Comment on The state of state education by laura

laura — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:07:36 +0000

State schools leave a lot to be desired and with that in mind, I don’t think exploring a free alternative is problematic.

Comment on Religion and prayer by saltnmw

saltnmw — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 01:15:28 +0000

Dear Dan of UK,
I came across your blog looking for a Daniel Freedman of Idaho. Although you are obviously not he, your question just begged me to answer. I not only know the answers to all these questions and can answer them, I can fully explain and document them. However, time does not permit all of that tonight. So I’ll do brief answers for now, and if you wish for more information, we’ll see what we can do for you.
P2Q1 (Paragraph 2, question one). Yes.
P2Q2. Yes.
P3Q1. Yes.
P3Q2. Yes.
P4. No – Praying doesn’t change where you going. The premise is in error however. People do not go to heaven because they are good or go to hell because they are bad. They go to heaven because they believe that Jesus Christ, who is God and man in one unique person forever, did everything necessary to provide the opportunity for eternal salvation from hell. You only have to accept/believe this and you, too, will go to heaven. He was qualified, willing, and able. He died on the cross and paid for all mankind’s sins, past, present and future. He was buried and rose again (resurrected) three days later. If a person is willing to accept what Christ did for them as all sufficient, they will go to heaven. That is all it takes. No prayers, no “being good,” no nothing else. Just accept this gift from God. Period. We are all inherently sinful. We just judge each other on a relative scale. For a Biblical reference see Romans chapters 1 through 3.
P5. See P4. Yes Bob Geldof will go to hell if he has not accepted Christ as his savior before he dies.
P6. Going/not going to a specific building, or reading/or not reading from a specific book is not what makes you good or evil. You are unrighteous before God because of your position in the first Adam who fell/sinned. You are unrighteous because you are a sinner. You are unrighteous because of the fact that you do not think like God, live like God, or labor together with Him in what He is doing. See P4 to fix this problem.
The rest of the paragraph is full of great examples of alternatives to thinking and living like God, and laboring with God. They will not make you godlike. They will not provide for your eternal salvation – or your children’s. The issue isn’t for people to “be good” or “nice” or “do philanthropic activities.” The issue is: are you righteous? It is through P4 that you gain positional righteousness that God can accept. Trying to be all these nice things are substitutes – fakes for what God wants to teach you to be AFTER you are saved. So these are ways to try to attain a godliness without God, doing it your own way. Again, this won’t get you saved, won’t get you to heaven. Neither will it be godliness, no matter how hard you try. It can’t. You are unrighteous. Your thinking can not possibly match Gods, nor can you if you are unrighteous live like God, nor can you if you are unrighteous (unsaved, see P4) labor together with God in what He is doing. You – no one – cannot fulfill what you were designed/created for if your are unsaved (i.e., unrighteous).
P7. Men do come up with many, many alternatives to the perfect and unsurpassable solution God has for every single problem man has. If one chooses prayer, God does not whisper the answer in someone’s ear. He expects you to know His word and be able to use that information to make your decisions. That is what thinking like God provides: it results in living (making all those decisions that you face on a moment by moment, daily basis) like God and it also results in you knowing and understanding what God is doing right now, what He has set out to accomplish, and wants you to be working right alongside Him in that business.
P8. I agree. Just because people pray doesn’t mean they know what it is for or what they are doing/how to use it properly. In which case, a walk might do them just as good. That is not to say that God doesn’t hear all prayers and can decide whether or not to respond in some way to those prayers. For example, your entire blog, if directed toward God, could be perceived as an honest desire to know something about the truth of God. That’s certainly how I took it. In which case, how about that – you got your answer!
P9. Again, you are right. Just because someone goes to synagogue or wherever means nothing as far as salvation/atonement of sins. See P4. As for whether or not going to that synagogue in 12 months is a sin – a sin in whose eyes and why? Another whole can of worms I’ll pass on right now.
As a sidelight, you might be interested to know that a majority of the Bible (the Jewish scriptures along with the so-called New Testament of the Christian scriptures) pertains to Israel. It is only the Pauline epistles that are about something else entirely (what God is doing today). What your Jewish scriptures look forward to, the Messiah, occurs in the opening books of the Christian New Testament. If you care to investigate this, please use a King James Version for the most accurate presentation of God’s word to us today in our own English language.
P10. Again you are right. Lots of religious fighting – even among Christians themselves. I wrote a song with the following line referring to the Bible (with both the Old and New Testaments): “It’s the book, Satan took to use against you and me!” Most Christians do not know their own book, let alone know how to properly approach it. This is why no one can agree on this or that even in the so-called same religion.
Final question: praying to God for an end to war, is He listening? He hears it. But if you knew what He was thinking, you’d already have the answer and wouldn’t have prayed it to begin with. You’d know.
For details and answers to these and many more questions, I can heartily recommend several resources, but the best place to start would be http://www.EnjoyTheBible.org. I am in no way related to this organization except that I recommend it as often as people like you give me the opportunity.
I don’t know how this blog site works. I will bookmark it and check back later to see if I can be of further service to you.

Comment on Getting straight by Dan

Dan — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:55:33 +0000

I signed up fror a three-month membership at the gym. I only committed myself for 3 months as I didn’t want to be paying out every month for a year if I stopped going after a while. From the way things are looking at the moment I will be signing up for 12 months once the 3 months is up. And yes, once you’re a member you can go as often as you like for as long as you like. I was there for an hour and a half this morning, and boy did it ever feel good!

Comment on Getting straight by Ivoryfrog

Ivoryfrog — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 12:23:11 +0000

Glad you back is feeling better, take it easy at the gym – don’t want to put yourself out of action again!
How does a gym membership work? annual fee and you can go as much as you like or is there some kind of limit?

Comment on Getting straight by annie

annie — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 21:18:22 +0000

We should all calculate exactly how much time we spend on our feet. Scary.

Comment on Getting straight by Jilly

Jilly — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 02:09:06 +0000

Get working on those back strengthening exercises and and remember “bend at zee knees”
God it feels so good to lecture someone else on physical crap for a change! heh!

Comment on Epiphany by annie

annie — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 17:59:33 +0000

I never got into that chat thing, but I’ve heard it’s addictive. I don’t like crowds, so maybe that’s why. Blogging’s as far as I go.
Yes, get out and have fun!

Comment on Epiphany by old horsetail snake

old horsetail snake — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 14:25:22 +0000

I will miss your frequest posts, but it seems to be you are making a good decision. Good luck out and about, social-wise, Daniel.

Comment on Epiphany by Cheryl

Cheryl — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 13:36:00 +0000

Go for it, Dan!
You deserve, life’s too short, etc etc.
Cheering you on.
x

Comment on Baaad Baaack by annie

annie — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 23:03:42 +0000

Ow!
That’s why God gave children feet.

Comments for Private Thoughts Made Public