Messages from the Pulpit on The Rolla Link In Exile BBS between February and September 1989. Collected and condensed by Fire Escape, January 1995. ========================================================================= 1/42 # 96637 SHOULD IT CATCH EVEN THOSE From: THE FLAMING CARROT on Tue Feb 21 6:51am Who do not want to be caught? Either from ignorance or over-developed self-love? Should a man's free will be violated to save his soul from dis-grace? Is god fair, or are humans free to crash? 2/42 # 96680 HEH HEH HEH From: CHILDHOOD TRAUMA on Tue Feb 21 3:45pm Free will requires free choice. Choice requires information. How can one freely chose to not believe if there is a god? Ah, he is missing the information. He has made a choice other than free. Perhaps there is someone out there who would freely chose to spend eternity in horror, but I tend to doubt that. Fix the phyiscal and mental mistakes, provide information, and we will all decide to take the easy life. After all ewe are imperfect, not idiots... 3/42 # 96704 From life... From: THE MASTER on Tue Feb 21 5:13pm I expect e-mail. Humans should realize that the are the smartest being on the planet. It might help the problems... 5/42 # 96761 Hmm.. From: JIMI on Wed Feb 22 3:12am If there is such a thing as *True* Perfection and God has it. Than how would Man, who is a imperfect being percieve it? It must be beyond his feeble imperfect mind to percieve it.. I understand Logic has *NO* place within religion... Your is not to question why.. Just to spout from a book and die, Hoping that you were right.. 6/42 # 96805 Logic From: FIRE ESCAPE on Wed Feb 22 12:59pm Well seing how humans are the only animals with the ability to reason and create, it would appear that God sees some value in our striving to understand Him. I believe that whole human pyche is designed for the purpose of knowing God and understanding Him as best we can in this life. If God didn't want us to consider Him intelligently, He could have made us like the other animals, but He didn't. There has to be a reason. I think we can come to an intelligent faith, one that is arived at logically. This is not to be confused with setting logic up as faith. When we worship logic we limit our understanding, but logic when used with faith can lead to an intelligent faith that believes for specific reasons and knows what and why it exists. A faith devoid of logic or consideration is mere credulity and as such, is not really faith. For faith is an assurance based upon an understanding. For deeper insights on the nature of "faith" I suggest "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. Very interesting reading for the intellectually inclined ;) Fire Escape 7/42 # 96862 Going From: AGRAJAG on Wed Feb 22 10:57pm off on the perfect thing...Think about any character created by mans mind...Superman...He has weaknesses How come we can create a imaginary perfect being...cause we're frightened and God is perfect therefore we didn't "make it up" He's real. 8/42 # 96878 Hopefully, us Thumpers From: IRONMAN on Thu Feb 23 1:54am do more than merely "spout from the Bible". Hopefully, we are living from the Book. 9/42 # 97030 Yes Ironman.. From: FIRE ESCAPE on Fri Feb 24 1:25pm It would be a shame if we talked the talk but didn't walk the walk. And the walk isn't always easy as it is all uphill. It's not an escalator to heaven like so many seem to think, but a difficult and arduous path to stay on. All the bible verses in the world won't amount to a hill of beans if we don't "do" them as well as "say" them. I am reminded of a song by the Altar Boys that is appropriate for this topic, I sure can relate to it, maybe someone else can relate as well: "Rebels attention, can you hear me? Man, we've got to take this message out in the streets (and not necessarily with a megaphone). In this wilderness our voices (and hearts) must be heard, with everything we've got to be a light in this world. Rebels attention, do you hear me? It's not easy I know, but you've gotta stand with me. I've seen too many people fallen to the lies. The truth has to come from you an I. We've gotta shout louder, Louder than the world. Shout straight from your hearts, give it to them all you've got. Rebels attention, you can hear me. All the fried out brains and kids without names get to me. I see them lying there in the city morgue, Mom and Dad's wonderin' what went wrong?! Hey rebels I'm pleading you can here me. The WAY WE LIVE, THE WAY WE LOVE IS EVERYTHING. SO WHAT IF WE MEMORIZED EVERY VERSE, WE SHOUT LOUDER THAN THE WORLD BY THE WAY WE LIVE." So as they say on Family Feud, "Good answer, Good Answer Ironman"! Shout with you life and it will mean alot more. Fire Escape 10/42 # 97056 FE, From: S'TALON on Fri Feb 24 4:15pm ou say that our whole human psyche is made to understanding God. Somehow, I think that we were put here for more reason than just as God's playthings. He made the Earth and the surrounding universe. We are the most intelligent species on this planet. Somehow, it would seem rather obvious, that we are supposed to be the caretakers and guardians of this planet. And with (if any) other intelligent races, the caretakers of the universe as well. I don't think God owuld be so trivial as to create humans to satsify an emotional desire of God. -S'Talon 11/42 # 97060 S'Talon... From: TEMPEST on Fri Feb 24 4:42pm ...your comment as pertaining to any other possible intelligent lifeforms sounds like "The White Mans Burden" back in the days When the Anglo-Saxon militants came over to America, killed half the indians, then beat the other half over the head with Bibles they paid no attention to. Mighty risky trip there...I for one don't agree. P.S. Sorry, that "WMB" crap killed a lot of innocent people. And, how would humans, who can not even take care of themselves, take care of the universe. We'd screw that up too... 12/42 # 97062 SEEMS TO ME, From: THE FLAMING CARROT on Fri Feb 24 5:05pm If god created the universe, she could take care of it also. Humans the most intelligent species on the planet? Maybe. Certainly we are~ good toolmakers and seem to be one of the most arrogant species around. But does that mean we're "smarter than the average bear?" 13/42 # 97083 caretaking From: YAMABUSHI on Fri Feb 24 8:11pm WE SHOULD preserve the universe® But WMB, definitely not® Damn its SO SIMPLE! 