Not sure if you are up for discussing this further, but if you are, then would you answer these two questions, please? 1. When you were "converted" did you come to recognize that you have sinned against a thoroughly righteous God and that He was right to judge you eternally for your sins? Did you repent, not sorrow over, but repent in the sense of turning to God from sin and from self-rule to taking the stance that all sin is contrary to God's nature and that God has the right, as our Creator, to rule over and command us? This isn't exactly a promise to obey, because if our obedience had anything to do with it then nobody could be saved. It's more like agreeing with God about our sin. Calling sin what it is. Confession of sin, as in 1 John 1:9 which has the idea of saying the same thing about our sin that God says about it. and 2. After recognizing our sin and our pending judgment, the promise of pardon through what Jesus did on the cross, God the Son dying to take the punishment that we deserve and resurrecting showing that He accomplished our salvation and can give us eternal life, is where saving faith comes in. We personally call upon Jesus to deliver us from the evil condition of our heart and the judgment we deserve. This is the "looking unto Jesus" that is talked about in John 3 and also “Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. Isaiah 45:22 NKJV Did you, after recognizing your sin, embrace Jesus as your Lord and Savior? To be saved one must understand that Jesus is God who came in the flesh. When Jesus said, "It is finished" when He drew His last breath on the cross, it meant that He finished taking the punishment we deserved. This is how Hebrews 1:2,3 NKJV puts it: His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Lmao but that was cruel and naughty! Student is a good guy, sincere, trying to be helpful. Sincerety though does not mean being right. Student's problem imo is that he believes the bible is 100% legit, straight from God, faultless, unblemished, nigh on perfect. I on the other hand regard the bible as like a automotive manual written and interpreted by a Chinaman living in the back streets of Calcutta. It kind of could be helpful but you wouldn't want to rely on it solely for your safety. Student would never reach for another automotive manual for reference because he thinks other manuals are corrupted whereby the one he has, being his first and only car manual has been written by the manufacturer (he thinks).
Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth That's what one believer told me was the Bible. What instructions would you say this manual is good for? I wonder if studentofthedevil s fascination with letters would qualify as ... Definition of idolatry 1: the worship of a physical object as a god 2: immoderate attachment or devotion to something Letters, in the days of Gutenberg, had to be graven. I wonder if a book can qualify as a graven image. It does, after all purport to describe, or otherwise represent the god of this world. How is this not an image? On the other hand, the book admits that man is an image of god. Does the maker of that image qualify as an idolater? It's suspicious because given the ability to make an actual god as an equal being (for example the son of god), why would any legit god make an "image" of himself? Surely an image is not real like the son of god, wouldn't you say? So why this difference in product, despite the apparent ability to make the real thing (not an image)? Could it be that some people are worshipping man as if he were god, and this is why a book about man's divine genesis is worshipped as if it was divine?
If religion / christianity transforms you or any human into a 'superman' that is, a high achiever, outstanding performer, then you are onto a winner. But if it does nothing in the now but offer a promise of things to come, then that's grand delusion. The majority of religous countries live in poverty. Even religous communities or states within America are not exactly prosperous. We've just seen Scott Morrison in Australia, a zealous pentecostal given the boot quick smart out of the prime ministerialship (thank god) due to underperformance, although his ego and self promotion and marketing knew no bounds.
