actor for X number of years, then that gives an opening for the Democrats to pin all of Biden’s crimes on the actor.
“It wasn’t our guy who showered with his daughter and took bribes from China, that was the actor that Trump installed! Rrreeeeee!”
That interpretation requires to Tribulation to have already happened. While some historical events bear superficial similarities to the Tribulation, we’re not there yet. The church gets raptured first.
transubstantiation was certainly taught by the words of Christ. Of course there are a million ways to interpret the words of Christ.
If there truly were a million ways to correctly interpret the Scriptures, then they could be twisted to mean so many different things that they don't actually say anything useful at all, and there would have been no point in God inspiring them in the first place.
Christ did call the bread His body and the wine His blood in the Last Supper. However, since His physical body was in the room with the disciples, and there is not the slightest indication that the disciples literally ate Christ, then the simplest explanation is that Christ was speaking metaphorically, not literally. Given His disposition towards parables, Jesus was not above using metaphor.
Furthermore, both Paul and the author of Hebrews speak of Christ offering His body once for all. See Romans 6:10 and Hebrews 10:10. Yet the doctrine of transubstantiation has Christ's body being offered over and over again, a direct contradiction. In Paul's letters to the Corinthians, Paul instructs them regarding communion as a commemoration of Christ's sacrifice, not as sacrificing Christ again.
Ignatius, or any other historical figure, can have whatever opinion of scripture they want, and claim whatever apostolic lineage they want. That does not render them immune to error, and if their ideas are incongruent with scripture, then the former must be discarded.The same goes for newer groups like the Mormons or JW's.
Some of the administrative structure of the RCC dates back to 200 AD, but all of its distinctly heretical doctrines date from 400 AD or later. Indulgences, Purgatory, praying to saints, the adoption of pagan holidays, the insistence on Mary's perpetual virginity, etc.
Lastly, the doctrines of the Trinity, Divinity of Christ, and Atonement were not formalized in the 4th century; they plainly and clearly exist in scripture from the beginning. The irrational need for an external organization to confirm what the Bible says is the whole problem with the RCC in the first place, as they have abused their power to teach traditions of men instead of the Word of God.
Lol, I had a nickel for every church called Calvary, I'd be a billionaire. There's dozens of them just in my area.
At the end of the day, you have to do the legwork both to search the Scriptures and check any prospective church against that standard. That's what the Bereans did before they accepted Paul in Acts 17. Churches often have statements of faith or other summaries of their teachings on their websites. That's a good place to start. These days a lot of them have sermon recordings thanks to the lockdowns, so that's another way you can separate the good from the bad before you ever go visit.
If the church you have in mind preaches the Word unapologetically, and doesn't try twisting it to fit their own doctrine, then you probably have a good church. It may take some trial and error, but God will eventually direct you to a local church that's right for you.
There is indeed a universal church, which is the collection of all believers alive on earth at any given time.
However, local churches are equally (if not more) important. In the NT you see local churches popping up almost instantly, with the apostles going to great lengths to support them, correct them, and help them grow. Hebrews 10:25 exhorts Christian’s to not forsake these local assemblies.
You are right that many denominations invent their own rules, abandon God’s rules, or just in general slide into corruption and decay. My advice would be to check out as many local churches in your area as you can, and compare their doctrine and practices to the Bible. Find one that boldly preaches the Word on every issue, especially when it takes a stand against evolution, LGBT, and other controversial issues. There aren’t many left, but there are still some.
Nope, Peter was never part of any organization called the Roman Catholic Church.
Peter never claimed to be the infallible vicar of Christ.
Peter never taught transubstantiation.
Peter never taught that Mary was sinless or a perpetual virgin.
Peter never taught that you can buy forgiveness of sins (indulgences).
Peter never taught celibacy for priests.
Peter never taught that there even was a class of priests separate from the layman (see Hebrews for how all believers are priests, and that Christ is our high priests. You have no need for some earthly priests to intercede for you.)
Peter never taught that there was a purgatory, much less that you could pray someone out of it into heaven.
The Roman Catholic Church was founded in the 4th century, almost immediately began teaching these and other heresies, and retroactively claimed Peter was one of them to justify their error.
The RCC does not follow Christ or the Bible, but their own traditions, most of which directly contradicts Jesus and His Word.
My top picks for what mystery Babylon is:
The RCC
The NWO (Rothschilds, globalists, the Uniparty, etc)
Talmudic Kabbalah Judaism
Each seems to fit the bill in their own way.
I didn’t say they weren’t. Any organization that promotes any doctrine contrary to the Word is undeserving of the title “church”.
“The Catholic Church is anti Christ?”
“Always has been”
Yes, Oman was intentionally not trying to have children, but that doesn’t mean he was doing it only for pleasure. You’re setting up a false dichotomy.
He was doing the bare minimum to make it look like he was doing his job, without actually doing it. As for why he was struck dead when the usual punishment is humiliation, note that he was supposed to be an ancestor of Christ. He was “preventing” (humanly speaking) the advent of Christ through the line of Judah. That’s why God killed him, so that someone else would actually do their job and continue the line (even though that eventually came through Judah’s own sin).
I see you have to quote other people’s opinions of scripture, not scripture itself, to derive your perception of human sexuality.
I know right? When it comes to strongholds of individual liberty and basic decency, China, India, and Saudi Arabia come in dead last.
Here's an interesting possibility:
The word translated "serpent" just means "to hiss or whisper". The word in Hebrew is almost more of a verb than a noun.
We know from Isaiah and Ezekiel that Satan was a guardian cherub in Eden. Maybe Adam and Eve saw Satan before his fall, maybe even knew him personally.
So when Satan came whispering to Eve, she would not have seen a talking snake, but a known and (up until that point) benevolent cherub offering knowledge and godhood. Now that's a lot more tempting, isn't it?