said goodbye to AFF, hello WP!

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Try breaking down the hyperlink / URL. I sometimes do that myself, i.e.:

- wrongplanet (dot) net/forum11.html

Welcome to WP!

http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthr ... 907&page=1

now for the photos i have promised.
first i should say i have an interesting job.
i am responsible for the delivery of oversize loads.
not sure how well these will resize.....

[img][650:800]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/scoobertscoobydoo/P3250158.jpg[/img]
[img][650:800]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/scoobertscoobydoo/P3110101.jpg[/img]
[img][650:800]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/scoobertscoobydoo/P3090071.jpg[/img]
[img][650:800]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/scoobertscoobydoo/PB040077.jpg[/img]
i do some massive loads. working 5 days a week brings me to my toys, i love as i have stated, anything with an engine.
[img][650:273]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/scoobertscoobydoo/PA300016-1.jpg[/img]
[img][650:800]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/scoobertscoobydoo/P4270002.jpg[/img]
[img][650:600]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/scoobertscoobydoo/P4160005.jpg[/img]

all i can say is God has blessed me and i am very thankful.


here is the link to my photobucket, because they look best if you can see them...

http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/ ... ?start=all

and a link to my youtube for some great videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/scoobertjoo

Amen.

(cool pix BTW)

thank you all for the warm welcome!

Just from reading page one, you were in the wrong forum for that kind of discussion. True, the Atheists and other non-believers could've politely ignored your discussion, but they're simply not going to do that. That's a fact you can bank on. They disrupt everything from off-topic forums to youtube. When they post their uninformed, rude jabber on my videos, or other off-topic drivel on my blogs or sites, I delete their comments, block them, etc. I don't waste a lot of time arguing, unless they have a valid point which is seldom or never with the typical atheist.

The Agnostics/Atheists I spoke of, as having "valid points," are usually the ones that have spent years, sometimes decades debating Creationists / Christianity, and were perhaps at some time fundamentalist Christians themselves. I am speaking of men who work in University, hold degrees, or specialize in Theology and Christian apologetics.

It is my opinion, that an Autism forum would not be the appropriate place to raise those kinds of questions, except "religion in general" where it doesn't swing too radically in either direction of fundamentalist Christianity or those Atheists, who themselves are fundies.

A good forum for a question like you raised would be "Theology Web" which is ran by Dee Dee Warren. There's a lot of people there, who can go into depth on scripture interpretation (more from the scholar viewpoint) and address questions such as the one you've raised.

Anyway, just an observation of the verse you posted:



Jesus was warning them that many would come in his name, claiming the "Kingdom of God is here or there" -- but the kingdom of God is within, and do not follow a man who would deceive. Note Jesus' own words: "but see to it that you are not alarmed." In other words, you will hear of catastrophes... and the false prophets will latch on to those things, and claim "Here is the Christ. Here is the Kingdom of God" but neither will be found. The Kingdom of God... the Holy Spirit is within those who believe, and are lead by the spirit of God.

You have fell prey to the same thing Jesus warns of. Earthquakes are not a sign of Jesus' coming and let no man deceive you that it is. The person who responded, said, "there are over 10,000 earthquakes each and every year here on earth."

Actually,

Earthquake Facts and Statistics
The USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small ...
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqstats.html

there are many religion attacks in that forum. i had never found that discussion area before.
have you seen the titles of some of the threads? i don't even think i want to read the hateful things in them.

as for the topic, i believe we are closer then ever to the second coming.
birth pains. that's what i see them as. we are closer but i do not think we are there yet.

Hostility is at an all time high among militant Atheists on the internet. They purposely invade forums that are not related to Atheism, to sell their own religion and win converts. But I am not deceived by it anymore. The militant atheist do make an impressive appearance of opposition on the internet when they get together in numbers, but the facts remain they are a minority:

Growth in secular attitudes leaves Americans room for belief in ...
Oct 23, 2009 ... In the United States, belief in God has ebbed over time from about 99 percent in the 1950s to about 92 percent at present. ...
http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1748

God is not going away. Even under the most extreme persecution, in the Atheist USSR and Red China, Christians continue to smuggle Bibles, and read / worship together in secret places. God will not die. The silly dream that Karl Marx and John Lennon shared, "Imagine no religion..." -- will never happen. The only way Atheists could "murder God" was through ruthless persecution, imprisonment and forced labor, death camps... and yet, people continued to worship in secret. Faith is a powerful thing.

So, the Atheists and other "anti-Christ" are really, only a minority of the population and not to be taken seriously, unless in the rare event one of the more knowledgeable ones raises a valid question about religion.



But Jesus clearly states things such as earthquakes, will happen, and not to be deceived by them. Earthquakes are not a sign of Jesus coming.