Bishop Lamor Whitehead, who was robbed during a service at his church, returned on Sunday to deliver a sermon.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times ID Theft, Fraud, Prison: The Wild Life of a Bishop Robbed at the Pulpit The police said Bishop Lamor Whitehead was robbed of a fortune in jewelry, the crime caught on camera. But the focus soon turned to him and his past run-ins with the law. By Michael Wilson Aug. 4, 2022 Inside his makeshift church in Brooklyn, seated in a chair that looked more like a throne and dressed in a slim-cut, banana-yellow suit by Gucci, Bishop Lamor Whitehead prepared to deliver the sermon his followers had been waiting a long week to hear. It had been seven days since the obscure little congregation, Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries, was robbed by three armed and masked men during a service on July 24, the heist caught on a livestream video. The robbers relieved Bishop Whitehead and his wife of many chains, rings, watches and other jewelry — the total value of which is in dispute, but is estimated to be as high as $1 million — and escaped outside on Remsen Avenue. Bishop Whitehead rose. “The devil didn’t want me back in this pulpit,” he said solemnly. “God said, ‘You can’t take his life. You can touch his material things. But you can’t touch his soul.’” Then he re-enacted the robbery. Twice. Bishop Whitehead re-enacted the robbery during his service on Sunday.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times In the wake of the brazen heist, attention has focused on Bishop Whitehead, a friend of Mayor Eric Adams with a felony identity theft conviction in his past. Why, some wondered, would a preacher with a tiny congregation have a small fortune in jewelry on his person? And his immediate reaction during the robbery, as if practiced, has led to questions about whether he knew the robbers were coming — a suggestion he dismissed as ludicrous. “It’s being said because people can’t believe that this happened,” he said. Asked about whether the jewelry was insured, he dismissed the question as “legal.” The robbery was just the beginning of a very bad week for Bishop Whitehead. When two pastors from Atlanta, speaking on the livestream talk show “Larry Reid Live,” laughed at his church’s slapdash design, he joined the show as it was in progress and flew into a rage, mocking a female pastor’s weight and using an anti-gay slur. At the same time, troubles from his past were coming to the surface, including the time he spent in prison and the lawsuits he faced in New York accusing him of walking off with large amounts of money from people he knew. Court records from New Jersey show that Bishop Whitehead owes more than $400,000 in judgments to a construction company that built his house and the credit union that financed his Mercedes-Benz and Range Rover — revelations that he has dismissed as victim-shaming, even racist. In the wake of the robbery, Bishop Whitehead faced questions about his history and his flashy style, but the congregation at his church expressed support.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times The bishop’s congregation meets in a humble space above a Haitian restaurant in Brooklyn.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Bishop Whitehead held a news conference outside the church last week, but declined to answer questions about his own legal history.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times “I’m a miracle — I’m not supposed to be here today,” he said from the altar on Sunday. “Everybody wants to talk about what the tabloids are talking about and forget about the miracle.” In interviews, Bishop Whitehead simultaneously declined to discuss his past legal troubles and invited renewed scrutiny. “The reason people can’t figure me out is because they’re trying to figure me out the wrong way,” he said. “What you see is what you’ll get.” A Series of Frauds In Brooklyn, Bishop Whitehead’s roots run deep. On the night of June 14, 1978, police officers stopped a motorist for having a suspended license. He protested, a table of fruit was overturned and as more officers arrived, a big man with a gun on his hip approached. His name was Arthur Miller, the driver’s brother and a respected businessman in the neighborhood, leading job fairs and founding community groups. Mr. Miller had been trying to defuse the situation, but the officers zeroed in on the gun — legally owned and licensed. One put Mr. Miller in a chokehold. He collapsed, according to news accounts at the time, foaming at the mouth when officers loaded him into a squad car. His legs were sticking out a window when it pulled away, and he was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. His death led to protests and a march to City Hall. Mr. Miller left several children. The youngest, with his mother’s last name, was a baby: Lamor Miller Whitehead. “Growing up as a young man on the mean streets of Brooklyn was not easy,” the bishop would write on his church’s website years later. “Being raised in a single-parent home, without a father, and expected to survive in a world that was designed for him to fail in.” He did not fail. He attended Eastern New Mexico University, where he studied accounting and videography, and returned to Brooklyn, where he went to work as a mortgage broker in Manhattan. But soon after, Mr. Whitehead would set his life on a much different course. In 2005, a woman called the Suffolk County Police Department and said someone had bought a motorcycle in Brooklyn in her name, using all her personal information. A few days later, an officer pulled over a man driving the same motorcycle at a