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Replies: 26
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MVP [520]
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So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 7, 2024, 7:34 PM
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your religion is right and the other hundreds or thousands of other religions are wrong.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t Christians believe that if you’re not a Christian you’re going to hell? Even if you’re born in Africa or some place that never exposes you to Christianity, you are still going to hell? This is the problem I’ve always had with Christianity.
On the other hand, most of my favorite people in the world are extremely Christian and religious, and are great people.
I don’t want to get too personal in my own life, but long story short I’ve had things that have happened with my children when they were born they were totally out of my control. That frankly have made me bitter for many years. Children born with special needs and have to ask the question why?
So too summarize, I’m conflicted as some of the best people I know are devout Christians. But I’ve always been pushed away by the arrogance that we are right and the rest of you are wrong. Hard for me to square that up.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 7, 2024, 7:40 PM
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Honestly, don't bother with that question.
Read the thread on rationality.
They will tell you there is "no problem" with someone being born Muslim, arriving at Islam rationally and yet still deserve eternal torment.
They call this "good" and "just".
You have to remember not to take moral queues from people who call things like flooding the whole earth (aka genocide) "good".
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CU Medallion [59604]
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The one that got me was the dance around whether or not anything can exist
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Jul 7, 2024, 11:10 PM
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if God doesn't want it to. Because if God is all powerful, then he's not opposed to sin and evil and satan at all, as they couldn't possibly exist if God didn't want them to exist, and being all-powerful, there would be no reason he would have to allow them, out of necessity.
Nobody would come right out and say it, but danced all around it, essentially saying it anyway by means of convoluted explanations, like God having two wills; a "perfect will", by which everything is exactly as he wants it, and a "permissive will", which allows for a lot of things he doesn't like because they ultimately help in accomplishing his perfect will.
Not only is that obvious, desperate reverse engineering, trying to come up with some explanation to support a belief, it also ignores the fact that an all-powerful God doesn't have to allow for anything, and such allowances (sin, evil, satan, etc.) could still only exist by his choice. Such a God wants sin, satan, and evil. No Chritians I know of will say that, as most I know don't believe it, but instead believe God opposes all of that, and is engaged in some kind of spiritual battle against it (as I was taught in church).
My parents and grandparents were devout Christians, and raised me to be one. They were very intelligent, kind, loving, wonderful people. They were raised in the church, and never questioned it or thought too hard about; they just accepted what they were taught. I did too, until I was older and it occurred to me that there was something wrong with the story I'd been taught.
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Orange Blooded [2496]
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Opants....
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Jul 7, 2024, 8:33 PM
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I've had a special needs brother my entire life. Never knew anything otherwise. It hurt my parents, and it hurts me. I take care of him. So, I think you and I might have some things in common within our own families. It's tough, and it feels so unfair.
There are a lot of Christians who don't live up to our calling. But what drew me into it was the selflessness of some wonderful people that are Christians, particularly my grandmother, who cared more about others than herself. It made me give Christ a chance, and I've never looked back. I've met other people in my community that have to deal with very difficult issues within their own families, too. What i find is that all people deal with broken-ness to some degree. The love of Jesus and our community helps me and gives me strength.
God bless you, man. And I'm sorry about whatever situation you're dealing with regarding your children.
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MVP [520]
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Thank you!
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Jul 7, 2024, 8:40 PM
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Appreciate the kind words so much. You understand what I’m going through in a way that others don’t. Again, I respect many friends of mine who embrace Christianity so much. But I have this side of me that needs to be honest and needs to look for clarity. Understand the love and beauty of Christianity, but I have a hard time understanding how they think the rest of the world that aren’t Christians are going to hell. Need someone to help me understand why that’s OK.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: Thank you!
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Jul 7, 2024, 8:48 PM
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>Need someone to help me understand why that’s OK
I think your consternation says it all. There is nothing ok about eternal punishment
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Orange Blooded [2360]
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Re: Thank you!
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Jul 7, 2024, 9:20 PM
[ in reply to Thank you! ] |
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I believe Jesus was simply upset with the status quo within Judaism. He was a radical preacher who had some revolutionary ideas that caught on.
