THE MEANING OF LIFE Annotated Chronicles of Discussion of A Biblical Christian Against Skeptics, Critics, Atheists, New Agers, and Mystics On the Meaning of Life
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA www.geocities.com/perianthium786
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
God Shall Reveal Even This Unto You “7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.”
- Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles (Philippians Chapter Three)
2
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
THE MEANING OF LIFE Annotated Chronicles of Discussion of A Biblical Christian Against Skeptics, Critics, Atheists, New Agers, and Mystics On the Meaning of Life PERIANDER A. ESPLANA www.geocities.com/perianthium786
Eight years ago, I joined and participated in an on-line forum/debate at http://www.lostinthecosmos.com on the meaning of life. I have reproduced in this book those on-line discussions as they exactly appeared in the Internet including typographical errors. I just changed the names with descriptions that they represented and replaced the dates with numbers (from #1 to #124) for the sake of clarity, brevity and continuity. Red #s refer to my posts. These discussions on the meaning of life started on Friday, 4 February 2000, at 5:16 p.m. and ended on Tuesday, 7 March 2000, at 9:12 a.m. My annotations can be seen at the bottom of each page in italics with numbers (#_) to point out the specific response that I had given comments. In this book, I have included boxed citations on the meaning of life from different Christian books which can be used for devotional reading and personal bible study. Perhaps, it was three or four years ago that the original www.lostinthecosmos.com website became inaccessible on-line. Its Webmaster had his own personal reason for doing so. I’ve waited for so long that it will become available again on-line but until now the original website is still inaccessible. That’s why this book become necessary so that those Net surfers who have not yet visited that website may have the privilege to witness the on-line “debate” between me and infidels with regards to the real meaning of life. Cosmos Chat Participants/Discussants/Debaters on the Meaning of Life: Biblical Christian = Periander A. Esplana Truth-seeker One = Ryazanaban Truth-seeker Two = Ciao Skeptic One = Joe Skeptic Two = Phil Critic = Chris Atheist = Louis Acosta Christian One = Josh McDowell Christian Two = Angel Diaz Mystic = Twist or Adam New Ager One = Shelly New Ager Two = James Professing Christian = Brandon
3
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
Before I joined this forum, as I browsed the thread of responses, I noticed that they are talking non-sense because one opinion is trying to refute another opinion. Without any absolute criterion of right and wrong, without adequate basis of true and false, and without ultimate standard to explain good and evil, all of them are wandering in the jokedom of opinionated opinion that destined to end in vanity of vanities. I was obliged to present the true truth to them. Not “truths” and “realities” according to their whims and fantasies but truth and reality according to the Truth of truths and Reality of realities. As you will see, when I entered all infidels united together to attack and devour me but they all tragically failed. Truth always prevails. Good always prevail over evil. At the end, righteousness defeated unrighteousness. Here is a true to life, real life chronicle of discussions on the meaning of life. A true account of what this world believed today against its Creator. You’ll be amazed to witness how infidels will try to defend their belief-system no matter how absurd it is when measured in the light of truth and reality in order to justify their sins and unrighteousness. You’ll see that all infidels or Bible-rejecters (atheist, critic, skeptic, mystic, New Ager, etc.) are narrow-minded, bigoted, deluded, paranoid, and schizophrenic. They thought that they are smart enough to criticize the perfect Word of God. They blindly believed that they are self-sufficient that’s why they complacency think that they have the guts to reject the God Who created, preserves and will redeem all things. They foolishly thought that their limited knowledge of reality is the entire reality itself. Their self-delusion becomes the measure of all things. They make “gods” out of themselves. In short, idolatry. They worship their opinion, speculation, mind, and experiences. It is my prayer that the light of God’s self-revelation may shine upon you as you read the following chronicles. May the life of Jesus who lives a life of love bless you to the utmost. May the love of God’s Spirit dwell in you richly so that you can live the meaningful meaning of livable life.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#1 Posted by Truth-seeker One (Answered by Skeptic One at #2 and by Biblical Christian at #3)
I think most of you are familiar with my feelings on the lack of meaning in life. Recently I have read posts between religion’s usefulness (gives people meaning for life) or foolishness (wastes time). I became curious as to what others’ personal opinions on the meaning of life are. Anyone wish to share some personal ideas?
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #1 I believed that Ryazanaban the truth-seeker is really honest on his inquiry about the meaning of life that’s why I was obliged to give my response on this issue. Most of the posts were really confusing. Even though he was asking for “others’ personal opinions” or “personal ideas” but the truth is that you will never know the meaning of life by means of personal opinions/ideas or man’s speculation because the answer can only be found by God’s revelation. Obviously, most of the participants have given only their own opinions and nothing more. By God’s grace, I gave them the only answer that can be found in the Word of God (the Bible) who is no other than the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is the Ultimate Solution, the Final Answer and the Absolute Explanation to all things. He alone is the very meaning of our life. Without Him, everything is futile, meaningless and utterly worthless.
4
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#2 Posted by Skeptic One In Response to #1 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #3)
~∞~
“You were made by God and for God – and until you understand that, life will never make sense.”
Everyone has very different meaning of life, depends who you ask. From a personal point of view, I believe life is to enjoy. I am very curious person and luckily life is full of questions and mysteries. I think life will be very boring if we knew – Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, answers to every question. First of all origin of life, origin of Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002, p.18. universe and if there’s God, origin of God are some of the ~∞~ questions I am sure we can spend life time trying to answer these questions. To me the most puzzling question is why anything exists? I alone can never understand this, but I can read some of the minds that had spent life time searching the answer and to me that’s lots of fun. Sometimes I wish I was born in 3000 or may be later, so I can see how much we human have increased our knowledge and understanding of our own origins. I am sure we get closer to answering these questions, but no one knows if we will answer all the questions!
-------------- - -------------------------------------#3 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #1 and #2 (Answered by Skeptic One at #4)
Life is God’s gift. You are right that one of the most difficult questions is: Why is there something rather than nothing at all? I have added still two difficult questions in my website at: http://www.geocities.com/perianthium786/basic.html No one can answer such question unless he or she must first assumed the truth of the Bible. All questions have answers. All problems have solutions. All mysteries can be understood. All in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ alone.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#4 Posted by Skeptic One In Response to #3 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #5)
There’s problem with the solution you suggested. Why would you ask someone to assume Bible as fundamental truth. You can assume that Christians may listem to you. How can you say this to a Muslim or Jewish person? Would you assume that Qur’an (Muslim religion book) or Tora (Jewish religion book) are fundamental truth? I hope you see my point and see the error in your logic.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #2 Joe the Skeptic can only hope for hopelessness by wishing to live in the future just to see how questions are being answered at that time. For him, the attempt to answer a question is fun even though you cannot answer that question. He lived in the exciting dream world of maximum uncertainty and insecurity. This is the world of all infidels when reduced to its logical conclusion: anarchic insanity. Ultimately, no solution, no answer and no explanation in the dream-world of infidels. #3 When confronted with the Bible truth, this is always the reaction of all infidels: emotional panic. By blindly holding to their cherished beliefs, without researching history, they assumed that all “religious” books are equal. I challenged all infidels to name a religious book or any kind of books that can produce the modern science and technology, puritan work ethic, computer science, Reformation period, capitalism, public education, government constitution, human rights, hospitals and medical mission, charitable works, harmonious family relationship, peace and order in society, hierarchical authority, freedom of expression in art, music and literatures, democratic freedoms, Lincoln-Luther antislavery, male-female complementarism, sublime morality, anti-terrorism, monogamy, pro-life movement, environmental science, advanced civilization, true spirituality, balanced perspectives and decision-making, ethical absolutes, stewardship of property, linear history, Christian psychology, equal justice, home-church-state relation, rules/laws/policies, etc. Do you know what is that amazing book? I’ll name it for you: the Holy Bible.
5
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#5 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #4 (Answered by Skeptic One at #6)
Even a muslim and a jew assumed the truth of the Bible; in fact, they believed that some of the books of the Bible are given by God. To clear the smoke which created by my comments, I would further tell you that I’m referring to subject-object correlation which can be found in the Judeo-christian system alone as revealed in the Bible. Tell me if there is any system in the world which can explain why we need to answer a question. The Bible alone reveals the reason, and to live in this world needs one to assume its truth. I see your point but there is no error in my logic.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#6 Posted by Skeptic One In Response to #5 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #7)
Just because other people believe in it, doesn’t make it true. You wrote “Tell me if there is any system in the world which can explain why we need to answer a question.” I have no clue what are you trying to say! I don’t need to believe in Bible in order to understand the truth in this world. I can understand the world through Science and reason. I don’t have to read religious books to understand world around me, may be you think you need to. I don’t agree with you. By the way what do you think about most of the posts here? Do you agree or disagree with them?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#7 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #6 (Answered by Atheist at #8 and #37)
You’re right, that a person’s belief will not make a thing to be true. In fact, I have wrote an article regarding this fact last year in my website with the title SCIENTISM. But God reveals truth to all men and thus it is also true that oftentimes, though not at all times, what people generally believed is true! You cannot really understand the world if you will not believed to the truth of the Bible. Just by thinking and writing correctly, you already assumed the truth of the Bible otherwise you will find yourself confined in an asylum or jail. Even Science and reason which you claimed to be your means of understanding the world are based on the Bible! Let me explain, there are three basic premises and reasonings of science of science which were based on the Bible: 1. the world is real 2. our mind is reliable and can know the real nature of the world and 3. the law of cause and effect. All these three can be found only in the Bible. This has been admitted by modern scientists themselves, needless to say that almost all the primary developers and founders of science were Bible believers. Science and reason need the Judeo-christian worldview as revealed in the Bible to be truly workable and livable. You need not to agree with me in order to believed in the Bible especially to its very circumference and center: the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You must believed in Jesus alone! He is the answer to all our questions.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #6 Joe at this point had lost sight of the significance of what he is trying to say and not to what I’m trying to say. In his response to Ryazanaban at #2, he pointed out the “fun” of answering questions. The root concept here is simply communication. Man is created in God’s image. He was created to speak, communicate, relate, adapt, share, receive, contribute, accept, give, enjoy, etc. He was designed to have a relationship. That includes answering a question. If there is no Infinite-Personal Triune God, there is no point to answer a question. There is no meaning. In atheist/polytheist/pantheist/panentheist/”monotheist” dream world, there is no significance to live at all in the multiverses of chance and worthless configuration of gods against gods and/or atoms against atoms. If the Bible were not true (i.e., if the infidels belief-systems are all true), there would be no law or order in the universe. All men will become animals or insane and things will randomly become self-destructive. Joe the Skeptic had a sense of meaning that is why he still lived otherwise he will destroy everything around him and ultimately he will commit suicide. He lived inconsistently because he lived not in accordance to his belief-system but in accordance to the Bible truth.
6
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#8 Posted by Atheist In Response to #7 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #9)
Obviously, you believe in the Bible and in Jesus Christ. Fine, I respect that. However, not everyone believes what you believe in and that is also to be respected.
-------------- - -------------------#9 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #8 (Answered by Critic at #10 and by Atheist at #39)
~∞~
“… to find your true purpose for being on the earth, it begins with turning it over to God. He will show you the most fulfilling life you can live, the one that was designed for you. But to find it, you have to give it up to him. Become his servant, and you will gain everything.”
We are dealing here with the question raised by Ryazanaban last Feb.4 about the meaning of life. True, beliefs other than the Judeo-christian faith must be respected but they are not respectable as revealed by their inconsistency and unreasonableness. If you know that others believed are wrong about it you must correct them. It is clear, from the series of – Henry Cloud, The Secret Things of God, responses about this issue that Bible-rejecting individuals do not New York: Howard Books, 2007, p. 143. live consistently with their beliefs. Those who believed that this ~∞~ world just came by chance live with the order established by Bible-believing community. Those who believed that they are just advanced animal live with the concept that they were created in the image of God who can think and act in accordance with the principles and laws created and governed by the Creator. Those who do not believed to the validity of the Decalogue (the 10 commandments) still live because they, together with others with them, follow the Decalogue. Those who reject the truth of the Bible live because the author of the Bible made them to live. There is no escape. Our mind, conscience, soul, spirit, body, this world, our fellow men, were created and maintained by God. The Bible reveals truth before and since the foundation of this world and its end and even the creation of the new heaven and new earth. There is no need for any other religious book pretending to be inspired by God. All is completely revealed about the meaning of life. The Lord will judge the world according to the light which they have seen as He revealed to them. The Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the ultimate and complete revelation of God to man. He is the revelation of God Himself. He is the real meaning of life.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#10 Posted by Critic In Response to #9 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #11)
Is not! Seriously, Periander, lecturing won’t get you very far on this board. Assertion is not argument.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#11 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #10 (Answered by Critic at #12)
Assertion is an argument. You cannot have a meaningful conversation with someone if you have no belief of anything for you cannot share anything. You must either a PRO or a CONTRA, no in-between (except, perhaps, you are the moderator). There must be a point of agreement as basic premise to start a conversation or an argument. Basic premises must never be contested, only its superstructures which have been built by opposing parties. Truth always prevails. Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #10 Chris started his assertion here by denial with exclamation and then inconsistently asserted that “Assertion is not argument” while asserting that my “lecturing won’t get [me] very far on this board.” You know what? The asserted “prophecy” of Chris the Critic failed miserably for I have the longest contribution in this forum. Before I joined the forum, they are attacking one another but after I joined the forum they gather together as one to attack me. Those in the darkness grouped themselves when light comes but they are all defeated and extinguished by the power of Light!!! This alone proved the truth of Christianity and the falsity or error of infidels’ worldviews/belief-systems.
7
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#12 Posted by Critic In Response to #11 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #13)
I’m not the moderator, just a guy who discovered this site last summer and is getting a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I should have refrained from responding to your post, but I was amused by your style and couldn’t resist a flip comment. I have argued in the past with people who have views that are (as far as I can tell) identical to yours, and have learned as much as I think I can from such exchanges; so I don’t think I’ll be trading posts with you. I certainly did not intend to try to stop you from posting, but rather give you some friendly advice about you style. I did look at you website, and while I don’t share your beliefs, I admire your energy and commitment.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#13 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #12 (Answered by Atheist at #14)
If what you wrote recently was intended as a friendly advice, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, it seems that you are trying to point my “style” which is nothing less than what I’ve learned from the Bible especially in the Lord Jesus. He did not try to compromise His belief during His earthly life where there were various existing belief-systems. He just tells the real issue as it is without any sign of worldly influences. He tells the truth assertively in a clear and concise manner. Even the apostle Paul taught and wrote what God had revealed to him without standing in any so-called neutral position. He live and die in and for truth as he expressed in Phil.1:21 “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” This is not an expression of bigoted dogmatism but of pure love and total surrender for and to the truth. “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth” (2 Cor 13:8). Jesus is the true truth (Jn.14:6).
-------------- - -------------------------------------#14 Posted by Atheist In Response to #13 (Answered by Christian One at #15 and by Biblical Christian at #17)
According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ lived 33 years on Earth, only the last three were sketchily documented focusing only on his ministry. What happened from the time he was 12 years old and the age 30? If your Bible is so complete, surely the most important and influential figure in all of history would be documented with a little more detail. He was so unsure about his convictions: his 30 days in the desert tempted by the Satan, and right up to the moment at the Garden of Getsemene and the apostles were sleeping when he asked that this “chalis be taken away” from him. I hate to ask you to answer these questions because you have totally surrendered any desire to question. This is according to conventions used called “blind faith”, which is good for some, but here on this site most of us question everything with an honest desire to find answers based on reason and facts, not unproveable quotes from the Bible. Actually, in a way, your faith is admirable.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #14 As you can clearly see, only the Judeo-christian faith is reasonable and based on objective evidences. All other religions and belief-systems are based on blind faith, emotion and subjectivity. Look for example the Yogic system of the East which is purely based on dream, delusion and demonic/diabolical possession. Even atheism is based on emotion as Isaac Asimov admitted: “I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.” (Isaac Asimov in Paul Kurtz, ed., “An Interview with Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible,” Free Inquiry 2, Spring, 1982, p.9). This is a shocking truth: Rejecting objective Judeo-christianity absolutely means accepting subjective insanity.