traffic stop. The driver was 27-year-old Lamor Whitehead. What followed was a lengthy investigation that uncovered what the police described as a sprawling identity theft and fraud operation set up and run by one person: Mr. Whitehead, whose girlfriend had access to customers’ credit reports through her job at a Long Island car dealership. Using personal data he pulled from her computer — she kept her login information on a piece of paper at home — Mr. Whitehead stole the identities of at least a dozen people. He took out loans in their names and bought cars and motorcycles, according to his indictment in Suffolk County in 2006. “He was living the high life,” a Suffolk County detective said at the time. Preparation for a trial took months. In the interim, rather than lay low and work on his case, Mr. Whitehead pulled off more frauds, court records indicate. He was still working as a mortgage broker out of an office in the Empire State Building around 2005, when a symphony conductor named Maximo Bragado-Darman and his son, Julio Bragado-Young, entered his office and hired him to help them close on a brownstone in Harlem. The deal was completed. Later, Mr. Whitehead reached out to the elder client privately with a business proposal. If you loan me $200,000, Mr. Whitehead explained, I can pay you back in a month, along with an extra $25,000, according to a lawsuit that followed. Sign up for the New York Today Newsletter Each morning, get the latest on New York businesses, arts, sports, dining, style and more. The conductor, trusting the young man who had smoothly executed the Harlem deal, took out a line of credit on his home, gave him the money and kept it a secret from his family, planning on surprising them with good news when the windfall came in, his son said. Instead, he was forced to share bad news: Mr. Whitehead was not going to pay him back. “It was almost guaranteed he was going to make money on this,” Mr. Bragado-Young said, referring to his father. Of Mr. Whitehead, he said: “He’s a disgusting human being. You can quote me on that.” For Mr. Whitehead, a steady four-year run of fraud came crashing down. He filed for bankruptcy in 2006, citing as income the $10,000 a month he was earning as a mortgage broker. The real hammer came down in 2008 — Mr. Whitehead’s trial date had finally arrived for the identity theft charges. Prosecutors spent several days laying out their case, linking Mr. Whitehead to the crimes through phone records and the evidence found in his house and car. He was convicted of 17 counts, mostly identity theft, and sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison. When a lawsuit brought by the symphony conductor was filed that fall, Mr. Whitehead was served his copy in Sing Sing Correctional Facility. The lawsuit led to a judgment for the conductor of $306,000. Five years later, in July 2013, Mr. Whitehead was released with a glowing behavioral record. And as soon as weeks later, the Leaders of Tomorrow Ministries was born, “with the support of 43 people who believed and met in his home for Bible study,” according to his biography online. “I have a calling and I had to do what I had to do,” he said in an interview this week. “As soon as I came home, it was on.” ‘You See He Is Teaching God’ Services on Sunday were sparsely attended.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Mr. Whitehead became Bishop Whitehead, and he has proved himself to be a gripping orator with what appears to be a deep knowledge of his worn Bible and an ability to summon chapter and verse with ease. He can place his audience in a state of rapt silence one moment and loud singing and clapping the next. “The bishop’s very relatable,” said Chantelle Vickers, 38, a member of the church and a pastor-elect. “He’s from the streets of Brooklyn. He’s not like other pastors.” She heard the widespread criticism of all the jewelry the “bling bishop” was wearing when he was robbed. “Rappers, singers, the way they attract people, that’s what he’s doing,” she said. “People want to know how you got all that. Once you get here, you see he is teaching God.” This philosophy, broadly known as the prosperity gospel, arose within African American religious traditions and emphasized the material benefits of maintaining a relationship with God, said the Rev. Dr. David Latimore, director of the Betsey Stockton Center for Black Church Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. It’s natural that someone preaching that God provides material wealth would himself bear evidence of that, he said. And yet, to him, Bishop Whitehead’s abundance seemed excessive. “While this is not the only example of displays of affluence within churches as a part of this approach to preaching, I want to argue that this is an extreme example,” he said. At the end of his lengthy sermons, Bishop Whitehead picks up a stack of empty envelopes and invites worshipers to “sow” with donations, starting at $1,000 or $500. When there are no takers, the suggested amounts decline. At a recent service, the first envelopes left his hand when he arrived at $150. It’s unclear, of course, how much a person actually places in the envelope. With only 25 or so people at services on Sunday, attendance was lower than normal — understandable a week after an armed robbery. But even with a crowd twice that size, it seems unlikely that donations would be high enough to pay for a fraction of the jewelry that was stolen. Bishop Whitehead appears to have a deep knowledge of scripture, summoning chapter and verse with ease. Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Espousing what is known as the prosperity gospel, Bishop Whitehead preaches that God will provide abundance for those who give to the church.