Jbarrax

Whatever.

I went back and read the initial post before I posed the question. He didn't actually specify that.

I can't help falling in love with you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAWalYmC170 BTW, where does it say it has to be the first line of the song? That's not always where the most recognizable line is found.

YEP! you're up

Jurassic Park Next clue... "You've got exactly three seconds to wipe that smile off your face before I gouge out your eyeballs and skullf&% you!"

I'm a believer by the Monkees! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Next clue. And I got such a long way to go. To make it to the border of Mexico.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ excathedra }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Ah! I thought that sounded familiar. Great movie! :-)

Rocky?

I agree with the premise that Christians should be able to get more understanding out of the Bible than non-Christians. This is by virtue of God being able to give a spirit-filled Christian insight into a passage that a Muslim or Hindu won't necessarily be able to receive. It's that process of being able to receive revelation when we read that makes the all or none preposition so primitive; carnal even. If there are problems in the text, a spirit filled Christian can acknowledge that and still be able to glean marvelous truths from other Scriptures. As a spirit-filled Christian, I can acknowledge the conflict between grace and works but still rejoice in the gift of holy spirit, God's grace and mercy, resolve to "work heartily as to the Lord and not unto men" and remind myself that "charity suffereth long and is kind". Would I like to have a rock solid confidence that there's only truth in the Bible about salvation? As my dear departed Grandma would say, Sho nuff! But not having that doesn't mean I can't still value and enjoy and benefit from the truths I do understand.

This is a classic example of the polar mindset I described above. In your mind, if there is one thing in the ENTIRE Bible that is not "God-breathed", then the entire book is worthless. To quote VP, "It's either all God's word or none of it." SAYS WHO? This is a blatantly illogical statement with no basis in fact. The reason people make these kinds of statements, imho, is because they're incapable of dealing with the task of using your God-given mind, intelligence, and spiritual intuition to sort out what's true from what isn't. Fundamentalism is the easy way out. You guys just aren't spiritually mature enough to deal with anything less than 100% certainty. Your faith is WEAK. Now I'm being an elitist. Take that! HA! :-) I would love to read and respond to Geisha's post now, but My wifey's gotta go to bed, so I guess I'll have to pick this up tomorrow. God Bless! PS. I gave Geisha's post a quick read while Deb was playing with the Shih-Tzu. Very gracious of you Geisha, and much appreciated. Oh, NOW she's gotta go to bed. Lights out for me. :-)

Why does it seem impossible for people who believe in an inerrant Bible to accept the fact that others see contradictions in the Scripture without resorting to character assassination? First Geisha (different thread, same outcome) now WordWolf. Just to rebut the assumption that any apparent contradiction can be worked out if you just ask someone else..I've been looking at the various levels of grace vs works for oh, about eight years now. Asking, praying, all that. No one has yet been able to clarify this issue to my satisfaction. Even bought several books by Vince Finnegan, whom I was told has grappled with some of the same issues in the Scripture, only to find that he doesn't reveal his thought process in his writing. I get a bit peeved when people assume that I'm lazy, intellectually dishonest and "lack integrity" just because I have given up on believing that the dozens of apparent contradictions in the Bible really aren't contradictions. By the way, despite the fact that I no longer think of the Scripture as divinely perfect, I still use it for guidance and inspiration. Accepting its limitations didn't automatically lead me to throwing away all my Bibles and considering it a useless pile of paper. There are some people though, for whom all of life is polarized. They can't see grades of gray, only black and white. My lovely wife is such an individual. Doesn't make her a bad person. It just makes it very hard for us to discuss things that require moderation or nuanced understanding. Sometimes, a bitter disagreement boils down to a simple different in perspectives.

WW, the problem with the me vs God paradigm is the assumption that everything in the Bible is God-breathed and therefore perfect. I don't see it that way. I think some scripture that we have in the canon today probably shouldn't be there. Lest you think that's a heretical idea, I remind the forum that Martin Luther thought so too. He referred to book of James as 'an epistle of straw' and, according to what I've heard, didn't think Revelation should be in there either. But then, I may be a prime example of an ex-Wayfer with too little knowledge. :-)

Correct! You're up Raf!

Trading Places! (One of my all time favorite comedies) :-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am Princess Vespa, daughter of Roland, King of the Druids. Oh great. That's all we needed. A Druish princess. Funny, she doesn't look Druish.

True dat.

Steve. It's always good to hear from you too. :-) Despite the validity of your historical references, I think the NT itself asserts that there were problems caused by the differences in belief regarding grace and works. Perhaps I'm stretching this a bit but I see the record in Acts 22 as part of this story. When Paul went back to Jerusalem, he was violently assaulted because he dared mention that Jesus had sent him to preach to the Gentiles. One might think I'm changing the topic, but the inclusion of the Gentiles is central to the question. They had not been raised in the Mosaic Law and many were not circumcised. So then Paul avowed that he'd been sent to the Gentiles, it crystallized the Judaean opposition to the undoing of the Law and nearly got him killed. If you take a step back and look at the broader context, you will see that James had invited Paul to address the crowd to prove that the 'rumors' of Paul teaching that the law was no longer necessary were false. I submit that James himself did not understand Paul's gospel. And if you take a step back even farther, we can ask ourselves why God tried so hard to keep Paul from going to Jerusalem. (Despite DocVic's many faults, I think he got this one right). God knew how deeply entrenched the Phariesees were in Jerusalem and tried to keep Paul from risking his life in an attempt to shed the light of grace in that area. But I digress Paul's epistles also testify to the amount of division this issue raised, even among the Apostles. You know the rest of the story. Anyway, it seems to me this was a pretty divisive and emotional issue. It caused an immediate schism because Peter was afraid of James and his associates. There are other passages in Paul's epistles that list his persecution and the undermining of his ministry by these people. It was a hotly contested and divisive issue even then. Unfortunately the passage of time hasn't made it much easier to reconcile these camps. God Bless!