8
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#15 Posted by Christian One In Response to #14 (Answered by Atheist at #16 and by Biblical Christian at #17)
~∞~
“Amid this all too familiar emptiness and uncertainty, Jesus Christ invites us to accompany Him on an incredible journey toward a meaningful life, a secured future, and the power to significantly impact the world around us.”
I’ve been missing most of the posts for the last few weeks, but I saw this one and was interested. Louis, you ask why, if the bible is complete, does it not have an account of Jesus as a child? Well, what do you mean by complete. As far as I know, the Gospels were written to show that Jesus was the Christ. That was their purpose. In order to do that, they had to include some history, like the resurrection, etc, but their goal (even Luke’s account—though a historian) was to tell about Jesus and his claim to Kingship. Their goal was not to give a historical, minute by minute, whole account of the life of Jesus, or Moses, or Elija, or whoever you want to – Joseph M. Stowell, Following Christ: pick. The bible, though a history, is not written for history Experiencing Life the Way It Was purposes. It is written for others to come to a belief in Christ. Meant to Be, Grand Rapids: Zondervan So to say that the ‘bible isn’t complete’ isn’t really saying Publishing House, 1996, p. 31. much. Once again, what do you mean by complete? In a ~∞~ spiritual sense, it is. In a scientific sense, or historical sense, or mathematical sense, on and on and on… it is not. Was never meant to be. Hope this clears things up.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#16 Posted by Atheist In Response to #15 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #17 and by Critic at #22)
Glad you’re back. If “the Gospels were written to show that Jesus was the Christ”, what’s been claimed to be (by believers) the single greatest human/god event in history, one, the way it was documented does not prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt, and two, there are too many databits missing to satisfy the future generations who might wish to know more since they were not actual witnesses. The response that the Bible is not a history book or “minute by minute, whole account of the life of Jesus” leaves a lot to desire since there is no actual biography of Jesus. Even Moses had a much longer account of his life, but Moses was not the “son of God”. I mean listen to what you’re saying, Moses who was not as transcendental gets more coverage than Jesus, the son of God. Is it me or is there something seriously lacking? Even taking into consideration the improvements in literature, language and style developed during 1250 years between Moses and Jesus, where even stone was replaced by parchments by Jesus’ time, you’d expect much more information being documented. Not so. These are valid arguments on the “Greatest Story Ever Told” and too much is left to faith, ambiguity, heresay, etc. I’m open to reason if I get good answers. Another question I’d like a clear explanation for is, according to Isaiah, the Messiah would be named “Emmanuel” which doesn’t even sound like Jesus phonetically.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #15 Louis the Atheist did not know that Josh the Christian One is the famous evidential apologist. He is Josh McDowell, the author of over twenty-five popular books on Christian apologetics such as Evidence That Demands A Verdict (Two Volumes), Answers To Tough Questions, Handbook of Today’s Religions, His Image…My Image, the Secret of Loving, the Resurrection Factor, and He Walked Among Us. In the Volume One of his best-selling book Evidence That Demands A Verdict, he thoroughly documented with good solid evidences the following: Uniqueness, Indestructibility and Reliability of the Bible, the Historicity and Deity of Jesus, Fulfilled Messianic Prophecies, Positive Evidences for Resurrection, Fulfilled Prophecy in History, the Uniqueness of the Christian Experience, and the Personal Testimony of Josh McDowell himself.
9
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#17 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #14, #15 and #16 (Answered by Skeptic Two at #18)
Josh is right that the Bible is complete not in the sense which you try to push in the Bible’s completeness. When I said that the Bible is complete, it is complete in all what we need to give us the message of God (2 Tim.3:16-17; 2 Pet.1:3), thus, as I have said, there is no need for any other religious book pretending to be inspired by God. There’s no need for any actual biography of the Lord Jesus for His preexistence (as God), His birth (as man), His death (as servant), and His resurrected life (as King) will not be possible to put into any sort of “biography” in complete fashion for His very existence has no beginning and ending. Even just His earthly life as John the beloved pointed out will never be possible to put in any books, beside the fact that no one can ever read them all if they are written in part. What is written is complete for man to believe that He is indeed the Messiah, the only Lord and Saviour of mankind. Thus, if one will not believe in Him is not due to fact that the evidence is insufficient but that those men don’t really want to believe no matter how true the evidences are. The question that you must answer is: Why is it that even though Jesus didn’t wrote any book, and those who knew Him wrote only in detail His last three years on earth, yet He caused many pens to write in praise of Him until today and His impact in history is unsurpassed by those famous men who wrote voluminous books and whose autobiography and biography were put in great detail?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#18 Posted by Skeptic Two In Response to #17 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #19)
It is disappointing to read people talking past each other. (sigh) L
-------------- - -------------------------------------#19 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #18 (Answered by Skeptic One at #20)
Due to the nature of my job as science instructor in a place where there is no available internet, I cannot always respond everyday, usually I give my responses every weekend. But I always try to make a reply for this is the duty of every Christian “to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Pet.3:15). The question of the meaning of life can only be adequately answered by the Judeochristian system alone as revealed in the Bible.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#20 Posted by Skeptic One In Response to #19 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #21)
I wouldn’t want a science teacher like you to teach me science. I expect science teacher to be open minded. At least as a science teacher you should believe in your own subject. What do you teach you kids, that science is lot of hocus focus??
-------------- - --------------------------------------
_____________ #19 This situation was true eight years ago but now Internet is available everywhere. Wireless technology did it. Do you know that T.V., radio, computers, cellular phones, Internet, wireless technology, etc. were already prophesied in the Bible? Read and analyze very carefully Daniel 12:4 and Revelation 11:9-11. In fact, most of the founders and primary developers of modern science are Bible-believing Christians such as Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Robert Boyle, Charles Babbage, etc. And most of the Nobel laureates are Jews who believed in the God of the Bible. Jews, both believers and unbelievers, are history maker and world shaker: Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Houdini, Steven Spielberg, Charlie Chaplin, Larry King, etc. Most of the giant businesses in the world, specifically in U.S.A. and Europe, are owned by Jews. Thousands of modern scientists today are Bible-believing Christians who are members of Institute for Creation Research (ICR), Creation Research Society (CRS) and Discovery Institute. Visit also http://nobelists.net
10
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#21 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #20 (No one answered)
If your definition of scientific open-mindedness is that I must be convinced of your belief, you’re definitely close-minded. For a long time, I’ve waited for your response but now you appear again out of the blue, I am not offering myself to teach you, you need not like me in order to learn science, for science by modern definition is a systematized body of knowledge based on facts which must be observable, repeatable and demonstrable. Just by mere conversation like this will not bring you to scientific learning, you must experience it. The same with the truth of the Bible, you are rejecting it without ever studying it for yourself even though you assumed it throughout your life. True science, as I have already pointed out to you, always assumed Bible truth to be truly workable and livable. You cannot do any scientific investigation, you cannot learn any science, if you assumed that the universe is full of chaos without order, that the world is not real (just illusion or “maya”), that your mind is not reliable (just an evolved apemind), that there is no cause and effect, that the universe is not unified, that there are no laws which governed this world and your mind, that … ad infinitum. You must have an open mind to consider the truth of the whole Bible which you already assumed, study it thoroughly, pray to God so that you can understand it through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As the saying goes, “An open Bible needs an open heart and mind.” Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - --------------------#22 Posted by Critic In Response to #16
~∞~
“Although our own pain is not always the result of our personal sin, sin, in a larger sense, is the reason pain and disease entered Eden. Sin entered the world and altered it so completely that struggle became a part of man’s everyday existence (see Gen.3). From Genesis 3 on, the Bible’s central message is redemption. It is about how God chose not to wipe us out. It is the story of how a holy God who cannot tolerate sin made a way for us to be sinless.” – Robin Prince Monroe, Loss of a Dream, Makati City: Church Strengthening Ministry, 1994, pp. 10 -11.
~∞~
(Answered by Atheist at #23)
The figure of Moses collected a lot of explanatory “back story” as the early Jewish scriptures developed. That relatively few legends (the virgin birth, the trip to Bethlehem, a few other) about his birth and youth were added to the Gospels shows the emphasis that his early believers placed on his preaching and crucifixion. I don’t know that the lack of information provided about his early adulthood makes it any less believable that he was the son of God. There are stories about the Buddha’s childhood, and even many of his past lives, but that does not make me any more inclined to believe that he was more than a man.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#23 Posted by Atheist In Response to #22 (Answered by Critic at #24)
You’re not saying, that Christ was the son of God, are you?
______________ #21 There is an inseparable connection between the Bible and modern science. This indisputable fact had been clearly shown by many scientists and philosophers/historians of science. Read the following to see that Judeo-Christian worldview made possible the birth of modern science: S. Jaki, Science and Creation; L. Gilkey, Maker of Heaven and Earth; A. Whitehead, Science and Modern World; Oppenheimer, On Science and Culture; Foster, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science; E. Klaaren, Religious Origins of Modern Science; M. Calvin, Chemical Evolution; R. Hooykaas, Religion and the Rise of Modern Science; L.Eiseley, Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It; C. von Weizsacker, The Relevance of Physics; Hodgson, Book Review of Jaki’s Science and Creation; W. Glover, Biblical Origins of Modern Secular Culture; F. Oakley, Natural Law, Conciliarism and Consent in the Late Middle Ages; and E. Mach, Science and Mechanics. No other belief-systems or worldviews can give rise or originate the Modern Science, only the Bible truth.
11
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#24 Posted by Critic In Response to #23 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #25)
No, what I’m saying is that the lack of information in the Gospels about Jesus in his twenties has no bearing whether we should believe them. I still think that Jesus was a man who attracted a good many followers, some of whom were even more remarkable and persuasive than he was (they were better managers too!). That the message of Christianity was and still is powerful is indisputable indeed, but whether it is true is not.
------------- - -------------------------------------#25 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #24 (Answered by Mystic at #26)
The Bible is complete, there’s no need for any other additional information to “complete” its message. You’re right that it is indisputable that the message of Christianity was and is powerful, it is due to the fact that it really gives meaning to life, it is true to the total reality. No system in this world about ultimate concern can adequately explain the entire reality (universal, biological, and social) except the Judeochristian system.
------------- - -------------------------------------- #26 Posted by Mystic In Response to #25 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #27)
ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT? TALK TO A METAPHIST.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#27 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #26 (Answered by Mystic at #28)
I need not to talk to your “metaphist” to be sure that I am sure to what I am sure. The only real METAPHIST Whom I know Who know the entire reality, Who know all the facts, because He is the Creator and Sustainer of the total reality is God Himself who wrote the Bible to reveal Himself for us. But those who do not believe in God based their certainty upon their imperfect mind who know facts but an iota part of the total reality, and even this they are not sure that they are sure.
-------------- - --------------------------------------
______________ #22 and #23 Chris the Critic proved beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt that close-mindedness is a great hindrance in believing the whole Bible no matter how solid and how many the evidences are! No amount of evidence can convinced an infidel whose blind faith to infidelity ruined his ability to think logically, scientifically, properly and correctly. Let all infidels reduced their belief-system into its logical conclusion. What will happen if the Bible is not true (skepticism), if the infinite-personal, rational God did not create, sustain and redeem this world (evolutionism), if there is no right or wrong, good or evil (mysticism), if the ultimate reality is matter (materialism), if all things in this world are just illusion (spiritualism), if all things were controlled by impersonal gods/demons/spirits (polytheism/spiritism/pantheism), if revolution, terrorism is the key toward peace (communism, anarchism, mohammedanism), if all superstitious beliefs are true (paganism), if the universe is ultimately governed by mindless chance (scientism), if all men are gods who are all self-sufficient (new ageism), if the number one rule is that there are no rules but pure subjectivity (postmodernism), if life is just a game or love does not exists (hedonism), if all beliefsystem is true no matter how absurd or contradictory it is (religionism), ad infinitum absurdum..? Do you know what will happen? If all these Bible-rejecting belief systems are true, you will have no time to answer these questions at all for there will be no you who are going to answer these questions. In a nanosecond, you may be converted into an amoeba or dog (chance or gods did it! - pessimism). Your husband, wife, close friend, son, daughter, neighbour, or fellow men may instantly kill you and you may insanely kill yourself (life is meaningless, isn’t it? - nihilism). In the dream world of infidels, you have no right to live and you have no reason to exist at all!
12
THE MEANING OF LIFE #28 Posted by Mystic In Response to #27 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #29)
in case you were not are of this, GOD DID NOT WRITE THE BIBLE! PEOPLE DID! now with that said lets move onto something else. what makes you think god is male? how do you know this whole thing is not run by some omnipotent chick? you dont. dont even give some defense like “the bible says ‘lord’, ‘he’ and other other such male indicating words”. the bible was written in times where women were considered property, men ran everything, and god only talked to men. hmm. i wonder why god is said to be a man. dont pull “god created MAN in his image” either. isnt mankind used to indicate the whole species? and what makes you think it ment our physical bodies? do really think god’s true form is even anything we would be able to comprehend? and you also say “imperfect minds”. whats with that? if god is perfect, how can we not be if we are made in gods image? If we are imperfect, that kills any idea of god being perfect either. how can that which is perfect create any thing that is imperfect? you dont know do you? your not SURE, are you? never thought about that, huh? if we are imperfect, god cant be that perfect if it screwed up. Think about all this before you reply next.
-------------- - ---------______________ #28 All the objections given in this forum by skeptics, critics, atheists, mystics, new agers, and infidels were already answered with great detail at www.christian-thinktank.com and in the following books: Dr. Peter S. Ruckman’s Problem Texts, Pensacola: Pensacola Bible Institute Press, 1980, 499 pp. Dr. Gerardus D. Bouw’s The Book of Bible Problems, Cleveland: Association for Biblical Astronomy, 1997, 265 pp. Dr. Norman Geisler’s When Critics Ask, Victor Books, 1992, 604 pp. These proved that all infidels’ objections were just results of their laziness to properly and prayerfully study the Bible that’s why they have so many misinterpretations and misconceptions of the Bible. All their so-called errors and contradictions in the Bible merely exposed their perversions of God’s Word as the Lord told the infidels during his earthly life: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Twist the Mystic is ignorant of the fact that the Bible alone really gives honor to woman since the ancient time until this day. And that the original creation was perfect but sin entered because of one man (not of woman). All are sinners who need the only Lord and Saviour, the Son of God, made of a woman.
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA ~∞~
“…the Bible gives a unity to the universal and the particulars. First, the Bible tells men and women true things about God. Therefore, they can know true things about God. One can know true things about God because God has revealed Himself. The word God was not contentless to Reformation man. God was not an unknown ‘philosophic other’ because God had told man about Himself. …That is, when God tells people what He is like, what He says is not just relatively true but absolutely true. As finite beings, people do not have exhaustive truth about God, but they can have truth about God; and they can know, therefore, truth about that which is the ultimate universal. And the Bible speaks to men and women concerning meaning, morals, and values. Second, the Bible tells us true things about people and about nature. It does not give men and women exhaustive truth about the world and the cosmos, but it does give truth about them. So one can know many true things about nature, especially why things exist and why they have the form they have. Yet, because the Bible does not give exhaustive truth about history and the cosmos, historians and scientists have a job to do, and their work is not meaningless. To be sure, there is a total break between God and His creation, that is, between God and created things; God is infinite -- and created things are finite. But man can know both truth about God and truth about the things of creation because in the Bible God has revealed Himself and has given man the key to understanding God’s world.” – Francis A. Schaeffer, “How Should We Then Live?” in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, Vol. 5, Westchester: Crossway Books, 1982, pp. 123-124.
