chongjasmine

I believe in God. I believe God is the God of Israel. I believe Jesus is the son of God. I believe there is the Holy Spirit of God. I believe there is God the father.
However, as God cannot contradict himself, I believe he is one God only. So how does Jesus, Holy Spirit and God as trinity fit in? I don't know. I will wait until I die and ask God, "I believe you are a trinity and one God but how is that so? No pastor or religious teacher I knows explains it to my satisfaction."
I believe that salvation comes if you believe in Jesus's sacrifice for you. However, I believe that practical act of showing that you are really repentance of your sins is important. That is, you must not just believe in Jesus. You must live "Jesus". Yet, it is impossible for me to completely live "Jesus", tried as I might. Still, out of love for God, I do it. I didn't guarantee before men or God I can do it, I will just try to do it. When I fail, I cling onto the blood of Jesus to cover my failure and look towards trying again, tomorrow.

I cannot explain my faith or my belief. But somehow, I am certain my journey in the end will be worth it. I have big dreams. My first and foremost dream is to see the glory of God the way Moses did. I do not know how to be the most humblest man on Earth as Moses was, but I will strive towards it. I believe in the bible, and strive to live it. Fully. Not just part of it. But sometimes, it can be difficult.

For instance, in the OT, sinners were punished harshly with death. In today's church, everything is okay. However, during NT's times, the disciples(two of them) were strive to death for merely lying. I believe God is still the same today as he was in the past. That means, he is not just love. He is also justice. I believe also that he has stopped talking to most of the people in today's world because he is angry with our compromising standard. I am suspicious that some dreams/visions that Christians have might not even come from God.

I am still searching for a mentor, someone who is really selfless and puts God first in everything to guide me in my Christian walk. I am skeptical of the religious leader but certain about the presence of God. By faith, I am also certain of the bible but I have my reservation over what the bible is. Personally, I think the bible is written by God in such a way that it can turn up to be imperfect on a word by word basis but perfect in the sense of the gist of the message.
Something like the theme matters more than the word. This is due to my belief that a perfect God will oversee the problems faced by imperfect human in their translation, in their copying down in the past of his words by hand. Since God limits his power in order that men can have free will, he foresee that men will mistakes in their transmission of his words, choose not to intefere with the mind of men until they are but robots, and yet want his presence to be known by men. So, he inspired the people to write it, making accuracy to do with the main theme of his message instead of a word for word translation. That might also be why God likes to speak in parable. Parable allows the words of God to retain their essential meaning, even with translation.
Of course, this is just my own view of thing. And at least for me, it at least explains away some part of my doubts. But how can I be sure I am right? Do I know God so well? I don't know. That will be for God to decide. I hope, of course, when I die to be seen by God as "a woman after the heart of God". I am still reading the scriptures, trying to find out the heart of God in it. I do not take what he said, literally. I see him as a being of emotion, with fairness, justice, love, mercy and perfection.
And I believe that God must be perfect, in order to demand that his creation be perfect like him. If God is imperfect, and he is the devil, what is the point of me respecting and worshipping him, besides not wanting to go to hell.

Yet, what is perfection? I am still searching. As I apply more and more biblical principle to my life, maybe I will finally know what perfection is and explains it to all of you.
Right now, all I can said is this: I am still searching.

What kind of Christian will be classify as?

Jasmine

Amos

Biblical perfection is freedom from religion and just to be in charge of your own destiny. Infallible, yes, that the word, and remain beyond the idea of religious perfection.

So Jasmine, if you can be classified at all you are not a Christian to start with.

Heathen Dawn

This question on an ATHEIST board?! ROTFL!

Do a favour, Jasmine, and go ask your question here. Thank you.

Toto

I think this will fit better in GRD.

But before I move it, I want to suggest that you might want to explore some of the eastern religions for a different perspective. You talk about wanting a "mentor" - you might be looking for a guru. It might help to learn something about traditions which have experienced the problems with gurus.

In particular, know that in some traditions, striving for "perfection" is seen as a form of GREED. Meditate on that and understand it, and you may be able to move to a higher level and get on with your life without continually punishing yourself for failing to meet an impossible ideal.

And read what you wrote - God is perfect, but God is angry and has withdrawn from his creation because he is angry, like a dysfunctional parent who needs remedial parenting classes. There's some disconnect here - maybe your idea of perfection is wrong, or maybe your idea of God is wrong.

Vinnie

Once you trully know thyself, then you will have found the kingdom of God Until you find your perfect guru or mentor (probably never), try the Gospel of Thomas. Let the living Jesus be your mystagogue

I am doing a small series on Thomas now which discusses the meaning of each Thomas passage for its author. I am also trying to make its contents applicable to theists today.

We are only at four right now Its sort of a different type of theism than the one you seem to accept though. Mainly, it has a lot less problems and is rationally grounded in empirical observations

Vinnie

Mageth

For a different perspective on Christian mythology, you might try reading Joseph Campbell's book Thou Art That.

And for a different perspective on the God-image, as it is manifested and transformed throughout the Bible, you might try reading Carl Jung's Answer to Job (and Edinger's commentary on the book, Transformation of the God-Image).

seebs

Sounds like you're fairly close on some points to the Christadelphians.

BioBeing

So you have somehow convinced yourself that God is real, and thus the bible must be God's word.

However, you have also realized that the bible is a big ol' stinking pile of contradictory garbage (although you might not use those words ) and you want someone to explain it to you?