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times. Members of the bishop’s church have defended him against criticism, and said his flashy style helps bring people to the congregation.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times He has said he does not make money in his role as bishop, and it is unclear how he earns a living. But court filings suggest it does not seem to be working very well. In 2019, Bishop Whitehead stopped making his monthly payments on a Mercedes-Benz and a Range Rover in New Jersey, according to a lawsuit that ended with a $68,000 judgment against him. That same year, he wrote a $164,000 check to the company that built his home in Paramus, N.J. It bounced, according to a lawsuit. In 2020, when a woman who had recently visited the church was recovering from surgery, Bishop Whitehead offered to help her buy a new home. The woman, Pauline Anderson, sent him $90,000 that she had withdrawn from her retirement account, according to a lawsuit. “I am a man of integrity and you will not lose,” he texted her. She asked for her money back, but he said it was too late — it had already been invested. At the same time, according to the lawsuit, Bishop Whitehead was in contract to buy a palatial, $4.4 million house in Saddle River, N.J., with a pool, a gym and a wine cellar. In church on Sunday, Bishop Whitehead dismissed Ms. Anderson from the pulpit as a liar: “That’s what the enemy wants you to believe.” Later, when asked about his income streams in an interview, Bishop Whitehead was vague. “I’m in real estate investment and a pastor,” he said. “I don’t like digging into all that other stuff.” He continued: “Everybody sues people, from here on out. It is what it is,” he said. “My church was robbed. I was robbed. I’m the victim.” His lawyer, Brenden Kombol, said he met Bishop Whitehead a few months ago, and only learned of the ongoing litigation in the press last week. He offered one nugget of information regarding the stolen jewelry: “I’ve been told that they were at least partially insured,” he said. Mayor Adams has long called the bishop a friend. “The bishop lost his dad — Arthur Miller was his name — during a police incident,” he said last week. “I have always maintained relationships with people who have gone through traumatic experiences.” At the same time, he rejected the bishop’s call that preachers be armed in church. The robbery remains under investigation. Whatever its outcome, one thing is certain, as Bishop Whitehead told his flock on Sunday morning. “Now the world knows our name,” he said. “It don’t get no bigger than that.” Hurubie Meko, Tracey Tully and Michael Rothfeld contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy and Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than any stupid christians to enter the kingdom of God, ffs!
[ Partial QUOTE="Good1, post: 5632815, member: 177970"]Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth That's what one believer told me was the Bible Definition of idolatry 1: the worship of a physical object as a god 2: immoderate attachment or devotion to something Letters, in the days of Gutenberg, had to be graven. I wonder if a book can qualify as a graven image. It does, after all purport to describe, or otherwise represent the[Lord] God..... . How is this not an image? [/QUOTE] %% Easy; king of kings of Jesus said this to the devil, but he was quoting Duet 6:13[A Holy Bible scroll]. Worship the LORD your God only and serve him only. Matthew 4:10 which quotes Duet 6:13............................................................................. You think a Holy Bible scroll maybe ok, but a modern Holy Bible book would be evil??
%% Easy; king of kings of Jesus said this to the devil, but he was quoting Duet 6:13[A Holy Bible scroll]. Worship the LORD your God only and serve him only. Matthew 4:10 which quotes Duet 6:13............................................................................. You think a Holy Bible scroll maybe ok, but a modern Holy Bible book would be evil??[/QUOTE] I think they could both qualify if both are considered by proponents to be the actual word of god (as if god had a mouth). At the very least, whether scrolls and ink pens, pages and ink pens, or pages and print, the liturgical literary tradition/collection called the "bible" could be considered a work of art. Once you make the work of art representative of god, as in "word of god", you make the work of art into a graven image, once you understand why a graven image is considered a bad thing. Can you explain why a graven image would be a bad thing? I think it is bad that you have consigned the literary collection to be representative of the word of god, but have also limited the word of god to that particular literary collection, as if god has lost his tongue and can no longer speak through pen, paper, ink or print. This smells of a power grab for a priest-ish class of overlords. There are several books in my own orbit, that support my own thesis. My treatment of those books is quite different from your treatment of the bible. For one thing, i don't quote from my books (nor do i quote from the bible). I speak in my own words and trust that my interpretation aligns with the intention of those books. Nor do i read those books often. I now understand what Jesus was intending to say, and don't need any more information to accomplish the goal of salvation. Unlike yourselves, i take full responsibility for determining that those books contain authentic information about the salvation Jesus was intending to convey. I am the one who says from whom, or