14/42 # 97089 Preserve the universe? From: THE MASTER on Fri Feb 24 8:43pm that might be diffucult, since all of the planet's preservitives are in frozen foods. 15/42 # 97103 Well... From: DR MARVEL on Sat Feb 25 12:23am According to the bible God is a he. 16/42 # 97112 IT SEEMS TO ME THAT GOD IS From: THE FLAMING CARROT on Sat Feb 25 6:37am Neither masculine or femanine, since gender exists for procreation of species, and god is a unique entity. Perhaps she is both masculine and feminine, but likely god is beyond our concept of gender. Gender designation is more of a convenience than an absolute, in my tired opinion. 17/42 # 97113 Q being... From: EL DIABLO on Sat Feb 25 7:43am As to your question regarding bears; I don't know about you but I am smarter than even the smartest bear. Even Dancing Bear. As far as God creating the universe and all its contents, my personal theory is that the universe was here, man evolved from cosmic gas (which answers the immortal question of "why do we fart?") AND, here's the best part, Man created God. This was done to ease mans basic insecurities. It makes you feel good to think that there is some mighty big and powerful head cheese in the sky that will forgive your screw-ups and allow you to come live in his bitchin' house when you die. Anyway it's just my personal theory. The other theories about God just leave too many unanswered questions, such as: 1) Why are there different gods for different societies? 2) Did they collaborate to create this universe, or did one of them make it and then make these other gods just to confuse the Arabs? 3) Why did he make f**k-ups like Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and guys like that? Like I said, it's just a theory, but it's my theory and it must be right because I'm smarter than all the bears in the entire universe. 18/42 # 97115 WELL From: SHO KOSUGI on Sat Feb 25 10:46am In the bible it tells you that you can't compare God to anything on earth.. So there for you don't know what he looks like, and it also tells you that Mosess saw the back side of him.. Now about this post before mine, yea that's your opinion, have a happy life!! 19/42 # 97129 The theroy of evolution... From: THE MASTER on Sat Feb 25 11:21am I believe the scientific theroy, about the Big Bang. I believe that there is a god, but I'm not at all religios. 20/42 # 97158 Moses From: YAMABUSHI on Sat Feb 25 5:53pm was mooned, forgive me... Diablo- yeppers I agree. You also brought up farts. If there were a god he wouldnt make us fart. He loves us right? Then why torture us with farting? Seriously, having a god to look up to is quite good but isnt a self-suffcient human better? 21/42 # 97189 Well... From: DR MARVEL on Sat Feb 25 10:22pm The Bible states that God made man in his (Gods) own image. So that would seem to indicate that God is male (in some sence of the word) and that man looks (somewhat) like God. 22/42 # 97288 I never From: S'TALON on Sun Feb 26 4:18pm said anything alluding to WMB. I said *IF* there's any other intelliegent races, than God created them and all races to take care of the universe in conjunction and harmony, while the Earth (man's Planet) would be man's responsibility, the universe would be the responsibility of ALL the intelligent races of the universe. -S'Talon 23/42 # 97369 Dr. Marvel.. From: FIRE ESCAPE on Mon Feb 27 2:51pm Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man(kind) in His own image, in the image of God He created him, MALE AND FEMALE, He created THEM. " It would appear from this summary that the image of God is not an image that consists of only ONE gender. As we are explicitly told that the image is BOTH Male and Female, for both man and woman are created in the image of God. Jesus said in John 4:24 that "God is spirit..", he is not a male of a female but a Spirit that contains BOTH male and female attributes and characteristics. This is why God is described in the Bible as BOTH Father and Mother. The "he" used is mostly to designate that God is a PERSON, not an "it" or a "force" but a personal being. God had to create both sexes to appropriately reflect His image. If he hadn't created women in his image also, your view might be justified, but considering the above, you can not call God one sex or the other, he is both. But he is a spiritual being, who does not possess any PHYSICAL traits particualr to either gender. I hope this clarifies this topic. Call God a "he" or a "she", makes little difference to me, I consider God both Mother and Father, but refer to him as "He" because this is the proper use of english when designating an individual in the third person. Fire Escape 24/42 # 97482 Well, shoot....... From: IRONMAN on Tue Feb 28 10:01pm Fire Escape, you posted sort of what I planned on posting, so now I'm sitting here with nothing to post. hmmm......let's see... Oh, yeah, I must strongly disagree with one point which El Diablo made. El Diablo, NOBODY is as smart as Dancing Bear. So there.....I'm sorry that I had to say that, but it needed to be said. 25/42 # 97520 Hi From: TRAPPER on Wed Mar 1 7:06am Nice to see both you, Ironman and Fireescape here.. Love reading your posts.. I wish I could express my feelijg in words.. but I love reading yours.. /Trapper/ 26/42 # 97571 Hmmm... From: SYSOP on Wed Mar 1 4:06pm So, in other words, God is a hermaphrodite. 27/42 # 97601 Somehow, From: S'TALON on Thu Mar 2 1:42am I think he is used as a convenience for when the Bible was written (as most of the world at the time, particularly the Middle East was extremely male chavinistic) becuase the society at the time was ruled by a bunch of male chavinistic pigs. God transcends human concepts of male and female. Afterall, he's God, not a human. (Or anything resembling a mortal being). -S'Talon