Yeah, I think we're veering off topic. So back to the REASON thing. Here's something that struck me as I was reading the current issue of Scientific American. They have a feature story on dark matter in which they describe it thusly. "What the stuff is remains as elusive as ever. It is a measure of our ignorance that the most conservative hypothesis proposes that dark matter consists of an exotic particle not yet detected in particle accelerators, predicted by theories of matter that have not yet been verified. The most radical hypothesis is that Newton's law of gravity and Einstein's general theory of relativity are wrong, or at the very least, require unpleasant modifications." In essence, dark matter is an assumed force that has not yet been directly observed, measured, or detected, but is assumed to exist because something is causing distortions in the shape and behavior of objects in space that modern science cannot explain. I'm okay with that. Here's where it gets interesting. Later in the article, as the writer is explaining how galaxies form he wrote this. "In our current models, galaxies began as agglomerations of dark matter, which then accrete gas and stars to form their visible parts." Maybe I'm too cynical, but it seems to me to be a monumental assumption. If we don't know what dark matter is or what it's made of, how can we know that dark matter caused the formation of galaxies? These kind of unsubstantiated assumptions are what some Christians like me call into question. It's not that I assume they're wrong. I just get annoyed at the fact that scientists in general and astrophysicists and geologists in particular tend to speak of theories as if they were proven facts.

Oh boy, my turn! I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like...victory!

I'm coming late to this discussion but I love this topic, so I can't resist tossing in a comment or two. I kind of agree with WW about the tendency of educated people to have their own doctrinal blind spots. This is borne out in two books I have, both written by members of the medical & scientific communities. Both authors speak in different terms about the tendency of the scientific community to blindly adhere to theories that support a secular worldview and to doggedly resist, ridicule, or otherwise undermine those that might seem to support a Creationist worldview. Evidence be damned. I think most of know by now that Einstein theorized the Big Bang, but wouldn't espouse it because he was afraid it would give credence to religion. On the other hand, I agree that many Evangelicals have become reactionaries, driven by "the culture war" to distrust and disparage anyone perceived as liberal, moderate, or secular. There seems to be a calcification of discourse that has rendered people incapable of openly and honestly discussing science, politics or religion. So instead of listening humbly to one another and learning, we distrust those who disagree and ignore the holes in our own worldview so that we can reinforce what we believe. It's quite sad really. Like some kind of global cancer. Anyway, the books I cited are Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe and The Body Electric by Dr. Robert O Becker and Gary Selden And FWIW, I agree with Waysider. I see Jesus' statement to the rich man as a contradiction of the doctrine of salvation by grace. And it's not just this passage. If you read the context of every reference to salvation or eternal life in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) you will see that Jesus often spoke of eternal life or entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven as the reward for those who kept the law. (Mtt 19:16, Mtt 10:22, 24:13 - 22, Mark 10:26, 13:13, Luke 13:23 - 30). It's not until you reach John that you see Jesus presenting salvation almost exclusively as the reward of faith without works. This dichotomy continues through the rest of the NT and even shows up in second chapter of Romans, a treatise that is accepted as the doctrinal foundation of the doctrine of salvation by faith. Romans 2:6 - 10 tell us plainly that God will render to every man according to his deeds. That's another word for works. Yet Romans 6:23 says eternal life is a gift of God. There are two completely different doctrines about salvation living side by side throughout the NT. I'm sure Geisha would say that it's not really a contradiction at all if you just pray humbly about it. Perhaps I'm not humble or prayerful enough because, in eight years of reading, praying, and studying, I've not been able to reconcile these. But that's way off topic. Just couldn't resist dropping my two cents' worth.

In that case it would be Peter Pan.

Livin Lovin Maid (She's just a woman) Classic Led Zeppelin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKI1k7LSAIE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ They said when Janie was arrested they found him underneath a train

Not one of your favorites? I can't fathom why. :-) Oh wait. Maybe it's because, between 1987 and 1990, there was a secret FCC edict that required every AOR station in the country to play Freebird every three and a half hours! Or so it seemed. To spare those of you who survived this torment with your sanity intact, I will not post a YouTube link here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Can't catch me cause the rabbit done died. Where have all the cool fonts gone?

Sounds like a wonderful organization Twinky

I think that's "Let 'em in" by Paul McCartney & Wings. Then again, I could -- I say, I could be wrong. Nope. I just googled the lyrics and that ain't it. Paul sang about Sister Susie, Phil and Don, which sounds a little bit like telling Aunt Mary about Uncle John...just a little..teeny bit.