His message was hijacked by people like Paul and the early church fathers who put their religious spin on it which led to the religion we see today.
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CU Guru [1429]
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Re: Thank you!
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Jul 9, 2024, 1:09 AM
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I would agree that it was certainly highjacked along the way.... by whom and when I don't know
But some shenanigans most definitely occurred
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Orange Blooded [2360]
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Re: Thank you!
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Jul 9, 2024, 5:58 PM
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There is a lot written on the tension between Jesus and Paul. It seems to have happened that early.
Just one example off the top of my head...
Jesus said true worship is in spirit and in truth. Paul, or someone claiming to be Paul in Hebrews said do not forsake the assembling of yourselves. This one is used to encourage church attendance, something Jesus himself never established or partook in. Why didn't Jesus start a church?
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: Thank you!
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Jul 9, 2024, 6:14 PM
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Probably because he was an apocalyptic teacher who thought it was all about to end soon.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 7, 2024, 8:39 PM
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>So too summarize, I’m conflicted as some of the best people I know are devout Christians. But I’ve always been pushed away by the arrogance that we are right and the rest of you are wrong. Hard for me to square that up.
Christians are just people, and yes, some (most) are great people.
Have you not someone of a different religion or lack thereof, though? Christianity does not have a monopoly on great people. This is one reason why i wish more people had the means to travel, you get out of your bubble and see more of reality for others.
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All-TigerNet [11885]
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Keep your faith OP.
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Jul 8, 2024, 1:48 AM
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My son survived 14 brain surgeries in his first 14 years. I’ve seen his life leave his body in the ER 3 times and I am forever damaged for seeing it. But he is alive. My mental scars pale in comparison to the ones held by the 10 yr old that told me,” I wanted to go, this world is not for me. But the old people told me to go back. “. He survived.
I am incredibly humbled by the number of people that prayed for us during that time. And I will always be grateful for those who cared. 50 years in the Methodist church gave me something to lean on, but when it got too hard they bent. Disappeared, didn’t call after about the 5th surgery, lost interest when we needed our church community the most.
If this weren’t enough,my widowed FIL develops early onset dementia and Ms Slac is an only child. What the EffGod!!!??? Seriously?
I learned that God don’t exactly run things down here like the book says.
All that to say this, you’re tougher than you know, no matter what crap lands on your plate.
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Hall of Famer [24920]
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Re: Keep your faith OP.
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Jul 8, 2024, 10:10 AM
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How old is he now, and how is he doing? Not asking for more details than you want to discuss. Tmail if you prefer.
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CU Medallion [59604]
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Faith is ultimately . . . Faith.
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Jul 8, 2024, 10:01 AM
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You can't prove it and you can't know it as fact. But you can feel it in your bones and believe it. I understand completely where you are coming from, and have a lot of problems with Christianity and the bible as I learned it, but I still found a way to have faith that there is a God and that we go on after this life (but not as a form of reward or punishment).
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Orange Blooded [3316]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 10, 2024, 4:58 AM
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I don't know the people you're referring to. Do you think you may be using the word "arrogant" when you really mean "confident"?
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 10, 2024, 6:51 AM
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Confidence turns to arrogance once you ask them to back it up, that’s for sure
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Orange Blooded [3316]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 11, 2024, 2:48 PM
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I think people sometimes get defensive when they feel their deeply held beliefs are attacked. Most religious debates, as far as trying to prove something, are pointless. I used to watch guys like Hitchens, Craig, Harris, and Lennox debate it all. I don't think anyone is ever moved in one direction or another. You believe or you don't. If you're looking to be argued into it, that ain't gonna happen.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 11, 2024, 3:01 PM
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>I think people sometimes get defensive when they feel their deeply held beliefs are attacked.
I understand that, but if that's the case, the last place they need to be on is a P&R forum.
Challenging each others ideas is kinda the point.
>I don't think anyone is ever moved in one direction or another. You believe or you don't.
I mean, I moved from fundamentalist Christian to agnostic atheism, so it definitely happens. I'll concede that this didn't happen by watching debates, though.
