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I just wanted to clarify my post—it was not my intention at all to “boast” about my faith. You are absolutely right about faith being a gift from God. I was actually just wanting to convey that I am in no way ashamed of having a childlike faith. However, I *still* consider it my greatest accomplishment—*through God*, that is, for all good things (and thus good accomplishments) are only possible through Him.
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12345,
I still cannot reconcile the 'your greatest accomplishment' part of it. If the faith was given to you, then you accomplished nothing.
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While faith (and every other thing that is good) is a gift from God, we still have free will to either accept this faith or reject it. Although God is omnipotent, He has not predetermined who will go to heaven or hell, as I believe you are suggesting.
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I think a careful reading of a decent translation of the bible would disagree with that. If you have been given belief ( faith ), or for whatever reason, if you have belief in something, then you just believe it. There is no will or acceptance involved. If God planted faith inside your skull that says ( I EXIST ), then it's there. Plain and simple. You can no more reject that, then you can reject any belief you have. You simply believe it.
And that, means that according to the bible, God has pre-determined who will go to hell, simply by pre-determining who he 'gives' faith(belief) to.
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I would compare faith to a birthday or any other tangible gift—the recipient always has the choice to return it if he or she doesn’t like or want it.
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That is what all Christians say. I reject that as intellectual dishonesty.
12345,
I know I am harsh with you. Sorry for that. Having escaped from the clutches of christianity, I have real issues with it, and I always try to get my jabs in on Christians whenever I see an opportunity.
Come on man, eternal hell ? If you've been hanging around this forum for a while, how can you believe in eternal hell ? How can a personal God, be so vindictive as to make humans imperfect, ( flesh is weak ), ( you can never satisify God without the Spirit [which is also a given gift btw] ), etc.., and then punish them for all of eternity without any hope of reprieve or parole, because they were too stupid to believe in him during this blink of an eye physical existence.
To me, if anyone steps out of the trap for a second, they can see how silly and outright mean such beliefs are, and how ugly, and tyrannical of a god that is.
Oh well. Peace on you anyway.
