|
Chaplains Corner A place to discuss religion, personal problems, or to request advise from someone who will listen and provide moral support. |
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
04-11-2006, 06:50 PM | #1 |
The Mad Messenger
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: The Great State of Insanity
Posts: 4,222
|
What makes YOU have faith (or not)?
I know this is a can of worms thread, but I get some really interesting answers every time I post a similar thread.
|
04-11-2006, 07:03 PM | #2 |
unum de multis
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Bunker's Headquarters.
Posts: 52,231
|
The commercialization of religion. When a priest tell me he refuses to baptize my child because computers don't show me as a regular donor I start thinking General Motors Acceptance Corporation.....and this was at the onset of computers... or when a preachers wants to buy some land from me for the church but wants a cut off my commission for the sale to go through. That's when I start having doubts about religions in general.
__________________
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Pesident Ronald Reagan |
04-11-2006, 07:55 PM | #3 | |
PERMANENTLY BANNED
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,066
|
Quote:
True Christianity is the difference between heaven & hell & not about a stack of religious requirements invented by men for the manipulation of the flock. As to what enabled me to believe, I reckon it was the "drawings" of God. John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. |
|
04-11-2006, 07:59 PM | #4 |
Redneck Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Reedy Creek, NC
Posts: 9,140
|
My favorite saying is:
I may not be what I ought to be...... But, praise GOD I what I used to be.....
__________________
When Injustice Becomes Law....Rebellion Becomes Duty "If you're not shootin', you should be loadin'. If you're not loadin', you should be movin', if you're not movin', someone's gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick." - Clint Smith, Director of Thunder Ranch |
04-11-2006, 07:59 PM | #5 |
Chaplain/Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: West Virginia
Posts: 11,321
|
Why do I have faith???
The things I have seen, like cancer disappearing, cars going 20 foot embankments and still able to be driven home, rain surrounding a lawnmower engine but not raining on the engine itself. Ya know, little things like that. But Aviator, you are 100% right too. It disgusts me to see what some of the commercialized churches do.
__________________
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done. Ronald Reagan - 1964 Bunker Member #4. |
04-11-2006, 08:10 PM | #6 |
Southern Gun Girl
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 7,058
|
Aviator, i wholeheartedly agree..... that kind of stuff makes me sick!
i guess i have faith because i've seen it heal, me as well as others, and because of a feeling that God is knocking at the door....or drawing me to Him, as Nineteen said......it's up to me to open the door or be drawn in. sometimes i forget that God is always there for me and i don't answer the door.....those are always the darkest times of my life...... i have also had what i would call 2 religious experiences, but in the effort not to sound crazy, i'll just leave it at that. even though i don't go to church as much as i should, or even as much as i do want to, I can feel Christ in my life like a comforting companion, especially when i read scripture or pray with my favorite prayer book, sent to me by a Cistercian monk many years ago when i was in hospital
__________________
Remember Thermopylae, ye who would be tyrants...MOLON LABE!!! |
04-11-2006, 08:26 PM | #7 | |
unum de multis
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Bunker's Headquarters.
Posts: 52,231
|
Ok, this is not about puting anything down but how I look at things:
1911 said: Quote:
The Bible was written by men. The way I want to look at it is: There is a Creator out there, for at one point science stops explaining things and something else takes over....let's call him God, God is everywhere and within each of us. I don't have to go to a temple to talk to him for he is part of me and I am part of him. I don't trust the word of man, I just can't. I've seen too much damage done by man in the name of God for Him to be behind it all. |
|
04-11-2006, 08:54 PM | #8 | |
Chaplain/Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: West Virginia
Posts: 11,321
|
Quote:
We can test the power of the written Word. If you tell me that I will get shocked when I stick my finger in a light socket, does that make your statemant untrue because it was written by a man??? And if I stick my finger in that light socket and get the tar knocked out of me[FONT=Maiandra GD][/FONT], then I'm going to say "Dang, Fred was telling the truth!!!" So far everything that I have seen in the Book and tried has been the truth. Sometimes I don't want to listen due to the stubborness of mankind, but that doesn't mean that it's not true. |
|
04-11-2006, 09:33 PM | #9 |
PERMANENTLY BANNED
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,066
|
John 14:11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
