Posts Made By: Russ Carroll

http://gallery.me.com/russ92069#100155

It's amazing to watch these dogs natural instincts to herd. I was very proud of him today!

It's hard to think of a worse way to be a representative for Christianity than to try and extract scientific claims from the Bible, where none are made and are clearly of no Biblical value, and constantly berating A/A's in a public astronomy forum with them. I am so thankful to God that I was never exposed to this when I was an active scientists and atheist. It would have naturally hardened me even further to the Gospel.

The entire idea of living the Christian life is to bear fruit from God for others; you know Jesus is the vine, you are the branch kinda thing? The fruit that is constantly referred to in scripture is:

"the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."

Sometimes I wonder if the brain-debates that we all have are simply masking over something deeper within...

will hear Mr. Phelps case one day:

http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=746421&poll_id=&news_id=&page=2

The LA Times has been running a series of articles on construction fiasco's related to a $5.7B education bond approved by voters These projects remind me of the horrific Iraq reconstruction projects we were reading about a few years back. Here is just one sports field that looks like a total loss of $50+ million dollars:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-build4-20110304,0,7849298,full.story

And you wonder why people are so suspicious of government spending...

The 29-year-old spokesmodel died

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-04-restaurant-spokesman-dies_N.htm

I aw these guys before. It's worth watching some of the videos:

http://www.heartattackgrill.com/Heart_Attack_Grill_Diet_Center/Comm_Healthcare.html

Check out the Quadruple Bypass Burger...

Jesus clearly performed a miracle of turning water into wine. It is standard orthodox Christian theology that the same Holy Spirit that empowers us today is the exact same Holy Spirit that empowered Jesus.

If you believe this, which I do, would you teach a class on Viticulture claiming that all you need to do is put water into a cistern and pray?

A post from Clyde from a messy thread in ID forum:

Clyde Crewey said:

"is to trust Jesus when he claims to be God in the flesh.."

There's a huge problem here and it's the well established history of the first earthly followers of Jesus.

There are many statements by Jesus in the gospels that leave no doubt that Jesus claimed to be God. They are not ambiguous whatsoever, especially if you understand anything about Judaism. This is one of the true "essentials" of orthodox Christianity.

Even more than these claims, He demonstrated that He could do things reserved only for God Himself. Here is an extremely persuasive passage in Mark 2:1-5:

"A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Russ Carroll said:

Russ Carroll said:

Jim Brown said:

Russ Carroll said:

Jim Brown said:


What is to keep the Tibetan Russ and the US Russ from both being right?

Jim

The actual truth.

Russ:

Let me demonstrate my thinking with an example. Let's say the question on the table is "Does Indianapolis exist?"

In that case there is, without getting into some advanced physics, and using normal language one true answer. Yes.

If the question at hand is "What is the quickest way to drive to Indianapolis?" the answer is not so uniform. For me the answer is drive East on I-70. For Clyde the answer is drive West on I-70. For many of us a true answer is going to be different depending on our starting place.

If the question is phrased as "What is the one and only way to drive a car to Indianapolis?" there is no answer, that is an invalid question.

Consider the question presented to Tibetan Russ and U.S. Russ. "What is the best path for you to God?" I think this question is a lot more like "What is the quickest way to drive to Indy?" than it is like the other two examples.

Jim

Jim,

I think you have described universalism to a T, which I would highly prefer over Orthodox Christianity. This description just isn't consistent with what I know about the Bible.

Russ

I have an alternate answer after thinking about this for a bit. I fully agree with what I posted above. However, if you substitute the words "Jesus Christ" for "Indianapolis", i would say this is an excellent description of Christianity.

In my opinion, you can get an awful lot wrong theologically as a Christian, but if you are, at some level, truly heading towards Christ and trust Him more than yourself, then your path will lead you to Heaven.

I have a close relative that "does not believe good people are going to hell", "believes multiple paths to God probably exists", has belonged to "apostate" churches in the past, and holds several other ideas that are not part of Christian orthodoxy including outright error; however, when you take a combination of his actions, the fruit of his life, and his clear an unashamed admission that the real Jesus Christ of the Bible is his Lord, then I would tell you that he is trusting Christ with his soul. There is a wonderful parable of Jesus about this subject that is near and dear to my heart.

No one knows for certain except God who is and who isn't a "real" Christian, and I have a much broader view today in the sense that doctrinally messed-up individuals can be Christians, but ironically my view is narrowing in the sense that talk is cheap and shoe leather is a far better indicator of ones actual spiritual condition.

My provocative title for this thread was not a joke. There are also no Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and the like in heaven as well. Heaven is filled with people who are followers of Jesus Christ.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html

"Surveys of college graduates are finding that more and more of our top minds want to work for the government. Why? Because in recent years only government agencies have been hiring, and because the offer of near lifetime security is highly valued in these times of economic turbulence. When 23-year-olds aren't willing to take career risks, we have a real problem on our hands. Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles."

and

"Over the period 1970-2005, school spending per pupil, adjusted for inflation, doubled, while standardized achievement test scores were flat. Over roughly that same time period, public-school employment doubled per student, according to a study by researchers at the University of Washington. That is what economists call negative productivity."

Jim,

I really don't feel good at all about the discussion of Hell on this forum yesterday, and here is why: a correct or incorrect view of Hell's existence is not a requirement to becoming a Christian. I can now see how unproductive a discussion of its existence is, particularly in a mixed group like this with a very broad range of spiritual beliefs.

This is a close call for me, but I do not see in scripture the need to get this right in terms of being a follower of Christ. What matters is how you personally handle the message of Jesus and how you respond to it.

I would boil His message down to the following as it is personally what compelled me to become a follower of Jesus: I am not God, Jesus is, controlling my own life has led me down the wrong path, I reject my own ways and accept Christ's ways, I want a new beginning and a real chance to follow Christ. Please forgive my many, many screw-ups that have hurt so many people and help me to not add to this list ever again.

This is how it all started for me. No concept of Heaven or Hell. No analysis of who was or wasn't with God. Just a simple and heartfelt desire to follow after Jesus. At the time, I was not even certain who Jesus was, I only knew that the powerful message of the love that He had for me overcame me and cause a lifetime commitment to Him.

If you have experienced this epiphany and the idea of Anne Frank burning in Hell is an obstacle for you in being obedient to Jesus simple commands, then I say don't believe it. To be a disciple of Christ, one needs to follow His commands: "If you love Me, obey my commandments". This is what the greatest commandment is. He did not say "If you love Me, be really, really smart and have all the answers". In fact, the people He was PISSED at knew and believed the truth intellectually! Their actions were completely contrary to loving god (parable of the two sons) and loving others (the parable of the good Samaritan).

For me, the concept of Hell holds only one reality: I don't want anyone to experience it. This motivates me to want to be a better (more obedient) Christian so that my family and friends will see the power of Christ in my own life and desire to follow Him. That's it. I can see that discussing Hell is counterproductive.

Russ