pattygreen

That "Novel" you are refering to was written by many people as you say, approximately 40. It was given to us in pieces during a period of 1600 years time. (1492BC-100AD) It contains 66 books, written by 40 different people from all over the world (The pages were penned in the wilderness of Sinai, cliffs of Arabia, hills and towns of Palestine, the courts of the temple, schools of the prophets, Persia, Rome, and even the Island of Patmos) at all different times and from many people of different statuses in life. (Kings, statesmen, herdsmen, Priests, intellectuals, tax gatherers, fishermen, doctors, and the unlearned) Even though it was compiled in that manner, it shows a progress of revelation and doctrine in it. When it was put together or compiled into one book and read together it makes up a miraculous guidebook for man to follow. The 2 halves of the Old and the New Testament making a complete whole book of perfect and divine sense.You cannot understand some of the books of the Old testament without books of the New Testament and vica versa. No other book is like it. The bible alone has the words of your creator within it. If you want to know Him, you should read it.

Fair enough. But just in case you weren't aware, you have not been 'lost' to him. He knows right where you are. If you should ever decide that you would like to 'find' him, you know where to look. God Bless you. Patty

Not to make excuses for myself, but...... Here goes.... I don't normally do my spreading of the 'good news' in this way as you see me here. In 'real' life, I am more of a 'live by example' kind of person. I try to show the love that God would like me to show and I pray silently for the souls of others, asking God to shed the same light on them as he has blessed me with. I try my best to be an example for others in my life, so that those who know me will 'see' how God has affected my life and not have to be told about it. Of course, if the opportunity to talk to someone about God comes along, and if people are sincerely interested, I will speak of God and share my experiences and the things I have learned with them. I am also a teacher of children in bible classes. I am not shy about my love for God. In other words, I am not ashamed and don't deliberately hide it from others. Most who know me feel that I am a nice woman who is a caring, and giving person. I love people and will help anyone who is in need. That said, I want to stress that when I speak of God here, on the debating 'rants and raves' area of LBT, it is because I am "debating'. In this thread, "Is God real?", that is the debate. When I speak about my reasons for the way I feel about certain controversial issues on other threads here, it is because the bible directs my decisions in life. I would not normally share the things I share here in the same fashion, unless I knew the person wanted to be informed or was asking me about my beliefs. I would never 'force' my beliefs on others. BTW, Kartman, you're not a 'lost cause'. God will never give up on trying to reach you.

Christianity has a place in U.S. Government. The evidence is clear that our Founding Fathers built our nation on the 'self-evident' truth that our rights are 'endowed' to us 'by our Creator'. This is the Faith that began this Nation. John Adam's said," Our Costitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Christianity has been under attack for years. The major enemy of Christianity has been, and is, the Civil Liberties Union. Christianity played a major role in this countries birth and growth. On the wall in congress's Library there is a citation that says , "the Heavens declare the glory of God...", and a statue of Moses and the 10 Commandments appears in the US Supreme court. We 'swear to tell' the truth on the Holy bible in our courts. It is "In God we Trust" that is printed on our money, and on and on I could go. Facts don't bother activists who despise Christianity. Their knowledge of American History indicates they never learned it in school. The battle against Christianity is useless; it has survived the attacks for 2009 years and is unlikely to falter now. Despite what Obama says about this country not being a Christian Nation, 76.5% of us believe that it is. That's 159 million Christians.

I watched the news (CNN) last night and witnessed a black man argueing with a white man over what he said was a racial issue concerning the march on Washington last Saturday. I ask: Why do some black people feel that bringing up the race card for every instance of opposition is proper? For one thing, He's not a black man. He's a black AND white man. He is like me and he is like you. The issue of race (when it comes to the president, for I know racism still exists at times) was settled, IMO, when the people in America chose him to be our president. The real issue is what he's been doing since his time as president began. It's also the economy and the fedupness of the people over government corruption and greed and spending. They felt they were going to get some 'change' in the WH by electing Obama on his promises and all they see is more and more of the same. (Outrageous spending!) It's NOT about race. For Pelosi is a white woman, and at the rallies they were chanting to throw her out. There were many other 'white' democrats that they were holding signs up about as well. NO, this is about the government as a whole, no matter what color their skins may be.