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."
- Matthew 24:36

Jesus was emphatic, that wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and all these things may happen, but do not be deceived by them... they are not a sign, nobody knows the time, only the Father in Heaven knows the time. Even Jesus himself confesses he does not know... for an example many Christians, following Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, used the suffering saying it was "God punishing" the residents of Louisiana for Mardi Gras, without once stopping to think that its clearly stated in Genesis, God would never send a flood on the Earth again, to destroy man.
Is God a promise breaker?

King James Bible
"And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth."
Genesis 9:11

Therefore, let it be deduced, God had nothing to do with the flood associated with Hurricane Katrina. We live on a violent planet, and Hurricanes, and Earthquakes will happen... and it is not a sign from the gods.

It should be noted too, there is in fact geological evidence for a flood local to Mesopotamia (only in the ancient near east and _NOT_ worldwide), but a flood in the local region of mesopotamia, that would qualify for the "Biblical proportions" described in Genesis.


Flood, Noah, Pg. 258
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Dr. Norman Geisler
Fourth Edition, ©1999


Reference: January 1930, National Geographic Magazine, Page 118-120

As I've said, many Christians do not even bother to read their Bible, therefore, how can they teach the Bible or prove to anyone it is "the Word of God"?

Last edited by AspieForty on 18 Apr 2010, 10:50 am, edited 3 times in total.

i have to admit, the entire discussion made me a better Christian. i was challenged to answer questions i myself did not know the answer to. i had to learn some things, and i am glad i did. i am a stronger Christian now then i have even been.

i do have to say i can struggle. i do not always get the meanings of things i read. God gave me my challenge, and i must work harder to see things, as they are not plain to me.

Understanding clearly what is being meant in scripture, only comes with study and there is only one teacher that can be relied on as the intermediator, and that is Jesus. The religious establishment murdered Jesus.

Trust no organized religion. Follow no man.

It was prophesied by the Prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, that God would teach the individual...

Jeremiah 31:33 "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

...not the false teachers, not the churches, not the organized religions, but the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ would guide them in all truths. Knock and it will be opened... seek and you will find. Only God has the power to reveal hidden truths :

Isaiah 54:13

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
All your children will be taught by the LORD, and your children will have unlimited peace.

King James Bible
And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.

American King James Version
And all your children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of your children.

American Standard Version
And all thy children shall be taught of Jehovah; and great shall be the peace of thy children.

King James Bible
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
- Hebrews 8:11

Actually, two famous quotes from Marx and Lennon are frequently misunderstood, because they're almost always taken out of context.

Marx referred to religion as "the opiate of the people" not because he regarded it as addictive and debilitating, but because when he was writing, the chief analgesic used in cases of intractable pain was laudanum - an opiate. He regarded the use of the majority of organized religions of his time as an "opiate" used by the rulers to distract the proletariat from the pains of their lives. (Marx actually had a few valid points, mixed in with his rather silly takes on economics and politics - it's just that most of the points he had were successfully being addressed by the Industrial Revolution even as he ranted.)

The quote from "Imagine" cited above was, again, aimed not at faith, but at religion as an establishment. Recall that Lennon grew up in the UK during a time when you were either a Roman Catholic, a member of the Church of England, or you kept quiet about your faith for fear that the two big groups would take a break from trying to kill each other and turn on you together. Imagine a world free from that sort of oppression, with no one being forced to betray their own faith and swear allegiance to one or another catechism. Wouldn't it be nice, if those of us who profess Christianity could actually live the way Christ asked us to? (I've always thought one of the best summings-up of the Gospels came from Douglas Adams, in the prologue to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, when he referred to the events as taking place "one particular Thursday, almost two thousand years after a man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if people were nice to each other for a change...".)

Then again, I'm the guy who always got in trouble during Sunday School and sermons for reading not just the passage prescribed, but those coming before and after as well, and then researching the probable translations from the original wording, and how those words would have been used at the time. Most Sunday School teachers, when trying to make the kids believe exactly what they're told, don't like being reminded that in Biblical times, "the whole of the world" meant as much as your particular tribe knew about it (or, in the New Testament, pretty much the Roman Empire), or that in ancient Hebrew, "forty" was a number used when the writer had no idea what the number should be, but wanted it to sound pretty big, much as today we might say "a gazillion".

(It's also fun pointing out to atheists that Chapter 1 of Genesis, if taken as allegory rather than literally, pretty much meshes with our current understanding of cosmology and the probable origin of the Universe, and that "Let there be Light!" is equally as probable as vacuum fluctuations in a monobloc regime, when no laws of physics could possibly apply anyway - either one is just as likely a cause of the Big Bang. Chapter 2 I reserve for Biblical literalists, because its timeline directly contradicts Chapter 1, having Adam created before plants, and holding the water in reserve until the last step, not the second step as in Ch 1.)

.... snipped insightful points....

Wow, you've certainly invested a lot of time, study and thought into your views. You're right. Often things are taken out of context, or not fully understood in their true, full context and origins behind some meanings. Thanks for contributing those points.