And you came to an atheist board to find that special someone?

Well, some of the theistic posters here are especially adroid at the mental gymnastics required to make any sense out that tome. However, I'd suggest you just read it to yourself again with the thought in the back of your mind that maybe - just maybe - it really is a contradictory load of swill made up by a bunch of sheep herders a few millenia ago that has nothing to do with reality.

Then come back and ask your questions

Vinnie

Some of the non-theistic posters as well

Vinnie

chongjasmine

The reason I post it here instead of in the Christian forums is just so that some of you who might have met a more... bible-understanding teacher can refer me to him or her.
The reason I come here is also to test my faith...
I mean, if I believe in God like I claim to do, why am I hiding from the rest of the world?
Another thing is, I am afraid to meet Christians. When I am with the Christians, I am not happy. Somehow, I don't think most of them really know much about the bible, and yet they can comment so much on it.
That scares me.
To be fair to the Christians, many atheists also might not know much about the bible, and yet also comment a lot.

The one I am looking for... are those that have read a lot, know a lot, and can point me to resources that I can READ for myself. Atheist, Christian, if they know where to find the resources, I respect them as my human mentors. Human, because they are flawed people like me.


To Toto,


"And read what you wrote - God is perfect, but God is angry and has withdrawn from his creation because he is angry, like a dysfunctional parent who needs remedial parenting classes. There's some disconnect here - maybe your idea of perfection is wrong, or maybe your idea of God is wrong."


If God is not perfect, why will I worship him? I believe in him, only because I think he is perfect like he claimed in the bible to be. Otherwise, I will just go and find anything and called them, god?
My idea of perfection is not wrong. It is a perfect being who knows what love, justice, mercy, discipline are. But he, being a person with free-will can choose to exercise different attributes of himself at different times. For instance, God can be perfect and still not speak to his people, creation because he is angry.
Just like my father, earthly one can love me, but ignore me when he is angry.

The ignoring part is not done out of a tantrum, but out of calculated love. God loves his creation, but he is not a father that spoils his children. He disciplines as well. The ignoring part is the disciplining process his children have to go through before they can start to realize their deeds have made their fathers angry.

Many times, people tend to put God in a box. That is what made me confused. Am I also putting him in a box. Take for example the religious people. Take for example all of you. Are we not all claiming to know something we can never know fully, unless we see God for ourselves the way Moses did?

Secondly, what we deem as cruel now might be nothing in the eyes of God not because he is cruel but because he sees the bigger picture of all things. Take for example, suffering.
If suffering in this world helps to discipline a person, it is okay, because if God is real, his time span to view a person is eternal. That means, he see the person living the earthly life and then see him living a spiritual life. To him, then, the time-span a person spent on Earth suffering is nothing compared to what the person will spent in the Spiritual world grown up and mature because of his ability to deal with the Earth's suffering and pain.

Death in the physical world is nothing to God. It is nothing because it is something just like a waking up of dream. While we are in this physical world, we are not ourselves. We are only part of ourselves, and when we move on to the spiritual world, we will start to see many things we cannot accept, now. (I think Paul said something to this effect somewhere, about how we will see things differently when we move to the spiritual realm.) We are in a cave, right now. And a tiny light from the outside came in. Just a tiny one, that allows us to see a shadow from the world outside
the cave. Then, we hear a voice from the shadow said, " I am the source of the shadow. I had sent light in so that you can at least see my shadow. But my shadow is not me. If you want to know who I am, step out of your world and come to where I am." We can laugh and speculate on who the shadow represents, but will we know him? We won't until we trust the voice of the shadow, and steps out of the cave... to where he is. Most Christians are struggling to step out of the cave called the flesh, into the spiritual world. But they, just like all the people do not yet know who God is FULLY. However, as they are moving towards the light, they can catch a glimsp of God better than those remain sitting in the cave.

I am in the process of stepping out of the cave, all my assumptions and beliefs I built over the years... because I believe in the voice. The shadow. Jesus. I might turn up to be wrong. The cave might be the only world there is. There might not be a world outside. But how will I know whether there is a world outside or not, unless I bother to investigate. I am still investigating.

So, to answer your question,
I do think God is perfect. I believe perfection is something none of the people in this world can lay claim on. Yet, even in our imperfection, we have some glimsp here and there of what perfection is. Most of us are either too kind, but not just. Or too just but not kind. Perfection is the perfect use of all moral attributes in the right amount. God is perfect. Men are not. The only reason I believe this is his words, the bible and also a hope that is within my heart that there really is someone out there who knows what perfection is and can show it to me.
My concept of God is not wrong. I believe he is perfect. What is wrong I think is the word "perfect". All of us in this world think we know what is perfection, so we based God with it. However, being imperfect ourselves, how are we to judge what is perfect and what is not perfect in the eyes of God? God doesn't even bother to hide the fact that he can send disasters to his people in his just anger. Why are we, his servants, covering things up for him.
My belief.... just go ahead and preach from the bible full-sale, but always keep in mind when your preach the fear of God. Are you mis-representing him?
I am searching for someone like Moses in this world, who speaks to God in a direct way.

Jasmine



Actually, I really shoudn't be debating here. In fact, I mention I am not ready to debate, yet. Okay, I will stop here. I will be reading the posts here but I won't be posting. I am still searching, like I said. I am not really to be a teacher.
Jasmine