~∞~ 13
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#29 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #28 (Answered by Mystic at #30)
What you have said are all beside the point. Obviously, God did not write literally the Bible, you need not to talk about it in a six years old boy or girl, people of course wrote it, dogs can’t write, ape can’t write, worm can’t write, people of God wrote it for all men as directed by the Holy Spirit. If your definition of writing is what in your autonomous mind, then you did not write also what you “wrote” in this forum. COMPUTER DID IT! What flow of logic do you follow when you “said” that “if god is perfect, how can we not be if we are made in gods (sic) image? If we are imperfect, that kills any idea of god being perfect either. how can that which is perfect create any thing that is imperfect?” Again, I congratulate you that, like your fellow infidels, atheists, skeptics, critics, mystics, etc., thoroughly refuted your OWN idea of God, you disprove, at last, your wrong concept of God, you once-and-for-all demolished your perverted knowledge of God! The God of gods, Lord of lords, and King of kings who WROTE the Book of books is perfect. Only the imperfect mind of man who wants to understand Him by himself makes Him imperfect. Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#30 Posted by Mystic In Response to #29 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #31)
do us all a favor and reread what you just wrote. keep doing that until you realize how dumb that last part sounded. oh, one more thing. when you quoted me? you filtered it. you did not quote me exactly. my point has been proven. thank you very much. and we are back at square one. you are avoiding the perfection subject. you have no way out of that one do ya? Matt 7:1
-------------- - -------------------------------------#31 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #30 (Answered by Mystic at #32)
You proved nothing but your ignorance of the Bible. Read and understand what you write and my response 100 times (if you want a googol times, much better). You disproved nothing but your OWN TWISTED concept of God and the Bible. Thanks for refuting yourself (i.e., your personal experience). Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#32 Posted by Mystic In Response to #31 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #33)
how can one disprove experience? are you going to prove that it didn’t happen? i would like to see you try
-------------- - -------------------------------------#33 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #32 (Answered by Mystic at #34)
You disprove your own belief which you claimed to have been based upon your personal experience by your own inconsistency. Your experience deceived you to the point that you cannot see that you have been deceived. You assumed Bible truth in order to live but you hold it in unrighteousness by the way you live (Rom.1:18-23).
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #30 The final court of appeal of all New Agers, mystics or yogis is actual/direct experience. But we cannot experience all that we know. How do you know that there are atoms, Antarctica, planets, other minds, values, etc.? How do you know that one plus one is equal to two (1 + 1 = 2)? That illegal drug is dangerous? That poison/virus can kill you? That no one can survive in beheading? Can you experience all of these in order to know that they are true and real? Yogic belief is clearly absurd!!!
14
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#34 Posted by Mystic In Response to #33 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #35)
what is this bible truth of which you keep speaking? forget about being guilty, we are innocent instead. two seemingly contodictory truths can exist at the same time. reread my statements, there are no contradictions.
-------------- - ---------------#35 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #34 (Answered by Mystic at #36)
You said that “two seemingly contodictory truths can exist at the same time. reread my statements, there are no contradictions” (I just copy what you wrote including typos), then why keep contradicting all what I have said to you about the truth? Your response is self-defeating. You really contradicted your personal experiences by your expressed beliefs, opinions and ideas. Be true to yourself. Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - -----------------#36 Posted by Mystic In Response to #35
~∞~
“In other words, in every discipline, the Christian worldview shines brighter than its competition, is more realistic, better explains man and the universe, is true to the Bible, is more scientific, is more intellectually satisfying and defensible, and best of all, is in keeping with and faithful to the one person who has had the greatest influence in heaven and on earth – Jesus Christ.” – David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: The Religious Worldviews of Our Day and the Search for Truth, Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 1991, p. 800.
(Answered by Biblical Christian at #97)
~∞~
how am i contradicting my experiences? you don’t know what my experiences are, so how would you know if i am or not? we are not contradicting at all. think. what you are saying is truth and what i am are basically the same thing. i am true to myself, but one must define what one is not before one can define what one is. how will you know you are being true to yourself if you are limited in your experience of yourself? maybe who you think you are is not who you are. we are all love, but how can you know that unless you have experienced that which is not love? i have not contradicted my self in any way.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#37 Posted by Atheist In Response to #7 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #38)
Excuse me but, there were humans around long before the Bible was ever written and, I’m very sure they knew that the “1. the world is real 2. our mind is reliable and can know the real nature of the world and 3. the law of cause and effect. I can’t believe that you can say that, “These can only be found in the Bible”. You limit humans to idiots by that comment.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #36 and #37 Twist/Adam the Mystic and Louis the Atheist ignorantly agreed here that you could live in reality and know the truth without the Judeo-christian system. They are absolutely wrong. Open your mind and see. John Cage firmly believed in the chaotic/irrationality of nature which he applied in his chance music. But, as a mycologist, he could not applied that philosophy because he rationally and non-randomly discriminate between safe and poisonous mushrooms. Bernard Berenson lived hedonistically because he firmly believed that man is just an animal which must follow his sexual urge wherever it leads. But he cannot applied this belief-system to his true passion, to what he truly valued -- the Renaissance art, because he was horrified and greatly dismayed by the “bestiality” of modern art. All unbelievers simply cannot live consistently with his belief-system. The famous existentialist atheist Jean-Paul Sartre admitted toward the end of his life: “I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.” (National Review, NY, 11 June 1982, p. 677, article by Thomas Molnar – Professor of French and World Literature at Brooklyn College). In recent time, the world-renowned atheist Antony Flew now believed in God because of the cumulative evidences given to him by Gary Habermas and by Intelligent Design Movement. How much more is the inconsistency of all New Agers, mystics and yogis with their belief-system?
15
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#38 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #37 (No one answered)
The validity of your statement depends upon your knowledge of the Bible. I am not limiting humans to idiots by my comments that the three basic premises upon which the modern science was founded can only be found in the Bible. For the Bible is a collection of books which were written starting from the creation of the world where there are no humans except Adam and Eve (this can be proved scientifically through archeology) up to the time of the apostles but transcending our present time for John the Beloved wrote the book of the Revelation after he saw the new heaven and new earth of the future (this can be explained scientifically through RELATIVITY). You’ve also missed my point, true, people knew the three basic assumptions of science even though they didn’t know the Bible but it is just a further confirmation of Bible truth (Rom.1:19,20) that they were created in the image of God and that God reveals Himself to them through the witness of nature (general revelation) thus they knew that the world is real and they can know its real nature. My point is, how can people knew these assumptions if there’s no one who put it in the first place in them. If the world just came by chance and we are just “little higher than the apes” (cp. Heb.2:7) as the Bible-rejecting “intellectuals” would like us to believe, then why does people keep proving through their lives in the order of this cosmos that these pseudo-intellectuals were wrong and the Bible is right?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#39 Posted by Atheist In Response to #9 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #40)
I too believe and practice the last seven of the ten commandments. I also choose to live in relative judeo/Christian values in which “love thy neighbor” is the most important. However, you state that, “If you know what is true about the meaning of life you must share it to others but if you know that others believed are wrong about it you must correct them.” This is the same thinking that inspired: the crusades that lasted hundreds of years, the inquisition of heretics and later persecution of protestants during the late middle ages up until the 1800s; the conquistadors that brought Christianity to America and decimated the native cultures that inhabited the Americas for thousands of years before Europeans arrived; the nazi directed holocast and genocide of the jews, the ethnic cleansing taking place in the Balkan republics and former Soviet republics. I believe that the belief in God and religious institutions can be good for humanity, but, it is not good for humanity when one religion (whichever one) forces its beliefs on people who believe differently. Periander, be careful not to continue the practice of religious intolerance of which the world has seen too much throughout the recorded history.
-------------- - --------------------------------------
______________ #38 You see this is the second instance when no one can answer my post, the first is #21. This merely proved that no one is able to answer my post when it deals with the very meaning of reality and essence of humanity. Only in the sphere of Judeo-Christianity where reality and humanity can co-exist in peaceful consistency. The undeniable fact of the universe and the heart of man will indeed shut you up to let you contemplate within the circle of the Bible truth. Unless you believed Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, you will never know reality as it is and you cannot live consistently designed for all of us by God Himself as Dr. Herman Dooyeweerd pointed out: “Since the fall and the promise of the coming Redeemer, there are two central main springs operative in the heart of human existence. The first is the dynamis of the Holy Ghost, which by the moving power of God's Word, incarnated in Jesus Christ, re-directs to its Creator the creation that had apostatized in the fall from its true Origin. This dynamis brings man into the relationship of sonship to the Divine Father. Its religious ground-motive is that of the Divine WordRevelation, which is the key to the understanding of Holy Scripture: the motive of creation, fall, and redemption by Jesus Christ in the communion of the Holy Ghost. The second central main spring is that of the spirit of apostasy from the true God. As religious dynamis (power), it leads the human heart in an apostate direction, and is the source of all deification of the creature. It is the source of all absolutizing of the relative even in the theoretical attitude of thought. By virtue of its idolatrous character, its religious ground-motive can receive very diverse contents.” (Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, 4 Volumes, Ontario: Paideia Press Ltd., Vol. I, p.61)
16
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#40 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #39 (Answered by Atheist at #41)
~∞~
“The natural man may You have admitted that you believe and practice the truth disbelieve, and the worldly man revealed in the Bible for this is the only way for man to live meaningfully in this world. What I have learned from the Bible may scorn, when we preach the will not caused me to repeat the lessons of religious history. If Gospel doctrine of salvation you really love you neighbour as yourself, do you think your love will cause you to kill others just to force your belief to them? through the substitutionary Except you believed that such commandment is absolute, you too work of Jesus on the Cross; but will try to pervert it so as to give license of killing others who we who know Him have proved will not be convinced to believe what you believed. In the Bible you will find the crescendo of highest morality. In the Old that only there is real solution Testament you learned the ten commandments, it was further and salvation to be found.” given intimate meaning in the New Testament. For instance, – J. Sidlow Baxter, “Christ Everything to adultery was considered to be sin in actual commotion, but in Us,” in Awake My Heart, Grand Rapids: N.T. it was redefined, or more precisely, revealed as sin Daybreak Books, 1960, pp. 61. occurring first of all within the person’s mind, so is murder, ~∞~ idolatry, stealing, etc. The question naturally arises, do you think that what you have enumerated of killing incidences in religious history demonstrated the laws of love in the Bible? They have never learned the truth of God is love. Let the Lord judge at the end those who will not believed in Him. -------------- - -------------------------------------#41 Posted by Atheist In Response to #40 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #42)
No, I practice what I believe is good whether it is found in the Bible or I read it in the newspaper. The Bible contains a lot of wisdom, but not all of it is love and peace. There are many stories of God leading his chosen people in war against their neighbors..neighbors hwo lived and owned the land they lived on. The Israelites invaded and killed them to take the land. That’s stealing! Under God’s law the Israelites should have been killed themselves. I do not justify those incidences in the Bible and I feel in my judgment to hold to a higher standard of morality where killing under any circumstance is wrong. Stealing is wrong, adultery is wrong, saying false things about someone is wrong. The Bible mentions slavery: the jews took and kept slaves, they became slaves themselves various times. Slavery is wrong…yet under the guise of God’s will it is Good? Periander, read the Bible and pass judgment on the examples it sets. What’s wrong is wrong! Don’t just accept the Bible as being 100% good, there’s a lot of wrong in those pages along with goodness. You and everyone must decide what’s good and what’s bad, not swallow the whole Book under one assumption.
______________ #41 Louis the Atheist foolishly thought that to claim the Promised Land owned by the Creator Himself is stealing. Does this infidel know that Canaanites are an abomination to the Lord (Lev.18) and that the wages of sin is death? Does this infidel know the meaning of the Hebrew word “nephilim” in the Bible? God can take life according to His perfect will because He is sovereign over life (Deut.32:39; Job 1:21). According to this infidel “killing under any
circumstance is wrong” but the question that must be answered by this ignorant infidel are: “what is killing?” Is killing plants, animals, insects also wrong? Is killing of criminals by the government also wrong? Is killing bacteria, virus or pest also wrong? Who defined killing that is wrong? According to what standard? Some infidels are vegetarian because they thought killing animals is wrong. But they tolerate abortion/infanticide which is killing fetus/babies. They tolerate euthanasia/mercy-killing which is killing the senescent and the hopeless. Abortion and euthanasia are obviously wrong. Do you now see the arrogant stupidity of infidels? Lincoln and Luther overthrew slavery because of the application of the Bible truth. All men are equally created with freedom and dignity in the image of God. Slavery are common in ancient time but the O.T. demanded that all slaves will eventually be set free (Exod.21:2; Lev.25:40). The N.T. tells us that in biblical Christianity “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal.3:28).
17
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#42 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #41 (Answered by Mystic at #43 and by Atheist #52)
If you used your own opinion to correct other opinions so as to say whether it is wrong or not will bring you nowhere. To use not the Bible as your absolute basis of right and wrong is to find yourself in the shoreless ocean of ideas and opinions. How do you know that one thing is wrong and the other is right, do you make god out of yourself? What is your basis to say that killing, stealing, saying false thing about someone are all wrong? Again, with that saying you assumed Bible truth but with the same breath you reject it which is an expression of inconsistency. You must thoroughly study the Bible before you judge some of its part to be not “good”. Have you already studied its detail so as not to miss those points which are necessary to understand its meaning as a whole, or your rough-and-ready answers and judgments were produce by your prejudice against it?
------------- - -------------------------------------#43 Posted by Mystic In Response to #42 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #44)
Matt. 7:1, check it out.how do you figure the bible is complete? i guess you never found all the loop holes and ways out that it has, such as genesis 4:1. and what is so “wrong” about proclaiming yourself to be god? im god. every thing is. every nothing is. god is magnificent. so am i. so are you. where’s the problem? what is “right” and what is “wrong”? is not wrong the opposite of that which is right? and what, or who, defines either of these? if god thought some things were “wrong”, why did god create them? so he could punish us? THAT makes a lot of sense. isaiah 45:7. read that too. have a nice day!
-------------- - --------------------------------------
______________ #43 I have clearly explained Matt.7:1 and Isaiah 45:7 at #83. As to Genesis 4:1, Gnostics have their own perverted interpretation of this passage that’s why they thought the Bible has loopholes but there is no loophole whatsoever in the Bible. Loopholes exist only in the perverted minds of infidels, eastern mystics, western New Agers, pagans, agnostics, and Gnostics. A blind man cannot see the beauty of a flower. A deaf man cannot hear the melody of a love song. A kindergarten cannot understand a calculus book. A psychotic/schizophrenic or paranoid cannot learn the complexity of a computer program. How much more is the beauty, melody, calculus, and complexity of the Bible can be known by finite, limited, sinful man unless God Himself through the Holy Spirit illuminated and enlightened him? Infidels lived in a dream world which they thought is reality itself. They lived in their invented delusion. Unless men adapts God’s interpretation of reality, they will continually pervert and distort reality in accordance to their depravity and deception. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Rom.3:10-19)
18
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#44 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #43 (Answered by Mystic at #45)
You stated: “what is so ‘wrong’ about proclaiming yourself to be god? im god. every thing is. every nothing is.” There’s no “wrong” with that if you will asked those deluded fool who pretend to be god, there’s no “wrong” with that if you will asked the old serpent, the deceiver, Satan, devil, who pioneered such usurpation, there’s no “wrong” with that if you asked those who have a wrong mind like you. I hope this is clear. God loves you that He gave His only begotten Son to die and rise again for you, to save you from sin and death, don’t waste your time in defending and justifying your sins, confess them to God and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour. (Jn.3:16, Ac.16:31, Rom.10)
~∞~
“One cannot trust in his church membership, his baptism, or his good works to save him. One must simply trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone by believing on Him.” – Douglas D. Stauffer, One Book Stands Alone, Millbrook: McCowen Mills Publishers, 2001, p. 58.