Once we understand the love that the Father has bestowed upon us, we realize that we are all intended to be brothers and sisters in Him. Therefore, we love others as if family. Most family usually go all out for each other. When one doesn't grasp what the rest do, they work at bringing them to the understanding that they have. It's purely out of the love we have for those who don't know their creator yet.

I suppose that if you had something that you deeply, wholeheartedly believed to be all truth and understood the great conseuqence of others missing out on it, you might understand my quest for all to comprehend it.

Dead? Who said dead? Jesus is ALIVE in Heaven.

Excellent point, plain. In this lies the whole controversy. Government control is getting out of control. When is too much government, too much. I believe it's now, and I'm not alone on this belief. The government is overstepping their boundaries. They have been for a long time. Gradually creeping into every freedom we have. Little by little eroding them away. AND making us slaves to all those we are in debt to by the trillions!!!! I can't understand how the liberals are okay with this. It boggles my mind.

Honestly, I wasn't aware that any first ladies in the past had been spending that kind of money on servants. I only recently became interested in politics and the whole scene a few years ago. If I had known that Laura was doing the same, I still would have been appauled, yet I will admit not as much appauled, simply due to the fact that the economic situation that we are in was not as severe or noticable when Laura was in the WH. The cost of living is down? Where do you live? A month ago I went to the store and bought popcorn at $2.50. Two days ago I went to the same store and it was now doubled in price. That scene is everywhere. I'm not saying everything is doubling, but everything is going up in price.

The issue is ...What do we want? The bible says that if you seek God with all of your heart, then you will surely find him. Surely find him. It's the person who wants to know God that God reveals himself to. And if a person doesn't want to know God--well, God has created the world and the human mind in such a way that he doesn't have to. God ordained that people should be governed in the end by what they want. If you want to know God personally, to experience release from guilt, to live the way you were designed to live, to pursue his purpose for your life, to tap into his power for daily living, to commune with him in this life and in eternity, there is plenty of evidence upon which to base a rational decision to say "yes" to him. It's up to you, just as it is up to me.

When Jesus returned from the dead he authenticated his divinity. He gave 4 facts that are widely accepted by NT historians from a broad spectrum. 1. after being crucified, Joseph Arimathea buried him in a tomb. Therefore, its location was known to Jew, Christian, and Roman alike. 2. Sunday afterward the tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers. Indeed, nobody claimed the tomb was anything but vacant. 3. On multitude occcasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead. This cannot be dismissed as legendary because of the extremely early date of these accounts. 4. the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe Jesus was risen from the dead despite their predisposition to the contrary. They were willing to go to their death proclaiming Jesus was resurrected and thus proved he was the Son of God. and, nobody knowingly and willingly dies for a lie. Besides, the biographies of Jesus in the NT stand up to intellectual scrutiny, they are reliably passed down to us through history, and there is more corroborating evidence for Jesus outside the bible. Atheism cannot credibly account for the Big Bang, the fine tuning of the Universe, the emergence of life, the existance of moral laws, the supernatural confirmation of the bible, and the ressurection.The only hypothesis that explains them all is that there is a creator whose son is Jesus.

Scholar Norman Geisler convincingly argued that that there's more evidence that the bible is a reliable source than there is for any other book from the ancient world. Its essential trustworthyness has been corroberated repeatedly by archaeological discoveries, and if we can trust the bible when it's telling us about straightforward earthly things that can be verified, then we can trust it in areas where we can't directly verify it in an imperical way. It's divine origin has been established first, in defiance of mathematical odds, dozens of ancient prophecies about the Messiah, including the precise time frame in which he would appear, were fulfilled in one person, Jesus. and secondly, biblical prophets performed miracles to confirm their divine authority. Jesus' own miracles were even acknowledged by his enemies. By contrast, in the Koran when unbelievers challenged Muhammad to perform a miracle, he refused and merely told them to read a chapter in the Koran, even though he conceded,"God hath certainly power to send down a sign."