where they come from. I am the judge of it. That is, the Christ aspect that i nurture, and reserve for salvation, that Christ judges with more authority than the ego aspect that experiences bodily animation. That is to say, whenever i judge anything about Christ, or speak on the subject matter, i intend to allow Christ to be the judge, and to allow Christ to speak through, over, above, and despite an ego that would like to interfere. By "I" i mean the Christ that is my Self, as opposed to the ego about me that goes about interfering with the Christ that is my Self. This is to assert, most assuredly, that only Christ can judge Christ (or any message from Christ which is attempting to get past the ego). Technically, then, you could package everything i write, list it in chapter numbers and even line numbers, and it would be much more important, and far more useful than the liturgical collection of priest-centric writ known as the bible. I am not saying anything original. I am only sharing my own unique mode of expressing the good news Jesus intended to convey, the way i understand it, the way i allow it to wash my ego away, one day at a time. In any case, i do not share the titles of the books that support my position unless someone is already inclined to believe/appreciate what i have to say in my own words...and would only share privately. If my words are not good enough for you, neither will the books that support my positions. No good can come from you knowing what books support my thesis when you still show signs of being at enmity with my message (and still in support of fleshly animation). You have to go through me to get to those titles, and it's not easy. If you were truly seeking, you would find them yourself. I would not deprive you the joy of finding them yourself, since finding the truth oneself seems to be the game we are all playing. Christ knows what an authentic message is. Unless you begin to identify with Christ, your seeking could be delayed several more incarnational animation cycles. I probably found them because many years ago, i took full responsibility for everything that happens to me. I didn't know it at the time, but that is a way of identifying with Christ. Nor are the titles limited, as you assert about the bible. More title could be published this year. The revelation is ongoing, and the titles could eventually overwhelm the popularity of the traditions you are following. Despite more titles, the message is the same, and there are a limited number of avenues that can evoke the experience of the salvation in question. Maybe one of the titles will explain it in a way you need to hear it.
I think they could both qualify ....... Can you explain why a graven image would be a bad thing? [partial/QUOTE] %% Could you explain why the[ mark of the beast] number 666 is such a bad thing?? I don't blame the investment bankers for doing a stock split on GE\ they cut out $6.66 that way
Well in order to participate in an animalistic world of beasts, a fragment of mind must do a deal with the devil, so to speak. Once one arrives here, in hell, there are no more additional deals with the devil that make it better or worse. The god of this world is the proverbial "beast", making us all, according to the deals we made, in the image of some kind of beast. In making us, you could argue that like any significant artisan, the artist has signed it's name, or put it's signature or "mark" on us, some common feature that we all share. Any guesses what that feature might be? For example, could it be an ass hole for the riddance of food waste? All beasts seem to share this feature, including the human beast species. Maybe that is the signature ("mark")? Or, could the mark be located right behind the forehead, namely, the "brain"? Maybe the signature is a fragmented mind, a private bubble separated from every other private bubble? Arguably, with either of these marks, we are in for a very hard time, finding it hard, at times, to even afford to buy food...especially when those in charge of government are also marked with these features, their brains for example, causing inflation (making it hard to buy food). The mark of the beast is bad because it is the experience of the loss of power, loss of wealth, and eventually leads to the experience of the loss of life itself (everything). A graven image, like the bible, is bad because it is the abdication of power, which leads to loss of wealth and even life itself. I always remind bible believers that there was a day, an hour and a minute when they officially abdicated their power and authority to the bible. After that day, the claim is made that the bible has always had the ultimate authority, but this claim is dishonest. That perception of authority was given to it...by you. This dishonesty is how you justify bowing down to the book. This is in contrast to how i've told you i treat the titles in my own orbit. I've never abdicated my authority to judge, whether or not those titles are authentic messages from Jesus, or from that Spirit which has an agenda to empty hell of Christ. Words that come from those sources are not necessarily more potent than words rolling off my keyboard, if i am aligned with the authoritative Self that is Christ. Abdication of this authority to a book, and to such a poor collection of books like the bible, is what the idolatry of graven images is all about. It's bad because your loss of power will be relentless from thenceforth, till you die, and die again, and again and again. Arguably the mark of the beast is separation, and the presentation of each separate fragment as unique. This is bad if the opposite, oneness, is good.