-------------- - --------------#45 Posted by Mystic In Response to #44
~∞~
(Answered by Biblical Christian at #46)
MATT 7:1 ISAIAH 45:7 that’s all i have to say.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#46 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #45 (Answered by Mystic at #47)
You say nothing. You are quoting the Bible out of its context. Remember the often-quoted fact: “a text without a context is a pretext for a prooftext!” Again, you just unknowingly expressed your ignorance of the Bible. Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#47 Posted by Mystic In Response to #46 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #48)
who are you to say what the bibles context is? why dont you stop picking the parts of what you believe in if it is so ultimately true?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#48 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #47 (Answered by Mystic at #49)
Where do you get your “idea” that if the Bible is ultimately true, then you can pick any part of it out of its context? Absurdity. If you take any words of the Bible without considering its context, then you can prove anything from the Bible: atheism – “there is no God” (Psa.14:1); hedonism – “A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things” (Ecc.10:19); irrationalism – “take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate” (Mk.13:11); suicide – “to die is gain” (Phil.1:21); pessimism – “And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey” (Isa.59:14,15); New Ageism – “Christ in you” (Col.1:27); “honour the God of forces” (Dan.11:38); “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1Cor.3:16); “Ye are gods” (Jn.10:34); Satanism – “And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whosoever I will give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine” (Lk.4:6,7); etc. etc. Prima facie, your own ignorance of the Bible will bring you to hell. You must study a text of the Scripture in its context not only grammatically and historically, but also, the most important, prayerfully. There’s no need to teach any literate person with a sane mind to understand a text in its context, but I need to reiterate this to you for not only you are Biblically illiterate but also spiritually blind, you need the Light Who alone can give you sight, He is the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is the true and real enlightenment needed by humanity.
19
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#49 Posted by Mystic In Response to #48 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #50)
you are no more an authority to say what the bibles context is than i am, so drop this context crap. do really believe that god can save you but not dwell in you? if we are all a part of god, are we not gods? in death all is revealed, how is it not gain? thought kills your first reaction of kindness of word or deed, so why do you think about it? truth does fail because no one will hear it, why do you think the world is in this situation and state of ignorance? you yourself probably know that “satan” is deceiving. do these words surprise you? im not illiterate in any sense, I just thinkn for myself and I dont let a few hundred elders of the church or society tell me what to believe. their right is no better than mine.
------------- - -------------------------------------#50 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #49 (Answered by Mystic at #51)
Twisting words is lying. All what you believed today which you claimed you derived alone from your personal experience were in fact indoctrination you received by reading books, conversation with others, learning at the feet of….. Isn’t it? You will know nothing if you will not interact to the world, to your fellow men, etc. But you contradict the evidences of your senses, your experiences, your common sense, and your assumption in order to live, by what you believed and expressed in this post. You assumed Bible truth so that you can live, but you reject it by your belief-system. Be true to yourself. Jesus is the true truth!
------------- - -------------------------------------#51 Posted by Mystic In Response to #50 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #97)
twisting words is not lying, lying is lying. there are half truths, loopholes, allowing things to go without saying anything one way or the other. none of these are lying. be specific and you cant get cuaght in the loopholes. interaction is experince. reading is an experience. talking is an experience. learning is an experience. i have only gone aginst that which does not serve me, which is established beliefs. i am not saying they are wrong, they just do not serve their purpose. if a door boes not open and close, you would not call it wrong, you would simply say that it works incorrectly, or does not serve its purpose. i was sick of being brainwashed by the church and society. the soul will not be limited and fights any restrictions but upon it. did not the united states start of with a saying “give me liberty or give me death”? i do not limit my self and i go completely with my highest feelings, for god is the highest thought, clearest word and strongest feeling. i go with all my assumptions, feelings, and common sense. how do you think i came to hese conclusions? experience. everything is an experience.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #49 and #51 Notice how Twist/Adam the Mystic upon seeing the absurdity of his assertion at #47 took a stand out of embarrassment by justifying his foolishness at #49 and #51 to the point of defending the different “ism” which I enumerated at #48 (such as hedonism, irrationalism, suicide, pessimism, New Ageism, and Satanism) but excluding atheism. This mystic is so hopeless that he will cling to lies, perversion and deception just to reject the Bible no matter what. The Bible has something to say to this foolish infidel: “Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Prov.8:32-36). “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; …Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, ...Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; …Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom.1:18-32). As to the refutation of the mystic concept of experience, see my post at #103.
20
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#52 Posted by Atheist In Response to #42 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #53)
I am a thinking person, I use my knowledge, ability to reason, and experience when discussing a particular topic. I feel very confident when I state that the last 7 commandments, starting with honor thy father and mother are very important social and moral rules no matter what religion you practice, if you live on this planet it makes sense to live by those general rules. There is nothing supernatural about those (the first three I don’t believe in since that would be contradictory to atheism). Whether the commandments come from God or the Bible is irrelevant. I do not believe in God or that the Bible is the word of God but I respect those who do. I arrived at this understanding through many years of studying the subject. “or your roughand-ready answers and judgments were produce by your prejudice against it” is a little harsh judgement. “Be careful not to judge lest be ye judged”, that is found somewhere in the Bible too.
-------------- - -----------------#53 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #52 (Answered by Mystic at #54)
~∞~
“Is all hopeless? Is there no cure? Are we all doomed therefore to perpetual blindness and darkness? There is but one hope. There is but one answer. There is but one cure. According to the gospel, Jesus of Nazareth was the only begotten Son of God. He came down to earth because of the blindness of mankind, because man had been deluded by the god of this world. He came and brought that treatment which alone can avail. He has removed by His sacrificial, atoning death and His resurrection the stain of the guilt of sin. He has given new life and power to our diseased and paralysed spiritual optic nerves. He enables us to see God, to behold our Father’s face. And looking at Him, the light of the eternal countenance irradiates our whole being.”
Whether the commandments which you followed in order to live meaningfully in this world come from God or the Bible is not irrelevant. The question of origin is always important, this fact needs no explanation. In fact, as you have said, the commandments are very important moral and social rules no matter what religion you practice. That’s the point, Bible truth is absolute. You cannot live in this world without assuming its truth. How do you know that you really know that you are a thinking person who can use knowledge, ability to reason, and experience when discussing a particular topic? – Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Truth Unchanged, What is your basis in reasoning and judging goodness and Unchanging, Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1950, morality? Your knowledge, ability to reason, experience, and pp. 103-104. judgment of goodness and morality assumed Bible truth. The ~∞~ question that remain to be answered by atheists and by Bible rejectors is: Why do you assumed Bible truth in order to live but with the same breath you reject it in order to justify your atheism and unbelief which is an expression not of knowledge, ability to reason, and experience?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#54 Posted by Mystic In Response to #53 (Answered by Atheist at #55 and by Biblical Christian at #57)
all throughout the bible it talks about the wise man. the wise man this, the wise man that.but what makes his so wise? because he thinks for himself? and who proclaims him to be wise? himself or others? if he knows morality and what is wrong so well, who told him? and why do so many wise men differ? is it because they figured out what is right and wrong, moral and immoral for themselves? and if so many wise men did that, and this is how they to be wise, why is it wrong for anybody else to figure things out for themselves?
-------------- - --------------------------------------
21
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#55 Posted by Atheist In Response to #54 (Answered by Mystic at #56)
As you say a wise man may be a man who figured things out for himself and usually is in agreement with the majority. No one is infallible, everyone makes mistakes, however, when it seems to the majority that the wise man makes a mistake or is wrong, it may be that the majority still haven’t figured out what the wise man is talking about. There’s a saying that goes, “It is a blessing for those who have the power to see the future and it is also a curse for them to have to wait for others to catch up.” It depends…
------------- - -------------------------------------#56 Posted by Mystic In Response to #55 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #57)
im exceedingly glad that you see where im coming from in that. but what does it depend on? this why the wise man always gets screwed in the long run because very few people are ready to hear what he is saying. that’s why a lot of wise men choose to keep their mouths shut rather than sharing with the world, they do not wish to be demonized and then have people understand long after they are gone. it is the work of the soul to wake the self, but it is the work of god to awaken others.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#57 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #54 and #56 (Answered by Mystic at #58)
How do you know that what you consider a wise man is indeed wise? How can you be so sure that you have already figure things out for yourself? What is your basis for figuring things out? The Bible alone gives the criteria how to know a fool or a wise. To consider yourself that you have already figure thing out for yourself without in fact figuring it out is a big mistake and might be tantamount to selfishness, or worse, insanity!
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #55 and #56 At this point Louis the Atheist and Twist/Adam the Mystic cannot adjudicate who is right between the wise man and majority. They cannot determine if the wise man is indeed wise. They measure the wiseness of man by their opinionated opinions. They both think, based on their opinion alone, that they are wise. But the Bible judged them both to be fool, corrupt and filthy: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psa.14:1-3). The atheist does not believe in GOD because based on his opinion there is no God. His depravity, “scientific” studies and emotional panic to God’s final judgment at the end “confirmed” his beliefs. The same is true to the mystic or pantheist. He does not believe in GOD because based on his opinion there is no infinite-personal God of the Bible. What he blindly believed is that all is god. His diabolical experiences (dream, illusion, delusion, delirium, etc.) based on Satanic interpretation “confirmed” his beliefs. You see the Bible alone can correctly interpret the experiences of all men. It can even discern, criticize and analyze the entire essence and existence of man himself: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Heb.4:12-13).
22
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#58 Posted by Mystic In Response to #57
~∞~
“Christ said in John 14:23,
(Answered by Biblical Christian at #59)
what makes you think you know a wise man from a fool? what is ‘If a man love me, your basis? the bible. of course. not to seem like a jerk or anything like that, but your one of those “you decide! you choose! i’ll go he will keep my words….’ along!” people, aren’t you? what makes the bible so authoritative? …If a man loves God, he will are you not aware that a lot of the bible was passed down verbally? keep God’s words, and if he and is it not true that when things get passed around that they get just a little distorted? the bible was also rearranged for political loves Christ, he will keep purposes. are you not aware of this? my basis for figuring things Christ’s words. Love for God, out is my own personal experience. something you probably without love for God’s word, ignore because sometime what you feel is right or wrong conflicts with your dogma. sorry to put it bluntly, but that is what it is: is an unknown, unheard dogma. go look that up in the dictionary and think about the of thing in the Bible.” definition. besides, what wrong with thinking for yourself? if you – Peter S. Ruckman, Theological Studies, assume wrong, then oh well you were wrong. learn from it and 2 Vols., Pensacola: Bible Believers Press, move on. and what is figuring things out to you? listening to what 1995, p. 684. others say? thats not figuring out, thats following along. and what ~∞~ is wrong with being selfish? the best person to love is the person who is self centered. how can you love another until you love yourself? give to another what you want for yourself. does not the bible say love thy neighbor as thyself? if do not love yourself and you are to love others with the same vigor, that isnt saying much for your love of your brother, is it? and what is wrong with insanity? analyze the word for a minute, in-sanity. hmm. in sanity. that I am. if you do not go within, you go without. with-in, with-out. if you do not go within, insanity, you go without, that is, with-out.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#59 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #58 (Answered by Mystic at #60)
Congratulations, you have now made a brand new “alien-ufo” dictionary of selfishness, dogma, insanity, etc.! How do you know that you really know what you pretend to know? Why there is existence rather than extinction? What are your reasons behind your belief that truth is more preferable than deception, that right is better than wrong, and that good is higher than evil? You cannot adequately answer these questions unless you assumed Bible truth. The Bible is authoritative because God Himself authorized it. GOD SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT, THAT SETTLES IT!
-------------- - -------------------------------------#60 Posted by Mystic In Response to #59 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #61)
i do not pretend. I stoped doing that along time ago. i base my self on my personal experience. none exist, so none can be higher than any other. what is “bible truth”? are you refering to ultimate truth, ultimate reality? in that case….. yes i am. your dead on. still you persist with the gender thing. did you read the bible verses i suggested?
-------------- - --------------------------------------
23
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#61 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #60 (Answered by Mystic at #62)
Do you really base yourself on your personal experience? How can you be so sure that you have your personal experience? What is YOUR personal experience? What makes your personal experience possible? Are you really independent, autonomous being, by yourself, you didn’t depend on your environment in order to live, you don’t eat, drink, etc., don’t you? You don’t depend your knowledge on the indoctrination you received, don’t you? You don’t really depend your existence in your surrounding, don’t you? You really created yourself out of nothing, do you? You know all things, aren’t you? You’re dead, if you have “absolute” freedom, independence, autonomy, “godhood”, etc. Only the God of gods, Lord of lords and King of kings who wrote the Book of books is absolute. You are a relative, dependent being, prima facie! What is your basis that your personal experience does not deceive you as you can found normally in the mental asylum? You cannot really answer the three basic questions (3Q) I gave to you unless you assumed Bible truth. Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#62 Posted by Mystic In Response to #61 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #74 and by Mystic at #80)
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? THAT DIDNT EVEN MAKE SENSE! you are getting away from me, and if i cant understand you, theres a problem. you are saying almost the exact opposite of what i am! read this very carefully, because this is the last time i will explain this to you. we are all god. god is the all. and them some. we are pieces of god. if god did not exist, neither would we for god is all that is. do you understand now? is it starting to register? tis what I hate about debating with myopic people. don’t try to pull my own trick on me. your not good at twisting words, so don’t do it. get more practice before you get in over your head. your just ranting and bearing false witness now. yes false witness. your saying i said things i didn’t and youre editing my words. tisk tisk. now who needs to repent?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#63 Posted by Mystic In Response to #61 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #64)
A point that I forgot before: if i didnt have my experience, who did? you obviously havent had my experience. and another suggestion, read the gospels again. compare to what i have said, if you think about it, you will see that we are saying the same thing. not you and me, me and the bible.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#64 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #63 (Answered by Mystic at #62 and #70)
You still forgot to write your real and true name. You cannot depend on deceiving experience as your ultimate standard to know good and evil, right and wrong, righteousness and sins, etc. You are not God! That’s the point, got it? Don’t forget it.
-------------- - --------------------------------------
______________ #62 You’ll notice here that Twist/Adam the mystic is very inconsistent in his belief that “contradictory “truths’” can exist because he hate me when he wrote “i cant understand you, theres a problem. you are saying almost the exact opposite of what i am!”. Further, he refuted his belief by contradicting me over and over again. He believed that we are god and god is all but he attempted and tried with all his effort to convince that I am god and that he is god. Foolishness!!! You don’t need to talk to anyone or convince anyone if you are god and all is god. God does not only know who he is but also knows all things! Infidel’s belief-system messed their minds.
24
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#65 Posted by Mystic In Response to #64
~∞~
“Several Christians have asked me how we could resist brainwashing. There is only one method of resistance to brainwashing. This is "heartwashing." If the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus Christ, and if the heart loves Him, you can resist all tortures. What would a loving bride not do for a loving bridegroom? What would a loving mother not do for her child? If you love Christ as Mary did, who had Christ as a baby in her arms, if you love Jesus as a bride loves her bridegroom, then you can resist such tortures. God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love. I am a witness for the Christians in Communist prisons that they could love. They could love God and men. The tortures and brutality continued without interruption. When I lost consciousness or became too dazed to give the torturers any further hopes of confessions, I would be returned to my cell. There I would lie, untended and half dead, to regain a little strength so they could work on me again. Many died at this stage, but somehow my strength always managed to come back. In the ensuing years, in several different prisons, they broke four vertebrae in my back, and many other bones. They carved me in a dozen places. They burned and cut eighteen holes in my body. Doctors in Oslo, seeing all this and the scars of the lung tuberculosis which I also had, declared that my being alive today is a pure miracle! According to their medical books, I should have been dead for years. I know myself it is a miracle. God is a God of miracles.”