Darwinism can offer no credible theory for how life could have emerged naturally from nonliving chemicals. Earth's early atmosphere would have blocked the development of the building blocks of life, and assembling even the most primitive living matter would be so outrageously difficult that it absolutely could not have been the rpoduct of unguided or random processes. On the contrary, the vast amount of specific information contained inside every living cell encoded in DNA strongly confirms the existance of an Intellegent Designer who was behind the miraculous creation of life. The idea that christianity and science have constantly butted heads is a gross distortion of the historical record. Robert Boyle, an English student of chemistry, believed that scientists more than anyone else glorified God in the pursuit of their tasks because it was given to them to interogate God's creation.

Without God, morality is simply the product of sociobiological evolution and basically a question of taste or personal preference. For instance, rape may become taboo in the course of human development because it's not socially advantageous, but it's also conceiveable that rape could have evolved as something that's beneficial for survival of the species. In other words, without God there is no absolute right and wrong that imposes itself on our conscience. But we know deep down that objective moral values do exist--some actions like rape and child torture, for example, are universal moral abominations-- and therefore this means God exists.

In the past 35 years, scientists have been stunned to discover how life in the universe is astoundingly balanced on a razor's edge. The Big Bang was actually a highly ordered event that required an enormous amount of information, and from the moment of inception the universe was finely tuned to an incomprehensible precision for the existance of life like ourselves. An infinitesimal difference in the rate of the universes initial expansion, the strength of gravity or the weak force, or dozens of other constants and quantities would have created a life-prohibiting rather than a life-sustaining universe. All of this contributes to the conclusion that there is an Intelligent Designer behind creation.

Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang....and you askme,"who made that bang?", and I reply, "Nothing, it just happened." You would not accept that. If there is obviously a cause for a little bang, doesn't it also make sense that there would be a Cause for a Big Bang?

To experience the truth and be set free, you have to be a following learner. In other words, do what Jesus says and you will experience the validity of it. It's kinda like riding a bicycle. You can't watch a video or read a book about it; you've got to get on one and get the feel of it. How do you do that? You say, "I've heard some things that Jesus taught. They sound like good ideas to me, but I don't know if they're true. For instance, I've heard Jesus say it's more blessed to give than to recieve. How can I know if that's true? Well, a thousand debates wont prove it. But when you become generous, you'll realize this truth. Oh, maybe Jesus accidentally guessed right on that one. Then just keep going. You'll be amazed at how often he guessed right! Jesus said, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." When we begin to do faith, God begins to validate it. And the further we follow the journey, the more we know it's true. Jesus said," If man chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether I speak on my own." So, somehow, if we have the will to believe, God then confirms to us that Jesus is from God. The bible elaberates on this when it says,"Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him." Then 2 verses later it says,"for this reason they could not believe." In other words, They made a decision of the will to deny the message of the miracles, the evidence that Jesus is God, because they wouldn't pay the price..which would be their whole religious system being blown out of the water. And they had made this decision to not believe for so long that they had dismantled their capacity to believe. Consequently, faith, at its core, is a decision of the will that we keep on making, but we're given that option by God's grace. It's a choice we must make without having all the complete information we'd like to have. Otherwise what we would have is knowledge, not faith. Doubt and faith can coexist. People don't have to fully resolve each and every obstacle between them and God in order to have an authentic faith.

Just like some "sweeping generalizations" about radical "haters" on the far right from some posting here. That's all. No offense to you personally.

These nit picking 'pennies' add up. A little pork here and a little pork there, and you have billions of dollars spent on waste. Do you know how many unemployed families could live for a year on 1.4 million dollars?! Why should Laura or Michelle have servants when the rest of the poeple can't even have cable TV in this economy because it was an unnecessary expense they had to cut so they could pay their taxes or the higher cost of living due to government corruption and wastful spending?! Leave it to a democrat to say it's just a dent in the deficit, why count it?

Under the bill, Americans who don't have ins. would be fined up to $3800., an "incentive" that the 'Candidate' Obama interestingly enough campaigned against. If Ameicans had $3800. hanging around, they could afford to buy ins., but a good chunk of the uninsured have ins. but choose not to buy it. It also requires charging seniors 5X more for ins. than 20 year olds, even as their coverage would be rationed so the nation's health care dollars can be redirected to 20 year olds who will be forced to buy ins. they don't want to cover them for the medical care they don't need. :rolleyes:The rational of government!