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Orange Blooded [3316]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 12, 2024, 8:53 AM
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Discussions (of the civil variety) are fine. I would think a non-beliver might truly want to know what it is that leads someone to believe in something the non-believer can't justify for themselves. You probably know many people you know to be very intelligent who believe things you can't wrap your head around. Conversly, I know smart people for whom religioius faith has no part in their lives. I wonder, "how can you live thinking this was all chance or that there is nothing more?" I think some want to think through it rationally. Apologetics is, as I understand, a defense of the faith. I think that leads to discussions regarding rationality (how did the serpent communicate with Eve?) or phyical laws as we know them to exsist (how did Jesus walk on water?). I don't believe anyone arrives at faith by answering those questions - because they cannot be answered rationally. The non-believer will respond, see - you believe in something you can't justify through the evidence. To that, I agree. So we ultimately get back to this: why do I believe and you don't? I suspect your answer is: I see no evidence. My answer is: I don't know. I think we're both comfortable with that.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 12, 2024, 9:06 AM
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I think that's all well put.
I could be wrong, but I think what you were kind of getting at then, is, why then do I continue to ask questions on something I don't believe?
And that's incredibly easy to answer. It's the same reason I talk to people with opposing political views. I don't believe they have those right, so why do I continue to debate/argue with them?
Why do I continue to debate/argue with any other topic?
It's fun, it helps me clarify my own positions and probably most importantly, sometimes I learn new things and change my position.
I will say again, though, this is the only topic in any forum I've ever been on where that question gets asked.
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Orange Blooded [3316]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 12, 2024, 9:18 AM
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As I said, discussion are fine. Questions are fine. I just have come to believe I don't have answers likely to satisify a non-believer. I think it's easy for discussions to move into the sarcastic "a talking snake, really?" I also don't think threats from the other side "You're going to burn for your unbelief" move anyone toward belief. I know you only from your posts. I think it would be great if you popped on here one day and announced God had moved in your life and brought you to faith in Jesus. God has to do that. It won't come from something you'll read here. So we always wind up where we started.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 12, 2024, 9:37 AM
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>I think it's easy for discussions to move into the sarcastic "a talking snake, really?"
To be clear, in isolation, I do not care if someone wants to believe a snake talked. Now, if they want to teach that in school, or they want to tell me it's a fact, then yeah, unless you demonstrate that a snake actually talked, it's fair game for ridicule.
Nobody on this board would bad an eye on this board if I made fun of the claim that Muhammad split the moon. That is clearly ridiculous and lacks supporting evidence. But if I do the same thing with talking snakes, suddenly it's a faux pas.
It's the exact same concept as someone telling me the earth is flat. Do I really care if someone wants to believe that? Of course not. But do I really want that person to be, say, a senator or teaching my kids? Again, I think it's reasonable to have a problem with that. Now, if said person showed me convincing evidence of a flat earth, I would have to acquiesce and change my position, but as of now, the overwhelming evidence is to the contrary.
Is there anything unreasonable with what I said above?
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Orange Blooded [3316]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 12, 2024, 9:50 AM
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Nothing unreasonable. My point is the discussions - while maybe entertaining - are not ultimately productive. You can challenge me on the temptation of Eve in the Garden. I'll acknowledge I can't prove it. I'll acknowledge it seems to go against nature as we undertand it. But I'll also tell you that I'm comfortable with the fact that I can't explain it. I don't think my inability to explain it makes it untrue nor does it diminish by faith. Neither your question nor my answer moves either of us. (As an aside, Michael Heiser wrote a book called "The Unseen Realm" where he provides a very interesting take on this.) I would assume a Muslim would feel the same about your Muhammad example.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 12, 2024, 10:00 AM
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I’m curious then about things we do have evidence for, like evolution. Why deny that when it’s exactly the opposite (overwhelming evidence it’s true)?
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Orange Blooded [3316]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
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Jul 13, 2024, 7:01 AM
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I'm hardly read up enough on evolution to argue for or against it. As far as I know, there is evidence for it and questions which have yet to be answered.