Like , Ive seen my fair share of miracles. The Bible is the inerrant, inspired & infallible Word of god & is authenticated by the miracles thar surround it. Therefore the plan for salvation declared within it is the only one acceptable to God. The Bible declares sin as the problem. Everyone has sinned and the wages of sin are death. Sin must be punished & God declares that sin cannot be forgiven without the shedding of blood & the soul that sins must die. Because of Gods great love for humanity he allowed the substitution of a sacrifice. An innocent animal could die on behalf of the guilty man. It would be slaughtered at the altar, there would be deah & the spilling of blood & the innocent animal would get what the sinful man deserved. The righteous requirement of the law was fulfilled & friendship & fellowship with God was restored. The prophets spoke of the day that God Himself would provide His own Lamb. This was fulfilled when Jesus Christ who is God became a man & lived amongst us, showing us a better way & finally died in the altar of the cross, spilling his blood for us & dieing for us. He truly was the "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" as John the baptist declared. Because the wages of sin are death & Jesus was without sin, death had no legal hold on Him so 3 days later He rose from the dead & ascended to the right hand of God the Father. A Christian, is one who believes in Jesus. Not simply that He existed or was a good man or was the Son of God - but believes that when Jesus died on the cross He died as THEIR LAMB. A that Jesus substituted Himself for them personally. Just as under the old system, there was shed blood, death & faith in that act, the exact same is shown in Jesus crucifixion & death. Now, thats how it works. There is no room for manipulation & control in that. There is even no room for a priest in the new way because Jesus Himself becomes our High Priest & we can talk directly to Him ourselves. We can confess our sins to Him directly, have faith in His Blood & death & He will forgive us. There is no angle to be ripped off in this & it is the only deal that God almighty will accept. There is nothing more that is essential to Salvation than this except that we turn from ways which are offensive to God & allow Him to transform us into His version of us through the process known as sanctification. |
04-11-2006, 09:52 PM | #10 |
DISTRIBUTIST
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 603
|
Why do I believe?
First & Final Causality: Grace of God Intermediate Causes: the acts of charity demonstrated by other faithful throughout Church history that surpass the bounds of human capacity. The countless lepers Mother Teresa picked up with her bare hands are cared for thorugh their repective deaths; St. Maximillian Kolbe who voluntarily took a condemned man's place at Auschwitz and kept a cheerful countenance and sang hymns up until his death, though the Nazis were starving him; St. Isaac Jogues who had his fingernails ripped out and much of his skin peeled and eaten before him by American natives, and yet he volunteered to go back again and be a missionary to them; St. John Bosco who devoted his life to the education and formation of the street urchins of Turin, worked tirelessly for 20 hours a day with these rough boys, and when asked why he did it...he said, "love". Pain beyond any human description and beyond any natural and human way to tolerate was endured by countless men and women because they wouldn't renounce their faith. The Apostles, of whom we know existed (even the "historians" cannot deny this), died horrible deaths and suffered pains beyond the capacity for any man to endure of his own strength. They were intimately acquainted with Our Lord. If it wasn't real, if they didn't see a Man who was supposed to be dead but then was walking around, if St. Thomas didn't put his fingers into the side of Our Lord, if they did not see Him ascend to heaven, then, when faced with these gruesome tortures and horrific deaths why did not the Apostles say, "OK...you're right...I'm wrong...I was, uh, just kidding. So please do not put me in that pot of boiling oil!"? Personal experiences influence men. I cannot speak for others, but I, myself, have been scandalized by behaviour done by men of the cloth. Nonetheless, it does not follow that the whole should be condemned because of the part. If that were the case, I'd cease to be an American patriot years ago. Presidents, past and present, Congressmen, Senators, Justices, etc. have done grossly scandalous things that my patriotism, if based merely on their behaviour, would have disappeared long ago and I'd have taken up flag burning. Yet, there were men of American history that give me hope for America. Likewise, the Church has raised up men and women to be examples of that Christ-likeness to which we are supposed to aspire. Have our very leaders failed in that example and the execution of their office? Frequently, no less. But the standards have never changed in 2,000 years...and even Christ had his Judas Iscariot.
__________________
"For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." --Ephesians 6:12 Last edited by Southern Partisan; 04-11-2006 at 10:22 PM. |
04-11-2006, 10:01 PM | #11 |
PERMANENTLY BANNED
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,066
|
Outstanding reply SP.
Here are some engravings to honour the fallen. Steven Simon the Zealot Matthew Matt again. |
04-11-2006, 10:04 PM | #12 |
PERMANENTLY BANNED
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,066
|
Mark Luke Bart Barnabus |
04-11-2006, 10:06 PM | #13 |
PERMANENTLY BANNED
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,066
|
Phillip Paul James the Lesser James |
04-11-2006, 10:12 PM | #14 |
PERMANENTLY BANNED
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,066
|
Other martyrs that would rather die than renounce Christ
|
04-11-2006, 10:19 PM | #15 |
DISTRIBUTIST
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 603
|
Great pics, 19. Stephen is particularly close to my heart. The proto-martyr, the first martyr. I was baptised with his name.
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|