Another devoted disciple who viewed Karl Marx' views favorably,

14th October, 1941, midday: "The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night: "The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."
13th December, 1941, midnight: "Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the DRUG OF CHRISTIANITY. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease." (p 118 & 119)
- Adolf Hitler (who derived his "National Socialism" on Karl Marx' theories of Socialism. National Socialism, is still Socialism, only a slightly different interpretation from Communism, which is International Socialism."
From "Was Hitler a Christian?"
http://www.answers.org/apologetics/hitquote.html

Hitler's Christianity?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppZf7WbAFVw
(World War II U.S. Military documentary, and in the last half of the video shows how Nazis began sending Rabbis, Priests, Preachers, Nuns to death camps. Hitler (after using the name of God to get elected into office) turns around and proceeds to set himself up as the "Messiah". so twisted.. School children are forced to sing praises to Adolf Hitler as their "Lord and Savior". Messiah, my ***.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppZf7WbAFVw

Disgusting.

What men have done in the "name of God(TM)".

I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your t.v.
I’m the cult of personality
I exploit you still you love me
You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality
- Living Colour

As the U.S. War Department states in regard to Fascism (which applied equally to Joseph Stalin, Mao, and all fanatical Socialist leaders), "Take children away from the faith of their forefathers, and turn them toward worship of the State".



Speaking of Atheists / Communism / Karl Marx... a recent conversation with an Atheist on YouTube, lead to this absurd claim : "Atheism and Scientific Belief are the same thing".





Which leads to this precise point, when religions (philosophy) begin talking science... beware :

"...But communists could not be wrong. After all, their knowledge was scientific, based on historical materialism, an understanding of the dialectical process in nature and human society, and a materialist (and thus realistic) view of nature. Marx has shown empirically where society has been and why, and he and his interpreters proved that it was destined for a communist end. No one could prevent this, but only stand in the way and delay it at the cost of more human misery. Those who disagreed with this world view and even with some of the proper interpretations of Marx and Lenin were, without a scintilla of doubt, wrong. After all, did not Marx or Lenin or Stalin or Mao say that. . . . In other words, communism was like a fanatical religion. It had its revealed text and chief interpreters. It had its priests and their ritualistic prose with all the answers. It had a heaven, and the proper behavior to reach it. It had its appeal to faith. And it had its crusade against nonbelievers."
HOW MANY DID
COMMUNIST REGIMES MURDER?*
By R.J. Rummel
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM

Youngs Literal Translation
MT 24:42 `Watch ye therefore, because ye have not known in what hour your Lord doth come;

Bible in Basic English
MT 24:42 Be watching, then! for you have no knowledge on what day your Lord will come.

King James Version
MT 24:42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

American Standard-ASV1901
MT 24:42 Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh.

Darby English Bible
MT 24:42 Watch therefore, for ye know not in what hour your Lord comes.

Webster's Bible
MT 24:42 Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord cometh.


So much for 2012 (or any other theory, mathematical or otherwise)

Good for you! Actually, you've described how to properly study scriptures.

Christians who fail to learn this (their church should teach them, but refuse to do so), are now the ones who "get in trouble" when posting on forums where Atheists (in my experience, a minority of which who are skilled at Hebrew and Greek word studies and controversies), Christians are not prepared to tackle the questions that are raised. And, when an Atheist (on occasion) choose to deliberately use deceit when interpreting scripture, the Christian is not knowledgeable enough to see through the deceit. To teach Christians to properly study the Bible as a scholar might approach, might lead to questions and skepticism about the Bible vs. the "blind faith" which has comfortably kept the flock in its place throughout the centuries.

I dropped out of the Baptist church because of the same environment you describe. I dropped out, and continued to pursue knowledge, ordering books and contacting anyone whom I felt might could offer some insight into a proper understanding of scripture. I wanted to understand how the Old Testament fit into context with the New Testament which lead me to the Messianic Jews... I sought understanding of the Bible in its entirety... the truth. At that point, a very nice (young) rabbi called me and taught me the proper use of my Strong's Concordance, to find the word # in Hebrew or Greek, and look it up in the dictionary (back of the concordance). Up to that point, sadly, that was one of the most helpful pieces of advice, any "teacher" in the churches had provided to me.
I have numerous word studies today as a result of my studies into Biblical theology. You are absolutely correct. And you "got in trouble" in the Sunday School for properly studying scripture?

Knowledge about the Bible is frowned upon by the church. Google is a trip. I typed in: power keep people ignorant .. and some witty one liners came up:

"The institutions of power in our modern world go out of their way to keep people nutritionally ignorant."

"Keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales"

"Ignorance is power. Power over the people. Power to dominate minds. ... it is a devious, intentional plot to keep the population docile and ignorant."

"If knowledge is power then ignorance should be weakness."

Last edited by AspieForty on 18 Apr 2010, 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Amen