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Rock Defender [59]
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Re: So many religions, so arrogant to think
Jul 13, 2024, 3:22 PM
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>As far as I know, there is evidence for it and questions which have yet to be answered.
This is not correct if you mean, it's up in the air whether evolution happened or not.
This would be like a detective at a crime seen saying "we know this guy has a stab wound, we have the whole event on video, the guy admitted to it but we don't know the exact brand of the knife yet, because he threw that in the ocean, so it's up in the air whether the victim was murdered yet".
Of course, there are lots of open questions on specific aspects of evolution, but scientists are asking whether it happened at all, they already know that. They use it every day.
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Oculus Spirit [94899]
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I don't have a lot of choice in what I believe now.
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Jul 13, 2024, 7:29 AM
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Some 50+ years ago during my 19th year of life my father and I had a 1060's dispute over the length of my hair. Trivial now but at the time it seemed important to both of us. We broke father and son fellowship. His contention was that if I loved him I would cut my hair. Mine was that if he loved me it wouldn't matter. Such foolishness abided in our home at the time.
He owned a brand new Peterbilt truck and stayed on the road for a week or two at a time. For three months he and mom traveled together while I kept the house and kept it full of pot smoke and other popular teenage pastimes.
One of those pastimes was banking. About 50 ft from my front door, across a narrow street sat a bank. The night deposit was on my side of that building so I could sit in my living room and see the depositors. At the time, those after hour depositories were merely chute, smooth on the inside which allowed deposits to slide down into a basket or some such container. The chutes were covered with a flap which hinged so it would allow access to the chute.
The theory was that if I shaped a coat hanger to fit the inside of the chute, sewed a pillowcase around it to catch the loot and taped it to the walls of the chute down low enough that depositors wouldn't see it I could retrieve the bounty without detections. It worked...
for a while. When the first pillowcase fell into the basket, I continued being that it was late on Friday night and a big weekend was coming. Sometime around Monday afternoon the FBI showed up and arrested me and a handful of 'lookouts.' who share the guilt along with me. We were the original Pillowcase Bandits mentioned by Johnny Carson. I didn't take to this fame well.
My father came home after finding out about my arrest and brought me an Elgin Sportsman multi-jewel watch to let me know he loved me. He said, 'I don't condone what you did but we'll find a good lawyer and make this as easy on you as it can be.' That's paraphrased but captures the spirit of the moment.
A week later, after being indicted by a federal judge in Knoxville, my mother's father came through the front door without knocking. He looked at my mother and said, "Ruth, Bobby is dead."
I wish I could share my feelings to make you understand how condemned and crushed I was when I found out my 36 year old father died of a heart attack while sleeping in the sleeper of his new truck. I wish you could share the millions of emotions which came in waves across my soul at that very moment.
I'd heard the Gospel all my life but never felt I needed divine help until then. I knew the way. I fell to my knees and asked Jesus to save me, not from jail, not from guilt of what I'd done to myself and my family but to save my soul and give me a reason to live again.
I made not one promise other than I'll try to do your will. I didn't ask to be spared from prison for I was guilty and willing to pay the price for my horrible crimes and violations to my family. I simply wanted to be saved from myself.
I don't know if my prayer was one which was often prayed but Jesus honored my request and changed my heart, turning it toward Him. Every day I repent of my sin which is great, the pride of life, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye. Every day He forgives me and works within me to my benefit.
Glory to God, I am alive today and for eternity in Him. I simply believe what the Bible says. I am not allowed to judge others, not their religion for I have no religion in that religion is man's way of making himself presentable to God. No religion because My Holy God sent His only Son to die and pay for my sin, He sacrificed Himself in the flesh to be the attornment for me.
I won't degrade others for their beliefs, and I can't degrade or dismiss others who present themselves as believing that there is no god. What I can do I will to do is share what I believe, the Gospel.
2 Peter 3:
"9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
So God brought you here to know that it's not His will that neither you nor any other will perish but that you will turn your heart(s) toward Him. He suffered greatly to show us His love.
Edited for speling erorriess.
Message was edited by: ClemsonTiger1988®
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