(Answered by Biblical Christian at #66 and #72)
HAPPY? dont even come at me with some crap that i am refusing to do anything when i have not even gotten the chance to read any of your myopic rantings. now i have a few things i would like to say. no, i am not of a twisted or deceitful mind or whatever it was you said, i just know how to play games with words and find loopholes. and why dont you explain to me what is so deceiving about experince. it is the most real, most personal thing that is in life. obviosly you had some real screwed up experiences. or maybe your experiencing immaturity and denial. i don’t know im not you (well, i am, but im sure you can put together anything from the bible). obviously you did not read what is in the book of isaiah, or did not understand it. either way i dont care, its your problem. i said god created all and all is perfect and you cannot do wrong. isaiah 45:7 says “ i have created the light and darkness, good and evil. i the lord god made all these things”. the difference between me and the bible is where? i am god. the father and i are one. god is all there is, all there was, and all there will ever be. nothing less. all you see, do, feel, hear, ARE is GOD. do you understand this? you have violated gods law many times throughout our debate. condemn not the path of another, or as you understand it, judge ye not lest ye shall be judged. and ye who surely you are the one who is mistake. tell me I am not god. i dont care. tell me that i am wrong and not god, but iam no less, nore any more god than you. love thy neighbor as thyself. the bible says that too. maybe you should improve your understanding of the bible before you come back. Think about my words. Compare them to each other. you will se the similarities. write down what i have said if you cannot remember my words. i have been saved many times, in many ways, but i tell you this: the light at the end of the tunnel may be you. you are trying to find yourself. that’s why you came here. this is good. maybe I am your wake up call. also, love thy enemy. you become angry to the point of hating me. do unto the least of my brethren……i also want to make one more thing clear for you. i do not threaten you with hell or any such thing, for i do not believe in it. and finally, i want to let you know one thing: if you do not stop with this ignorant ranting, name calling, insulting, slander, or condemning (judging) this conversation will be over. its not a threat, its not a promise, its what will happen. the only reason I have put up with it for this long is because i am very patient. maybe you will consider my leaving you a blessing. i don’t
– Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ, 1967, p.41.
~∞~
25
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
know, i am not you. the choice of both our experience is up to you. you can allow me to enlighten you, or push me away. its all on you. but some advice, follow your heart for it is the dwelling place of the lord and will not guide you wrong.
------------- - -------------------------------------#66 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #65 (Answered by Mystic at #67)
At least you now starting to learn how to give reasons beyond kindergarten level, but you go to the extreme by becoming a professional liar. You said that I hate you, no, it is just the twisted interpretation of your Adamic, unbelieving heart and mind, full of hate and rebellion (Rom.3:10-20; 13:8-10; 10:4). I do not hate you at all; in fact, I love you all so I try to explain what God says in the Bible about the real meaning of life which can be found alone in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Who now lives, the present reality, in every true believers. If I hate you, then I will say what you have said that you don’t care anymore whatever I admonish. But since I love you, I don’t want you to remain in the quagmire of misconception and deception, God only used me to evangelize you, to point you the way, the path, the life, the truth, the light, He is the God of gods, the Master of masters, Lord of lords and King of kings. He is the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I hold the Bible to preach, to reprove, to correct, and instruct you in righteousness (2 Tim.3:16) which you always assumed as long as you live but you immediately reject with your expressed opinions, ideas and beliefs. Inconsistency. You are now starting to surrender, to stop our on-line discussion, for the more you express your beliefs, the more you expose your Satanic deception, selfdelusion, irrationalism, depravity, schizophrenic hypocrisy, etc. Read Matt.23:13-33; Rom.2:1-23; 2 Pet. 2:9-22; Jd. 1:4-19).
------------- - -------------------------------------#67 Posted by Mystic In Response to #66 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #68)
YOU know what the twisted things is? we are both here to do basicly the same thing. you want to save me, and i want to help you save yourself. you believe god put you in this situation with me for you to help me, and feel i am supposed to be helping you. i would appreciate it if you would stop saying that i am lying, because i am doing far from that. it takes a great deal of maturity to see that two seemingly contradictory truths can exist at the same time. it is actually kind of pointless for us to continue this debate. you are unwilling to see a different point of view, and i have already experienced yours. i used to be quite the christian just to let you know. i love you because we all are one. you love me because we are all the human family of god. to be honest with you, im becoming bored with this anyways. i just keep repeating myself. im almost ready to give up. but you called me disbelieving and satanic. how was anything i have said even remotely sounded like i do not believe in god? i believe in god just the same as you, just not the same way. do know what satan translates to in in english? it means adversary or opponent. what is wrong with a satanic view point? if nothing had opposition, we would be living under communism right now. of course i twist things. how else can you see the real meaning? you have to read between the lines. think for yourself. we are so similar its scary. we just have different perspectives. to wake the self is the work of the soul, but to wake others is the work of god. what you want for yourself, give to another. go out and preech the gospel to the ends of the earth (wake others). do unto others as you would them do unto you (what you want for yourself, give to another). are you seeing it now?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#68 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #67 (Answered by Mystic at #69)
All what you have said to me backfires to you. Why your mind was so narrow-minded that you cannot see what I have wrote about the truth? Jesus is the true truth!
-------------- - --------------------------------------
26
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#69 Posted by Mystic In Response to #68 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #72 and #97)
~∞~
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man that cannot be filled by any created thing, but by God alone made known through Jesus Christ.”
you are really starting to get on my nerves with this jesus is the true truth crap. no kidding. tell me something i didnt already now. Jesus spoke nothing but the truth. you just dont understand what he was saying. how many times do i have to keep quoting the man before you realize what is going on? and you can stop preaching about how i am wrong to proclaim – Blaise Pascal, quoted by David Jeremiah, Searching for Heaven on Earth, my self as a part of god now. i am the way and the life. how Brentwood: Integrity arrogant is that? jesus said that. but he never said to be the son Publishers, Inc., 2004, p. 19. of god.he said thati and the father are one. people just ~∞~ assumed he meant he was god manifested in the flesh. he was of course, but not in the way you understand it. He also said, what thou doest unto the least of my brethren, so shall have done it unto me. you know how that’s possible? because we all are one. you are not ready to understand this yet, and that’s ok. you may not be for some time. but you will eventually.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#70 Posted by Mystic In Response to #64 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #72)
I am god. so are you. so is all that is. got it? you and i are one, and i am one with the father. whats so hard about this? god is all there is, and all there is IS ALL THERE IS! nothing les! jeez. what is with you? understand before you reply.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#71 Posted by New Ager One In Response to #70 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #72)
YES!!!!!!Thank you, for it is the energy of the entire cosmos {God} that exists in each and every one of us together!!!! We are God and when the energy reaches a critical mass, or the spiritual power of all beings in which God exists finally becomes truly one from the result of our spiritual enlightenment we will truly be and experience the truly awesome power of energy and god which are one. The Spirit is in each of us. We find God within us for we are made in his image from day one. The perfection of God lies in the spiritual power of each of us!!!!! We need to stop looking outside to arrange our lifes. For it is within that we are allknowing and all powerful in his image!!!!!! A true uniting of beings to this principle will lead to mass spiritual and menatal powers beyond our beliefs. A heaven of sorts you could venture to say. Peace to you and all life. Pray for the enlightenment of all humanity. If you agree I would like to hear back from you. God bless. P.S. There is a scientific basis for all of this. The argument has ended to for those who seek the truth will find it!!!!
-------------- - --------------------------------------
______________ #69, #70 and #71 Delusion is the guiding “light” of all mystics, yogis, Gnostics, neo-pagans, and New agers. If Lucifer had tried to usurp the Godhood of God, Satan’s followers want to usurp the Christhood of Christ. Now, let me give you established facts about the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He was a Jew born of a virgin with royal genealogies, circumcised on the eight day, grow with wisdom in favor of God and of man, baptized by John the Baptist, overcome the tempter in the desert, sinless, prayerfully lived, worked meaningful miracles, suffered and died on the cross to save us, resurrected on the third day with power and glory, and will come again as Davidic king in the Millennium. All of these were already written afore in the O.T. prophecies and in N.T. writings. Can anyone imitate his “Christhood”? Only an insane and a fool will answer in the affirmative.
27
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#72 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #64, #69, #70 and #71 (Answered by Mystic at #73)
Previously, you wrote “I’m not you”, but now you wrote “you and I are one”. Absurd, inconsistent, selfdefeating, self-condemned responses. You are god indeed if you asked those lunatic, insane, crazy, and mad in the mental asylum; if you asked those Devil-worshippers, Luciferians, New Agers, Satanists, eastern gurus, masters, mystics, demon-possessed egotists and witches they will tell you that you are one of the gods emanated from the One; if you asked those pseudo-intellectuals, skeptics, critics, atheists, humanists, agnostics, naturalists, and egomaniacs they will tell you that you are god of your own making, but if you asked the God of gods, the Master of masters, the Lord of lords and the King of kings Who wrote the Book of books, He will tell you that you are a rebel, sinner, fool, and deceived crown of creation who needs salvation. Only the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ can save you from such delusion and deception. Repent now, and believe in Him alone. Join us in the Heaven of heavens, God’s children and His angels wait for you.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#73 Posted by Mystic In Response to #72 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #74)
you and i are one, but i am not you. a perfect example of two seemingly contradictory truths existing at once. we are both part of a whole, part of god. But i am not you. we are two different pieces. different parts of the one.but we are one none the less. why are you waitng for me? im not going any where. you are the one who needs to take a walk. i will tell something a friend of mine said to me once: “take a look at a day.” see the sky. look at the colors of the leaves turning on the trees. the absolute beauty of a sunset. how can anything so beautiful and magnificent not be god? if our world is so flawed, how can it be so awesome? i and the father are one, and what thou doest to the lest of my brethren, so shalt thou have done it unto me. god does not punish, god loves. your prents are the greatest love you will experince of another person. yet they punish you. so if god loves you more, the greater the punishment must be. would the mother of all destroy or torture that which he so loveingly made? god, who is perfect, made a race of imperfect beings with the will to defy him, and then punish them for using that which was given to them. does this make any sense at all? no. it does not.if you do not want your children to play certain games, do you give them the toys? why would you punish your children for playing with what you gave them? and why would god want something so bad as to command it, then sit around and watch it not be done? who god command, itself? that’s not omnipotence if you cant get that which you made to listen to you. why don’t you stop selling god short. you limit god, and in doing so, have limited yourself. you deny that god is all powerful and yet you say she is in the same conversation. why don’t you stop contradicting yourself. i have created the light and the darkness, good and evil. i the lord god have made both these things. yet you say he didn’t. but then you say she is omnipotent. and he is all powerful. they say we are imperfect and need salvation. then say god is perfect. but it created imperfection. ummm, DUH. can we say illogical, and contradictory. i love god. i do not limit god. you do. you place restraints on your love. and the soul is free, and will not be limited.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#74 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #62 and #73 (Answered by Mystic at #75)
Why are you still hiding in your pseudoname, petname, “godname”: TWIST? Obviously, by that name you can write what you want to write even that is an expression of your twisted mind. You just cannot answered my refutations of your “arguments”. You are “god” indeed if your definition of god is “Gone Or Dead”. You are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph.2:1), you need the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He alone can save you.
-------------- - --------------------------------------
28
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#75 Posted by Mystic In Response to #74 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #76)
thereis no secret that will not be revealed. my screenname matters not. what is with you?
-------------- - -----------------#76 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #75
~∞~
“If God made us for his glory, it is clear that we should live for his glory. Our duty comes from God’s design.” – John Piper, Desiring God, Manila: Christian Growth Ministries, Inc, 1996, p. 55.
~∞~
(Answered by Mystic at #77)
By hiding your real name, you can post anything which you want to express just to justify your unjustifiable justification of you unjust beliefs. You have no true name to protect for your dignity and integrity, you can lie when you want it. That’s it. Be honest.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#77 Posted by Mystic In Response to #76 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #78)
i cannot lie. it is against my laws. you better believe i can post anything to justify my beliefs. and they are very justifiable.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#78 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #77 (Answered by Mystic at #79)
Why you cannot lie? Why lying is against your laws? Again, you assumed Bible truth but you reject it by what you expressed in your posts. Be true to yourself. Don’t be deceived. Be honest. Jesus is the true truth!
-------------- - -------------------------------------#79 Posted by Mystic In Response to #78 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #81)
i cannot lie because to lie would be to go against my own morals, and that would be to betray myself. to betray myself would not be true to myself or others. when you find god, you shall not bare false witness.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#80 Posted by Mystic In Response to #62 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #81)
i forgot one thing ISAIAH 45:7. YOU DO OWN A BIBLE DONT YOU? are we having fun yet? ISAIAH 45:7 ISAIAH 45:7 ISAIAH 45:7 or are you afraid to read it?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#81 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #79 and #80 (Answered by Mystic at #82)
Isaiah 45:7 is one of my favorite verses which proved that God is indeed omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. God, as revealed in the Bible, is the sovereign Lord Who created, governed and maintained all things, not like you who claimed to be “god” who cannot even create an amoeba which can be found in your stomach which you served right now.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#82 Posted by Mystic In Response to #81 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #83)
why don’t you go look all those big words up in the dictionary. i know what they all mean, do you? all present, all powerful. hmmm. sounds familiar. oh i know why! thats exactly what i have been saying. ALL
29
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
present, as in being everything. thank you. we finally agree on something. i guess you don’t care for matt 7:1 do you? or the sermon on the mount? makes you remove too many planks from thy own eye, huh?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#83 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #82 (Answered by Atheist at #84)
You know not what is the meaning of what you have cited out of its context. I have already explained it. But I need to explain to you again, and for those who can read this post, those verses which you don’t understand. Isa.45:7, I repeat, is about God’s sovereignty, His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence is clearly expressed in this verse with its context. The word evil (Heb. ra’a’) has a wide meaning depending upon its context, it is never rendered “sin”. In Psalms, it is rendered “calamities” (141:5); “adversity” (94:13); and “trouble” (41:1). It is rendered “naughty” in 2 Kings 2:19 and Jeremiah 24:2, etc. As in the text, by contrasting it with the word “peace”, it does not mean moral evil, but evil inflicted as a judgment for man’s iniquity. Read Jer.18:11-17; Lam.3:38-40; Amos 3:2-11; 5:12-15. Regarding Matt.7:1, you are right if, and only if, that is the only verse in the whole Bible. But the Bible has 31,102 verses. You cannot use it to tell me not to judge you wrong, unsave, and fool. You must read its context and compare it to 1 Cor.2:15, 16; 6:1,2; Rom.2:1-3. The Bible, therefore, tells us that we must not judge no one if we are to judge him by our own sinful, imperfect standard. Only through the Word of God, the Bible in which all laws, constitutions and rules must be based, that we can rightly judged a person to be either right or wrong, save or unsave, innocent or guilty, wise or fool, etc. to admonish him. I repeat, you always assumed Bible truth in order to live but you hold it in unrighteousness (Rom1:18-23).
-------------- - -------------------------------------#84 Posted by Atheist In Response to #83 (Answered by Mystic at #85 and by Biblical Christian at #86)
Recently, you’ve started to sound like those Dianetics commercials that say, “To learn why you still don’t know how to tie your own shoes, read Page 95.” Seriously, don’t you have your own site for Preaching the Bible? Here on this site we kick around ideas that do or don’t make sense depending on your beliefs. Most of us don’t preach, we discuss different points of view and let it go at that. You may not agree with someone, you may feel that you have the best basis for your response, but, please don’t preach, or condemn someone for having a different opinion. Try to be nice, even to Twist! On your post, I can’t consult the Bible for every idea or situation I am confronted with, the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and some of it is very good and as books go, it’s better for someone to read it than spend a lifetime without reading it. But remember, more people reject its religious teachings and theological truth than accept it.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#85 Posted by Mystic In Response to #84 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #86)
thanks louis
-------------- - -------------------------------------#86 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #84 and #85 (Answered by Mystic at #87)
Thanks for the sermon. You are a “good” preacher. However, you expressed yourself that you have an emotional panic as I quote the Bible. Why? You assumed Bible truth as your experience, knowledge, reason tells you but you reject it with your expressed beliefs, ideas, and opinions. T-H-I-N-K!!!!!!!
-------------- - --------------------------------------
30
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#87 Posted by Mystic In Response to #86 (Answered by Professing Christian at #88 and by Biblical Christian at #97)
i have been thinking all my life. in fact, i barely ever stop. im not the one who panics when the bible is quoted. you avoid my thrusts all together. at least i dont back down from the challenge. i have said many things and asked many questions that you have completely ignored, over and over again. i can see not bothering to answer once or twice because you are tired or do not have time, but not over and over again. as i have said before, the bible is not an authoritative source of anything. you put too much stock in what god supposedly said, and not enough in what god shows you all the time. when the experience conflicts with the page, discard the page. if your experince brings you a higher vision of who you are and seems right, even if it conflicts with the book, go with what you feel is right. why would the heart that god dwels in lead you wrong?
-------------- - -----------------#88 Posted by Professing Christian In Response to #87 (Answered by Atheist at #89)
~∞~
“It may be that in the phrase Christ is All we have the summing of all truth, the most profound statement in the Bible. The more one reflects on it and realizes its implications, the more one realizes that it is so. Christianity is Christ; God to us now is Christ; all Truth is Christ; everything that is holy, right and beautiful is found in Him; Christ is indeed ALL. How long will it be before we and all professing Christians realize and act upon this fact in our life and witness?”
You call yourself a “Metaphist”. I would really like to know – Stuart Allen, The Unfolding Purpose of the details of this belief system. At times you sound like a God, London: The Berean Publishing Christian, but you say you don’t believe in heaven or hell, or Trust, 1961, p. 155. do you? ~∞~ I will say that I agree with most of what you say. I consider myself a “skeptical Christian” because I disregard parts of the bible which seem incorrect. This book was definitely written by people, and has many flaws. There are also many books which are in some bibles, and not others. The Catholic and Orthodox bibles have the books of Sirach and Wisdom, which are both quite interesting. And there are many other books which are not recognized by any church that I think are worth reading. I also don’t think the bible should end where it does. It would be a lot better if it also documented all of the falures and successes of the church over its history. The bible cannot be complete if it doesn’t warn people against fundamentalist thought and fear tactics. The bible should let everyone know about the insanity of the crusades and inquisitions. Many Christians today know little about these events, and are repeating the same mistakes.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#89 Posted by Atheist In Response to #88 (No One Answered)
NOW YOU’VE DONE IT! Look out, and don’t forget to duck!
-------------- - --------------------------------------
______________ #88 and #89 Let us make this clear that crusades and inquisitions were not done by Biblical Christians but by so-called Christians (Roman Catholic) who persecuted, tortured and murdered the Biblical Christians. Read and research the history, specifically, the Foxe Books of Martyrs. Since Louis the Atheist cannot directly confront me with arguments, he tried to “tempt” others to do so. So far, we have seen that all the arguments of infidels are nothing but simply an expression of their fanatic bigotry, arrogant stupidity, and full-bloomed ignorance of God and His words. They want to give emphasis that many had been killed in the name of “Christian” religion. They are wrong. Millions had been killed in the name of Popism (Roman Catholicism), Mohammedanism (Islam), Marxism (Communism), Hitlerism (Nazism), Buddhism (Eastern mysticism), Secularism (world war I and world war II, gang wars, civil wars, revolutions, rebellions, terrorism), etc. etc.
31
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#90 Posted by Mystic In Response to #88 (Answered by Atheist at #91)
brandon, I really wouldnt wast my time on arguing with peri. he feels that everyone else but him is talking nonsense. the only reason i do is because it is an experience i felt like experiencing. i am very happy to have so many other people joining in on the “fun” peri and i are having. i was started to get real bored. in answer to your question of metaphism, i really am not sure how one might describe it. i believe that we all are one. what is good for one is good for another and what harms one harms others. i believe that as a race we are very primitive, and have a great deal of understanding to achieve, of both god and ourselves. i believe we are all god. god is a collective being and a single being all at once. i believe that two seemingly contradictory truths can exist at the same time. there is no right or wrong. there is no sin. there is only perfection. life is all there is and ever will be, which is god. truth, love, and joy are all the same and are interchangeable, for one leads to the others and all lead to god. all are god. you asked, so here ya go. this is only a brief summary of my beliefs. it is actually much more complicated than this, but these are the basic ideas. it is also not an organized thing. organized religion takes the emphisis off of the individual and on the “established truths”. religion and spirituality are very personal things, therefore can never be dictated to you by another. there is no real system. we just are what we are, because there is nothing else to be. thats the basic idea.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#91 Posted by Atheist In Response to #90 (No One Answered)
For once, your post makes sense. I don’t agree with most of it, but you do make yourself clear about your beliefs and the way you phrase the basic theories makes it easier to understand you. “i believe that we all are one. what is good for one is good for another and what harms one harms others. i believe that as a race we are very primitive, and have a great deal of understanding to achieve, of both god and ourselves. i believe we are all god.” “We all are one”, one human race, part of the animal kingdom of this Earth. What each person does will affect the other is true. You say that religions take the emphasis off the individual. In a way too much emphasis is placed on individuals and sometimes the individual is saved and the rest of the group is put in jeopardy. I think that humanity as a whole is in jeopardy and we should all try to protect the species as a whole. I would strongly suggest you read Isaac Asimov’s Robot Series starting with “Caves of Steel”, the “Naked Sun” and “Robots of Dawn”. These are science fiction but you can get a lot of understanding about our place in this universe from these books, besides the fact that they are very enjoyable reading.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #90 Let us enumerate the eleven (11) diabolical doctrines of Twist/Adam the Mystic: 1. all are one. what is good for one is good for another and what harms one harms others. 2. as a race we are very primitive, and have a great deal of understanding to achieve, of both god and ourselves. 3. we are all god. 4. god is a collective being and a single being all at once. 5. two seemingly contradictory truths can exist at the same time. 6. there is no right or wrong. 7. there is no sin. there is only perfection. 8. life is all there is and ever will be, which is god. 9. truth, love, and joy are all the same and are interchangeable, for one leads to the others and all lead to god. 10. organized religion takes the emphasis off of the individual and on the “established truths”. religion and spirituality are very personal things, therefore can never be dictated to you by another. 11. there is no real system. we just are what we are, because there is nothing else to be. Let me briefly refute and criticize each dogma: #1 destroys individuality and uniqueness. #2 assumed the existence of extra-Earth carbon-based life known as U.F.O. or aliens. #3, #8 and #9 are simply diabolical pantheism. #4 is a blasphemous contradiction. #5 is illogical and absurd; the word “seemingly” is an illusion of meaning. #6 and #7 if true would render life meaningless, insane and anarchic. #10 and #11 if true would render all discussions, explanations, communications, innovations, transformations, revolutions, corrections, and reformations, etc. vain, futile, worthless, and useless
32
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#92 Posted by Christian Two In Response to #91 (Answered by Critic at #93, by Biblical Christian at #94, and by Professing Christian at #108)
~∞~
“The soul is awakened to God chiefly by the Spirit of God as he pierces our souls with the Word of God.”
Brandon, sorry to barge in like this but I couldn’t resist in responding. Please take no offense if I sound a bit hard but you are either a skeptic or a Christian. You cannot be both. – R. C. Sproul, The Soul’s Quest for God, Remember, the word “Christian” comes from “Christ” and He Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., definitely was not a skeptic. Second, which parts of the Bible 1992, pp. 21. seem incorrect? Please elaborate! That is due cause lack of ~∞~ details but when examined closely I have found that the Bible harmonizes beautifully. I challenge you or anyone else to prove just one, only one contradiction within the pages of the Bible itself. I bet it cannot be done. Another thing, Christ believed implicitly in the Bible of His day, the Old Testament. He held to a very high view of the Scriptures and He refered to them as the very words of God. The Bible couldn’t let people know of the “insanity of the crusades and inquisitions” because they occurred over a thousand years after the last book of the Bible was written. Yet, we have history that tell us all the atrocities done in the name of God by those who claim to be of God. Besides, the Bible does not hide all the sin and evil done by those who were believers of God (of course, up to where it was written).
-------------- - -------------------------------------#93 Posted by Critic In Response to #92 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #94)
http://skepticannotatedbible.com/index.html http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/index.html http://web2.airmail.net/capella/aguide/ These three sites I found by searching on “Bible contradictions”. There are other sites that seek to explain these apparent contradictions. Angel, there is nothing I could say that will change you mind, so I won’t try. But it’s absurd to say that there are no contradictions in the Bible. It’s possible to rationalize them, but they are there.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#94 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #92 and #93 (Answered by Christian Two at #95)
You’re right Angel, you hit the nail on its head, this is what my website is all about: to exhibit, demonstrate, show, prove, etc. that the Bible which is the perfect word of God is inerrant. No one can prove that it has contradiction even one. All the so-called contradictions or discrepancies listed by infidels are all the product of misconceptions, misinterpretations, and deceptions. I have thoroughly studied all the so-called contradictions but instead of discouragement, because we are one with the myriads of true believers in Christ our Lord, I found much blessing to see the intricate, perfect, beautiful, astounding, amazing, breath-taking, marvelous harmony and unity of God’s Words as found in the King James Bible, the Authorized word of God for us today with its O.T. Hebrew Masoretic text and N.T. Greek Receptus text, as used by the Bible-believing churches throughout the history. Of course, the light cannot be seen by the blind, perfection cannot be understood by imperfect mind, unity, beauty and harmony cannot be perceived by perverted and distorted mind and senses, thus we have to see and study the Bible through the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our inner, inward, newly created, spiritual nature. The Bible is true because Jesus is the true truth, He alone is the Truth of truths!
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #93 Visit the following Christian websites which thoroughly refuted the skeptic/critic/infidel websites: http://www.rationalchristianity.net http://www.tektonics.org http://www.gotquestions.org http://skepticsannotatedbible.org http://www.christiananswers.net
33
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#95 Posted by Christian Two In Response to #94 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #96)
Amen, I can see that you are well familiarized not only with the Bible and its arguments, but with the correct “text” of the Bible: textus receptus/masoretic text. I understand exactly where you are coming from and I agree totally with what you say. My brother, the only thing I disagree with you is you approach in (don’t know what to call it), witnessing, more like preaching to Brandon, Adam and Chris. I guess you might justify it by saying that you are telling them the truth and they will be accountable for it. Believe me, they are not really listening to you. You lost them awhile back. Are you telling them the Truth (the written truth, the Bible bears witness to the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ) because you really love these faceless persons? Though they might be mislead, lost and spiritually bankcrupt and on their way to a Christless eternity (sorry folks, but according to the Bible, if the Spirit of God is not residing in you, then you are none of His), do you really care enough to be sensitive to their arguments, though you do not agree with them. You must show them Christ, not only by carefully reasoned-out (this is important), but by the love of God which has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So my brother, change the attitude and let the true Truth shine forth. Please don’t be angry at me I felt like of Him to tell you. God bless.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#96 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #95 (No One Answered)
Beatitude attitude is what all Christians must follow. I really agree with you 100%. The mind of Christ is the mind needed by all of us, we must always transform by the renewing of our mind to conform to Jesus our Lord based on the Bible and not on this world. Let us have the unity of faith in the Spirit.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#97 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #36, #51, #69, #79, and #87 (Answered by Mystic at #98)
What is experience? How can you know that you have your own experience? What makes your personal experience possible? What is your basis of interpreting your experience as you interpret it in order to understand it, that it is not to what you know it is? What is contradiction? How do you know that a thing, ideas, opinions, concepts, propositions, etc. contradict one another? How can you know which one serves its purpose and which one is not? How can truth contradict itself if it is true at all? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU PRETEND TO KNOW? WHY THERE IS SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING AT ALL? WHY THERE IS ORDER RATHER THAN CHAOS RIGHT NOW? WHY THERE IS EXISTENCE RATHER THAN EXTINCTION? WHAT IS YOUR REASON BEHIND YOUR BELIEF THAT TRUTH IS MORE PREFERABLE THAN DECEPTION, RIGHT IS BETTER THAN WRONG AND GOOD IS HIGHER THAN EVIL? You cannot adequately answer these questions unless you assumed Bible truth. Jesus is the true truth. You assumed Bible truth in your experience, perception, common sense, ability to reason, etc. but you deny, reject, contradict, disprove them all by your belief-system or framework of interpreting your “experiences” because of deception. Be true to yourself, to your experience, to your perception, to your common sense, to your ability to reason, etc. JESUS IS THE TRUTH OF TRUTHS!
-------------- - --------------------------------------
______________ #95 Even Christians misinterpret my approach as too harsh. But as you can see, my apologetic method is faithful to God’s word; I speak the truth in love. It is just too effective and powerful that infidels had not been able to handle the materials I gave to them. This is indeed “hard sayings”.
34
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#98 Posted by Mystic In Response to #97 (Answered by Truth-Seeker Two at #99 and by Biblical Christian at #103)
~∞~
“The study of God is not only the most meaningful and the most authentic pursuit in life, it is also the most beneficial. Nothing will benefit you more in day-to-day living than the knowledge of God.”
ALRIGHT LOOK PERI, I HAVE BEEN EXCEEDINLY PATIENT WITH YOU. I HAVE EXPLAINED THE SAME THINGS TO YOU OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER AGAIN AND STILL YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. THIS IS THE LAST TIME. THE LAST. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? IF I DID NOT HAVE MY EXPERIENCE, WHO IS? OBVIOUSLY NOT YOU. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK MY EXPERIENCE IS NOT REAL? WHAT MAKES – Tony Evans, Our God is Awesome, YOURS ANY MORE “REAL” THAN MINE? I HAVENT Manila: OMF Literature Inc., 1994, pp. 27. HAD ANYONE ELSES EXPERIENCES, SO I DONT ~∞~ KNOW HOW THEY COULDNT BE MINE. WHY DONT YOU DEFINE CONTRADICTION FOR YOURSELF INSTEAD OF ASKING ME. WHAT SERVES ITS PURPOSE DOES SO. TAKE OUR CONVERSATION FOR EXAMPLE. THIS DOES NOT SERVE ITS PURPOSE. IT IS NOT BENEFITING EITHER OF US. IT IS UNPRODUCTIVE, AND TEHREFORE NOT FUNCTIONING ITS PURPOSE. WHY DONT YOU LOOK AT WHO IS PRETENDING.I HAVE COME TO THIS THROUGH MY OWN EXPERIENCE. YOU READ A BOOK. ONE IS NO MORE CREDIBLE THAN THE OTHER, BUT AT LEAST I EARNED MY KNOWLEDGE FOR MYSELF, UNLIKE YOU, WHO FOLLOWED ALONG WITH WHAT WAS TAUGHT TO YOU. WHY DON’T YOU FIGURE THESE THINGS OUT FOR YOURSELF. ALL YOU ARE GOING TO DO IS COME BACK AT WHATEVER ANSWER I GIVE YOU WITH SOME JESUS IS THE TRUE TRUTH MONOLOUGE, SO IM NOT GOING TO BOTHER PERHAPS YOU ENJOY LIVING IN THE ILLUSION YOU EXIST IN. THAT’S FINE. EACH SOUL MUST WALK ITS OWN PATH. I PREFERE TO EXPERIENCE ULTIMATE REALITY. THAT IS MY PATH, SO JUDGE NOT. IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE. I DEFINE MY MORALS. I DEFINE RIGHT AND WRONG FOR MYSELF. IF YOU CANT, THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM. I MAY REPLY TO YOUR OTHER POST, THEN AGAIN I MAY NOT. IF I DO, IT WILL BE FOR THE LAST TIME BECAUSE THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER. WHETHER YOU UNDERSTAND OR NOT IS YOUR PROBLEM, NOT MINE. WHEN YOU CAN HAVE A LOGICAL CONVERSATION, WE SPEAKE AGAIN. UNTILL THEN, GO BACT TO YOUR BIBLE THUMPING WEB SITE,OR AT LEAST LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#99 Posted by Truth-Seeker Two In Response to #98 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #100)
Hi, I’m a university student studying Education. I am researching the search for meaning for my religion and theology assessment. Could you tell me what role does religion play in your life. Have you had a religious experience and if so how did these experiences contribute to the way you understand religion? How does religion contribute to a sense of meaning in your life? If you could help me out I’d be very appreciative. Thank you.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#100 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #99 (Answered by New Ager Two at #101)
Religion is the method used by men to find God in search for truth but the Bible is the expression of God to show men that Jesus is the Truth of truths. All men have religion, there is an inward vacuum in their innermost being that only the God of gods can fill. All men assumed Bible truth in order to live, it is true to their experience, perception, commonsense, and ability to reason; but they reject it due to the indoctrination they received from the sinful heart of man himself and from the deception of devils. Men have insatiably filled it with their inventions under the sun but none is permanent. Only the eternal God Himself can fill the emptiness and longings experienced by all men. The true religion is the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ alone! Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - --------------------------------------
35
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#101 Posted by New Ager Two In Response to #100 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #102)
Why r u so bent on pushing Christianity bulls**t? now don’t get me wrong I belive that Jesus christ died on the cross at calvery for our sins and all that jazz, but are you taking this testimony thing to far trying to prove adam wrong. Why can’t u accept that other people have different beliefs than you? Now, like you, I believe that christ is the son of god, but I can’t believe that he is the son of god anymore than you or I. if you can’t accept me for my beliefs then there just one thing you should and that is GET STUFFED!
-------------- - -------------------------------------#102 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #101 (No One Answered)
If you will try to know the God of gods and understand the Book of books by your own perverted, distorted, imperfect, sinful, unrighteous and deceived heart and mind, they you will not find yourself in the Heaven of heavens because you do not believed in the Master of masters, Lord of lords and King of kings as the Saviour of saviours. The Bible is true because the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the true truth, He alone is the Truth of truths!
-------------- - -------------------------------------#103 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #98 (Answered by Mystic at #104)
You cannot really make your personal experience in particular and human experience in general as your ultimate criterion, adequate test, inerrant standard, and final authority of truth. It is so obvious to those who really know. You used your experience as a means of knowing the truth but the truth does not originally reside in your experiences. You used your experience as your means of understanding the truth but the interpretation of truth will not be found in your experience. Your “personal” experience is not the source of truth; it is not even self-interpreting. You must have some basis how to know whether your interpretation of your experience is true or false, right or wrong, truth or deception, etc. You cannot experience all things, you cannot experience nothing, you can only experience something. And that something must be defined in order to distinguish it from what it is not so that you can understand it. You cannot look into a dead tree and said that it is a living dog at you unless you are just lying, joking, have an illusion, etc. You cannot look to yourself through a mirror and said that you are really President Clinton, let alone the God of gods, unless you have delusion, delirium or you are insane, demon-possessed, demented egomaniac, illogical fool, etc. In any case, experience must be interpreted correctly. Your interpretation of your experience may not be always true. Your own experience is meaningless unless you interpret it in the context of what you consider you know based on your belief system, paradigm, memes, presupposition, framework, and philosophy of life. Of course, your present posteriori knowledge has also been introduced to you through, or you based it on, your previous experiences which you have also interpreted by what you “know” at that time in the context of your belief system, etc. Without doubt, it is a cycle of knowledge-belief-experience which forms a long chain of reaction as long as you live by interacting in the world in which you live. But the questions that you must answer are: what is your basis of understanding your personal experience? How can you know that your framework of interpretation, criteria or adequate test for truth are not false, wrong, or deceived? I repeat, you cannot really answer the questions I gave to you unless you assumed Bible truth. You assumed it in order to live but you reject it in your belief-system which is an expression of inconsistency and deception. The Bible is true because Jesus is the true truth, He alone is the Truth of truths!
-------------- - --------------------------------------
36
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#104 Posted by Mystic In Response to #103
~∞~
(Answered by Biblical Christian at #105)
SHUT UP! I TOLD YOU THIS CONVERSATION WAS OVER. WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING TO ME? YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND ME, AND THATS FINE. IM DONE TALKING TO YOU. LIVE WITH YOUR LIMITED VISION OF THE UNIVERSE. I DONT CARE. DON’T HEAR ME. I DONT CARE. WE ARE THROUGH. DONE. THIS IS THE END. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200. GO TO CHURCH, READ YOUR BIBLE, AND DONT LIVE WITH GOD, JUST READ ABOUT ITS EXPERIENCES. WHEN YOU HAVE MATURED TO THE POINT THAT WE CAN COMMUNICATE MATURELY, WE WILL DO SO. UNTIL THEN, DO NOT REPLY TO ME. ONCE AGAIN, LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE. HAVE A NICE DAY.
-------------- - --------------#105 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #104 (Answered by Mystic at #106)
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20-21) “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12) “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
-------------- - --------------#106 Posted by Mystic In Response to #105 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #107)
“One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.... The better we understand the intricacies of the universe and all it harbors, the more reason we have found to marvel at the inherent design upon which it is based.... To be forced to believe only one conclusion—that everything in the universe happened by chance—would violate the very objectivity of science itself.... What random process could produce the brains of man or the system of the human eye? They (evolutionists) challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun? ...They say they cannot visualize a designer. Well, can a physicist visualize an electron? ...What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electron as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him?.” – Dr. Werner von Braun, quoted by Dennis R. Petersen, Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, Vol. 1 (El Cajon: Master Books, 1988), p. 63.
~∞~
ARE YOU DUMB? I TOLD YOU NOT TO REPLY. NOT AT ALL. HOW MANY WAYS DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO SCREW OFF? I AM SICK OF YOUR NONSENSE AND CRAP. WHEN I WANT TO HEAR BIBLE QUOTES, I WILL READ THEM OR ASK FOR THEM. LEAVE ME ALONE.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#107 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #106 (No One Answered)
Bible truth is not nonsense. True truth is not nonsense. Everything makes sense when seen in the light of the Truth of truths: the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
-------------- - --------------------------------------
37
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#108 Posted by Professing Christian In Response to #92 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #109)
Perhaps “skeptical” was the wrong word. I don’t think I am a skeptic, I am instead an analyzer. I have been alkalizing Christian beliefs as much as I can to reveal any inconsistencies. If certain Bible interpretations directly contradicts the evidence we have gathered, then they are wrong. Such is the case with the creation of the world. This obviously didn’t happen in seven days, but if the Bible is interpreted symbolically, it becomes evident that the “days” represent a certain period in the creation of the earth. This description given at the beginning of the Bible is very similar to most scientist’s theories. First there was nothing, then there were plants, then fish, then mammals, then man, etc. Although some things are quite obviously out of place, (the moon is created after animals) it mostly accurate. This “seven days” discription contradicts the one given directly after. The next chapter describes God creating man, then animals, then woman. I am inclined to disregard this completely, although I believe it is to some extent true in a spiritual sense. There are many regulars at this site who will disagree with me, but I believe that people are free willed, and following from this as detailed in previous postings, they have a “supernatural” quality. This is commonly called the soul among Christians. In the sense that all beings whose actions are predetermined do not exist as thinking beings, there were no real beings until humans. I know the others are going to jump all over me for this, but this is how both desriptions of creation can coexist. Thus, Christians should not oppose evolution, but they should instead argue that this evolution was STARTED by God and that the neandretals were not people as we are because unlike us, their actions were predetermined. At this site, many of us have been arguing the free will vs. determinism delimma for a long time. Many of these postings are still here, if you want to read them. There do exist definite inconsistencies in the Bible. For example, God is described as being perfect, but often in the prophetic books God is described as being angry. How can a perfect being have anger, which is one of the seven deadly sins? For this reason, I disregard the idea of God having wrath or any other defect. I would also like to say that I did not mean to suggest that more should be added to the Bible. I meant that all Christians should familiarize themselves with the church’s history, writings, and ideas over the past 2000 years in a similar way that they read the Bible. I’m not saying they should regard it as sacred text, but it can just as useful as some parts of the bible.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#109 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #108 (Answered by Christian Two at #110 and by Professing Christian at #111)
Churchianity is not Christianity. Evolution is not Creation. Babble is not Bible. You must thoroughly study the Bible in all its detail (grammatically, historically, contextually, etc.) prayerfully before you can see its beautiful harmony and perfection. Just by reading or listening to those deluded fool who criticized the Bible who think that they are more wiser than God Himself is utter foolishness. To correct an opinion by your own opinion is nothing but opinionated opinion. You must have adequate test, ultimate criterion, final authority, of truth. The Bible is true because Jesus is the true truth, He alone is the Truth of truths!
-------------- - -------------------------------------#110 Posted by Christian Two In Response to #109 (No One Answered)
Hey, I like what you said about the Bible being the ultimate criterion of “spiritual” truth.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #110 Angel Diaz the Christian Two is wrong here when he wrote that the Bible is ultimate criterion only in the realm of spiritual truth. Does it mean that the Bible cannot be used to serve as ultimate criterion in the intellectual and physical truths? Read Psa.12:6-7 and 2 Tim.3:16-17. From the opening pages of the Bible (Genesis 1) to the final pages of the Bible (Revelation 21), it is very clear that it stand as the ultimate standard/criterion of all things: physical, intellectual and spiritual. “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor.10:5).
38
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#111 Posted by Professing Christian In Response to #109 (Answered by Atheist at #112 and by Biblical Christian at #114)
~∞~
“My Lord God, my all in all, life of my life, and spirit of my spirit, look in mercy upon me and so fill me with Thy Holy Spirit that my heart shall have no room for love of aught but Thee. I seek from Thee no other gift but Thyself, who art the Giver of life and all its blessings. From Thee I ask not for the world or its treasures, nor yet for heaven even make request, but Thee alone do I desire and long for, and where Thou art there is Heaven. The hunger and the thirst of this heart of mine can be satisfied only with Thee who hast given it birth. O Creator mine! Thou hast created my heart for Thyself alone, and not for another, therefore this my heart can find no rest or ease save in Thee, in Thee who hast both created it and set in it this very longing for rest. Take away then from my heart all that is opposed to Thee, and enter and abide and rule for ever. Amen.”
Periander, I have read some of your banterous postings in the past, but this time you direct your anger against me. I read this message and I don’t understand what I could possibly learn from it. You start out by saying “Churchianity is not Christianity”, which makes no sense. You then for some reason say “Evolution is not Creation”. If you read my posting, you will see that I have given a theory on how evolution and creation can both be correct. There was evolution, but this was started by God. I also said that evolution happened in a PHYSICAL sense and creation happened in a SPIRITUAL sense. I have seen you website, and you attemp to disprove evolution scientifically. This is insane, because all physical evidence leads to evolution. You do not seem understand the difference between the body and the soul. Physically, you are flesh and blood, but spiritually, you are a soul. It is irrelevant if people PHYSICALLY evolved from apes, because we were SPIRITUALLY created by God. This is not said in the Bible this way because the way the Bible explains it is effectively the same, think about it! “Just by reading or listening to those deluded fool who criticized the Bible who think that they are more wiser than God Himself is utter foolishness.” I will read and listen to anyone and everyone I want because I want to broaden my mind. It is also unwise for you to insult anybody at this site, that is not what we do here. If you have a problem with somebody’s views, simply EXPLAIN why they are wrong, do not insult them or write long meaningless messages to them. You should be able to understand what is effective in getting your point across, and you should understand what does nothing but annoys people. “To correct an opinion by your own opinion is nothing but opinionated opinion.” If you are going to respond to me again, I strongly suggest it does not contain nonsense like this. You should realize that I am defending spirituality, God, and religion here. I am trying to present this argument as best I can, and I am trying to use logic to do it. I must ask you a question, what is the truth? You will of course say – Sadhu Sundar Singh, At the Master’s Jesus, the bible, etc. But then I will inform you that there are Feet, London: Fleming H. Revell Co., hundreds of groups all over the world, and all of them are certain 1922, pp. 4-5. they have the truth. How then do you show someone who does not ~∞~ have the truth that yours is the “true truth”? The answer is logic, reason, explaining things to people. If the Bible is the truth, then it should be possible to construct all of its essential ideas through reason. Reason has to be inherently good because if it were bad, then a perfect person would be one who doesn’t think.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #111 Brandon the Professing Christian mistakenly assumed that evolution is true based on his opinion and then built most of his dogma on evolution. In other words, like other infidels, his belief-system is founded on lies and deception.
39
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#112 Posted by Atheist In Response to #111 (Answered by Mystic at #113)
Good post to Periander. This type of post is most unfortunate. A few posts ago he accepted his “mea culpa” when he was getting in Twist’s face. Stilll again Periander loses the essence of what we try to do here. I think I also tried to warn you when I said, “Now you’ve done it! Yes, whatever our respective opinions, we try to explain our points of view, not repeat the “Jesus is the true truth” slogan as a parrot says “Arrhhh, Poly wants a cracker” in substitution of honest discussion. Periander, if you want to preach the gospel, find but do it on your own site. That’s what you have it for, don’t you?
-------------- - -------------------------------------#113 Posted by Mystic In Response to #112 (No One Answered)
im getting to like you more and more all the time louis.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#114 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #111 (Answered by Professing Christian at #115)
If what I have told you about the truth is just nonsense in your own opinionated opinion, I cannot do anything about it. Just one more reminder, don’t be fooled by unbelieving conviction espoused by atheists, critics, skeptics, and new agers; you must believed the Truth of truths, He is the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You assumed Bible truth in order to live but you reject it with your belief-system injected to you by infidels. Jesus is the true truth! Read John 3:16; Matthew 11:28; Ephesians 2:8-10; Jeremiah 29:11; Proverbs 3:5-7; Psalms 37:1-5; Romans 3:23; 6:23; 10:9-10.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#115 Posted by Professing Christian In Response to #114 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #116)
I did request that you not reply with nonsense, and when I said that I meant phrases like “opinionated opinion” and “true truth”. Any opinion is opinionated and any truth is true, so it is unnecessary to say things that way. And I never doubted anything about Jesus, make sure that only you argue against the things that I have actually written. “You assumed Bible truth in order to live but you reject it with your belief-system injected to you by infidels.” Nothing is ‘injected’ in me, I make up my own mind and I am searching for the truth. I wish I could say the same about you. One more thing, the bible does explicitly say that God loves everyone. Knowing this, God should welcome anyone to heaven who wants to go there and follows his laws. These are the naturally uccuring ethical laws that all people should be expected to figure out on their own. Of course, the church emphiseses faith for salvation, which makes sense. This is because one does not have to act ethically, just as long as they repent. But I don’t think this works completely because some people use this as an excuse to sin because they know they can repent later, ethics therefore are essential. And it would not make sense for someone who knowingly rejects god to enter heaven. But what about all the people who have never heard of God or heaven? What about all the people in China, do they go to hell simply because nobody ever told them the truth? This cannot be, because it contradicts our assumption that God loves all people. Therefore, the meaning of life is to act ethically as much as possible and to genuinely repent for the sake of understanding ones failing and to try not to repeat the same mistake. People can achieve salvation without believing in God if they have never heard of God or if it makes sense to them that there is no God, provided they act ethically.
-------------- - --------------------------------------
40
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#116 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #115 (Answered by Professing Christian at #117)
~∞~
“Christian maturity cannot fully take place, however, unless we are free in Christ. When people aren’t free in Christ they go from book to book, from pastor to pastor, and from counselor to counselor, but nothing seems to work. Watch how fast they can grow, however, when they are free in Christ!”
You cannot used a text of the Bible out of its context just to justify what you believed even if it contradicts all other parts of the Scripture. You start by believing in Creation SCIENCE but you connected it with Evolution THEORY; you start by citing the BIBLE about the love of God but you continue by reasoning out of your BELIEF-SYSTEM without considering what the entire Bible tells about it. Read Romans 1, Acts 17, Colossians and 1 Corithians 15 if you are looking for answers about your questions. The word “opinionated opinion” and “true truth” is not nonsense if you will only try to understand these terms. Opinionated opinion refers to the miserable uncertainty of those – Neil T. Anderson, A Way of Escape, Eugene: who do not have adequate test, ultimate criterion, and inerrant Harvest House Publishers, 1994, p. 167. standard of truth. Thus, naturally, in this forum no one can really ~∞~ tell the true truth if they have no absolute basis to tell them what is real truth; only what they consider “truth” in their own opinion, which they are not certain at all if it is truth indeed, are what they are trying to express but they cannot point others’ position as either right or wrong, truth or deception, or true or false; not that they held no beliefs about truth but what they hold as “truth” is no better than what others also considered “truth” in their own opinions. I repeat, to correct the opinions of others by another opinion is nothing but opinionated opinion. Jesus is the true truth!
-------------- - -------------------------------------#117 Posted by Professing Christian In Response to #116 (Answered by Atheist at #118 and by Biblical Christian at #120)
I don’t understand why you say that my use of logic in religious matters can be wrong. Reason cannot be wrong, because if it were there would have to be a reason why, which is a contradiction. And I don’t understand why you think it is impossible for anything in the Bible to be incorrect. There are many things that everybody should know that are not in the Bible, and some parts of the Bible are completely useless. I am not a Bible expert, but I do recall reading in one of Paul’s letters something close to “if the first covenant was without flaw then there would be no need for a second covenant”. And I would really like for you to explain how evolution is wrong in a physical sense. Your insistance on this is ridiculous, you obviously still do not understand the difference between physicality and spirituality. You seem to think that 99% of the world is going to hell. From what you have written, it seems that to get into heaven, one has to believe that everything in the Bible is completely correct (Don’t get me wrong, I think most of it is correct). But it makes much more sense that most people in the world achieve this because God would not create people if nearly all of them will go to hell simply because they don’t have complete blind faith.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#118 Posted by Atheist In Response to #117 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #119)
Periander, I sure hope it’s St. Peter at the Gates of Heaven and not someone like you there deciding who enters and who goes to hell. Be careful Periander, you are being judgmental, probably more mental than judge.
-------------- - -------------------------------------______________ #117 All infidels are totally ignorant of the fact that reason, logic, sanity, evidence, proof, etc. can only consistently exist in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Light, life and love exist only because of the Bible truth.
41
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
#119 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #118 (No One Answered)
The person himself decides whether he want to go to heaven or to hell. God will not force anyone to go to heaven if they don’t want to go to it by rejecting God’s invitation to them through the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ alone. To judge a person to be judgmental is judgmentality. God is the only Judge of judges.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#120 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #117 (Answered by Atheist at #121 and by Professing Christian at #123)
Reason is useful if is governed by the Bible, the perfect Word of God. But if reason is governed by the depravity, imperfection and fraily of man, it is useless. What kind of logic did you used in religious matters? There are different kinds of “reasons” which you can use depending upon the belief-system in which it is based. Even irrationalism is considered by some to be the highest reason for it is beyond it. Thus, you must have a firm basis to know whether what you consider as logic or reason is not illogical and unreasonable. Is your reason inerrant and infallible so that you can use it to judge even the Bible which is the very Word of God? There are those who think they are smart enough to correct the Bible truth which they assumed as long as they live. Reason, logic, experience, perception, commonsense, etc. assumed Bible truth to be truly workable and livable. If you will assumed, by contradicting Bible truth, that this world is not real but just a product of whim and imagination, that it is illusion (“maya”), that it has no order, no laws which governed it and our mind, that all things are full of chaos governed by chance, that there is no agreement of perception, that there is no subject-object correlation, that our mind is not reliable and able to understand the reality, causality and unity of the universe, etc. you cannot live and give reason at all. On the contrary, you really assumed Bible truth but you reject its inerrancy as a whole due to inconsistency based on your belief-system which does not originally came out from yourself but just a product of indoctrination whether by reading books or by listening to other human being like you, etc. For instance, evolution, where did this theory originate which contradicted the Creation account of the Bible? It is purely a product of man’s illusion and Satanic deception. It is destitute of any evidence. All the laws of science and reason were contradicted by evolution as partly shown by my article SCIENTISM published in my website. It is admitted by all evolutionists that there are MISSING LINKS, there are no evolutionary links (the would-be major proofs of evolution) in the fossil record (historically) and even in the observable phenomena of today (scientifically). Indeed, this so-called “missing link” is really the brainchild of the pregnant imagination and deception of Darwin and evolutionists to supply their theory by evidence which does not exist. Until now, they are still looking in vain for such links to fill up the existing clear-cut gaps between primitive plants and modern plants, between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, between unicellular organisms and multicellular animals, between invertebrates and fish, between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and mammals, between land mammals and sea mammals, between non-flying mammals and bats, between apes and human beings. For the meantime, evolutionists faithfully based their ideas of evolution in the “geologic column” which is nothing but based on the fallacious reasoning of circularity. They based the fossil “sequences” on the geologic “ages”, the geologic “ages” on fossil “evolutionary stages”, and the fossil “evolutionary stages” on the fossil “sequences”. Thus, evolutionists today, if you do not know, were academically divided into two camps of monkey-man: the Dawkinians (neo-Darwinists) who believed in the slow, gradual evolutionary change, and the Gouldians (Punctuated-equilibriumists) who believed in the rapid, abrupt transformation of species. No surprise, the one attacked the other by following the Darwinian creed: “survival of the fittest”. The former pointed out that it is genetically improbable for evolution to take place rapidly through the quantum leap of speciation. But the latter pointed out that it is paleontologically undemonstrable for evolution to take place slowly through mutation by natural selection. In fact, both refutations are correct as proved by evidences from biochemistry and paleontology: evolution is really impossible to take place at all. There is no scientific evidence for evolution; all are mere assumptions and misconceptions. Creation science, on the other hand, is well supported by scientific evidences (biochemistry, genetics, geology, paleontology, physics, biology, etc.). There are no links between species but there is indeed missing link between God and man because of the sin-gap which began in our original ancestor (Adam and Eve) when they disobeyed their Creator, the Lord God. We need the God-Man Jesus Christ, both Creator and creation are one in Him (1 Tim.2:5-6; 3:16). You don’t need the ape-men to explain the meaning of your life for there is no such thing. Apes are
42
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
always apes, men are always men but there is no ape-man: hoax – Piltdown man, pig‘s tooth – Nebraska man, lost – Peking man, composite of man and gibbon – Java man, diseased man – Neanderthal, etc. You need the God-Man, not the ape-man, to save you from sin and death. Don’t allow yourself to devolve into hell, repent now and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour. Jesus is the true truth. He will judge all men at the end and He is the Supreme, perfect Judge without any injustices, all will be judged according to the light which they received, no one is excused, there is no unfair judgment that will be given by the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God of all, the Judge of judges.
-------------- - -----------------#121 Posted by Atheist In Response to #120 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #122)
If the Bible is the “very Word of God”, god should have written it himself in his own handwriting and not in the imperfect, “depravity, imperfection and frail(t)y of man”’s handwriting. In fact, the Bible describes god’s only attempt at writing in his own penmanship on the slabs of rock Moses brought down form Mount Sinai. Must have pissed him off because Moses slamned and broke the original copy then God had to write them up a second time. By the way, maybe there were more than ten commandments but Moses could only carry the first ten down the mountain without breaking them. I wonder what the other ones were about. Also, too bad that even the copy was lost with the Ark of the Covenant somewhere in the desert. Indiana Jones where are you? Lighten up Periander!
-------------- - -----------------#122 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #121
~∞~
“In I Corinthians 2:16 Paul says ‘we have the mind of Christ.’ The word is nous. How is it possible for us to have Christ’s nous, unless his mind is the truth? We have Christ’s mind insofar as we think his thoughts. Of course we are not omniscient; we do not think all his thoughts; and worse, we think some false propositions too. We are what we think, just as Christ is what he thinks. His doctrine or teaching saves us from eternal death (John 8:51). He is the truth! Is this not what scripture teaches? Christ is the Logos, his rhemata are truth; he is God’s wisdom; and I Samuel 2:3 says that ‘the Lord is a God of knowledge.’” – Gordon H. Clark, God’s Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics, Jefferson: The Trinity Foundation, 1987, p. 185.
~∞~
(No One Answered)
Only God is absolutely perfect. Every thing which He had made in the beginning was very good (Gen.1:31). It was relatively perfect. What makes it very bad and imperfect today is due to man’s disobedience to God’s word by following Satan’s word (Gen.3). But God can restore His creation as He had done through the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ alone as revealed in the Bible. The Bible is the word of God written in the purified language of man (Psa.12:6,7) written by holy men of God as guided by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet.1:20,21; 2 Tim3:16). The Bible is true because Jesus is the true truth, He alone is the Truth of truths.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#123 Posted by Professing Christian In Response to #120 (Answered by Biblical Christian at #124)
That was all very interesting, your explanation of how evolution is not supported by evidence. You are very stern in your opposition to evolution. The Bible clearly says that people were created by God, and anyone who believes in God must acknowledge this. But once again you have failed to see the main point of this. You failed to see that it is irrelevant if we are the physical decendents of apes if our souls came directly from God. You believe that there is a non-physical aspect of humans, don’t you? Of course you do, you are not flesh, blood, DNA, bones, and organs, you are a free willed soul who receives senses from this body and controls its actions. You are not the body, as the Bible says, the body is “a temple of the holy spirit”, the body and the soul are unattached. Why then does it matter so much the purely physical ancestery of the
43
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
body? I suppose it is true that nobody knows for sure if evolution is true, but the main point I am trying to make is that it really doesn’t matter, and it does not contradict the Bible. In the beginning of Genisis, there is an obvious contradiction, or so it seems at first. Which came first, man or animals? The “seven days” discription says that animals came first, then people. The other discription says that Adam was first, then the animal, then Eve. I’m sure you and all of your Bible expert friends have come up with an explination for this, but I’ll bet it is wrong. The first account is a symbolic discription of evolution, the purely physical history of humans. The second is spiritual explination. Adam’s body already existed, but there was no soul until God created it. Nothing physical exists beyond perception, the only thing that really exists is the free willed perceiver. Thus, the animals didn’t exist in this sense until Adam had seen them, and this explains why they came after him in the second discription. These are just ideas, possibilities demonstrating how both our evidence of evolution and the Bible can both be right. Denying the accuracy of evolutionary evidence will do nothing but alienate religion, and do nothing positive. You should realize that evolution did happen in a physical sense and that this constant debate is meaningless because it is not relevant to the human soul.
-------------- - -------------------------------------#124 Posted by Biblical Christian In Response to #123 (No One Answered)
As you have seen, evolution has no single scientific proof to support it so we must not even include it in the study of sciences. It is presented as a “theory” but it has no single fact that it can explain to be accounted even as a theory. Evolution exists only as a word and as an idea in the minds of those who believed in it, it is a fairy tale for grown-up, it has no objective reality. To use evolution, which cannot be found both in the Bible (the words of God: special revelation of God) and in nature (the works of God: general revelation of God) as an explanation for the meaning of life is not only misleading but also totally deceiving. You must not used lies and deception to explain anything, let alone the human being. The whole man is not the body, nor the spirit, nor the soul but both body, soul and spirit. The body (for world-consciousness), the soul (for self-consciousness) and the spirit (for God-consciousness) makes the whole man (1 Thess.5:23). The perceiver, the perceived, and the perception exist only because of God, the Reality of realities, as revealed in the Bible. Jesus is the true truth.
-------------- - -------------------------------------NOTE TO THE READER: This is the end of the chronicles. It is like a long journey where you met different kinds of people like in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”. You can add notes to the margin of this book if you want to. Interact with it, reread it, and expand your knowledge and wisdom (Col.2:2-3) toward an effective defense of Christianity against the subtil attacks of infidels. I pray that God had used this book to edify you. What I have posted here are my thoughts eight years ago but as you can see in my annotations, I’m consistent until now; I have never changed an iota of my firm belief to God’s word and my rational faith to the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Tim.1:7). In fact, it becomes stronger than it was. The more I study science, philosophy and religion, the more I see the absolute perfection of God and His words. But don’t ever look at me, look only to Jesus (Heb.12:2). I have my own sins, failures, mistakes, and errors. I’m not perfect but Jesus is perfect. Trust only in Him. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He will not even failed you. When all else fails, look unto Him. He is the only true and real meaning of our life. Only God’s love can fulfill and satisfy your life (Jn.3:16; Rom. 5:1-5). The Bible is true because Jesus is the true truth; He alone is the Truth of truths!!! (Jn.14:6; 8:12; 6:63; 1 Cor.15:1-4)
44
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
THE LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST IN EVERY BOOK OF THE BIBLE GENESIS . . . . . Creator and Seed of the woman EXODUS . . . Passover Lamb LEVITICUS . . . High Priest NUMBERS . . . . . Pillar of Cloud DEUTERONOMY . . . . . . Prophet Like unto Moses JOSHUA . . . . Captain of Our Salvation JUDGES . . . . Judge and Lawgiver RUTH . . . . . Kinsmen and Redeemer I & II SAMUEL . . . . Trusted Prophet I & II KINGS and I & II CHRONICLES . . . Reigning King EZRA . . . . . Faithful Scribe NEHEMIAH. . . . . Rebuilder of the broken walls ESTHER . . . The One who came in due Time JOB . . . . Everlasting Redeemer PSALMS. . . . . Our Shepherd PROVERBS and ECCLESIASTES. . . . Our Wisdom SONG OF SOLOMON . . . . Rose of Sharon and the Lily of The Valley .ISAIAH. . . . Prince of Peace JEREMIAH and LAMENTATIONS. . . . Weeping Prophet EZEKIEL . . . . Watchman on the Wall DANIEL . . . . Fourth Man in the Fire HOSEA . . . . Faithful Husband JOEL . . . . Baptizer with the Holy Spirit AMOS. . . . . Our Burden-Bearer OBADIAH . . . . Our Deliverance JONAH . . . . Our Foreign Missionary MICAH . . . . Our Eternal Saviour Born in Bethlehem NAHUM . . . . . Our Avenger HABAKKUK . . . . . Our Evangelist Pleading for Revival ZEPHANIAH . . . . The Lord Mighty in Judgment HAGGAI . . . . . The Builder of the Temple ZECHARIAH . . . . Our Fountain Opened and In the House of David MALACHI . . . . Our Messenger of Jehovah MATTHEW. . . . King MARK. . . . Servant LUKE . . . . Son of Man JOHN . . . Immanuel the Son of God ACTS. . . . . The Holy Spirit at Work in His People ROMANS. . . . . . Justifier I & II CORINTHIANS . . . . . . Sanctifier GALATIANS . . . Redeemer from the Curse of the Law EPHESIANS . . . . Giver of Spiritual Gifts PHILIPPIANS . . . . God Who Supplies Every Need COLOSSIANS . . . . The Fulness of the Godhead Bodily I & II THESSALONIANS. . . . . Soon Coming King I & II TIMOTHY. . . . . Mediator Between God and Man TITUS. . . . . . . Blessed Hope PHILEMON . . . . Account Settler HEBREWS. . . . .Blood of the Everlasting Covenant JAMES. . . . Perfect Law of Liberty I & II PETER . . . . Chief Shepherd I & II & III JOHN . . . .Commandment of Love JUDE . . . . . Lord Coming with Ten Thousand Saints REVELATION . . . . . . King of Kings and Lord of lords
45
THE MEANING OF LIFE
PERIANDER A. ESPLANA
THE REASON THAT I LIVE (Words and Music by Periander A. Esplana)
Everytime I bow down, I look up to You in my heart All I pray is to have the love of God the Son Jesus the Light, Jesus the Life, Jesus the Love of loves And I’ll give all to You my life And I’ll give all to You my heart And I’ll give all to You my mind And I’ll give all to You everything in me All my strength is all for You All my soul is all for You All my heart is all for You You are the Reason that I live Jesus is the reason of my life Jesus is the reason of my heart Jesus is the reason of my mind JESUS THE REASON THAT I LIVE
www.youtube.com/thebibleformula THE FORMULA P.O. Box 6 Daet 4600 Camarines Norte Philippines
www.geocities.com/perianthium786 46