Why are Church and State to be Separated?

Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:17 am

FOREVERSAVED SAID

Quote [God applies the rule called age of accountability, so until a child grows up old enough to have authentic choice, before then children are saved, assuming the child would not have grown up to never receive Christ.]end quote.

My question is where do the Biblical scriptures support this? I have read the Bible and studied some aspects quite closely and I have no recollection of such supporting verses. If its not in the Bible how can you say God applies this Rule? if it is please quote the relevant verses so I can have a look at them myself.

Many thanks

Squidge
[/quote]

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 549

You wont be getting anything out of him; he left to plague another forum.

Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:36 pm

Cygnus wrote:

You wont be getting anything out of him; he left to plague another forum.

I thought we logic'd him out of here or scared him off.

Heh, just another Missionary.

Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 11:53 pm

Shame, was hoping he would want to be more like Jesus, and that we could convince him to die for our "sins" to save us. Twisted Evil

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 5:10 am

I thought it was a really good question, oh well I suppose I would have only got a load of blah blah back in response.

BTW re: my question, the Bible does not actually deal with the issue of what happens with babys etc it seems God allowed a loop hole unless theres something I am not seeing.

Cheers

Squidge

Grand Poster Joined: Apr 22, 2005 Posts: 1036

squidge wrote:

the Bible does not actually deal with the issue of what happens with babys etc it seems God allowed a loop hole unless theres something I am not seeing.

It's all fiction, conceived, written, compiled and badly mistranslated over an extended period by human beings, and not the word of god. Hence the internal inconsistencies (or loop holes, if you're being polite).

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 549

Quote:

I thought we logic'd him out of here or scared him off.

And maybe we have; I think that people like these post around different forums. He may be concentrating on another site of godless heathens. I believe SV said he was on atheist forums as well.

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:43 pm

He tried to go to AF, but that was fixed that once it was realized it was our old friend Troy. Wink

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:23 pm

SvZurich wrote:

He tried to go to AF, but that was fixed that once it was realized it was our old friend Troy. Wink

He did the same thing before? Just left 100+ messages of one liners?

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:15 pm

Oh yes, he is proof of the UNintelligent Designer, and immune to learning.

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 11:16 pm

I've never seen the allure of hanging out at a forum (or any place for that matter) knowing it's full of people you either dislike or strongly disagree with (I mean, to the point that you can't actually get along with them). Like, for instance, there's this other forum I frequent that's attached to a political blog/web comic that has a firmly liberal stance, yet you get all kinds of conservatives and libertarians on there beating their chests about how wrong the writers are, and then complaining about how persecuted they are when the fans have the audacity to disagree. Hell, one of them, who's a real troublemaker, went so far as to call another visitor a troll.

What would you call a devout Mormon, with firmly conservative social and political views, who still thinks that Bush has been a wonderful president (especially in terms of foreign policy), and that people like Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh are truly admirable media personalities, when this person decides to hang around on a forum attached to a blog/web comic written by a trio of liberal atheists, one at least of which is gay?

If it walks like a duck, etc.

Confident Learner Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 81

squidge wrote:

My question is where do the Biblical scriptures support this? I have read the Bible and studied some aspects quite closely and I have no recollection of such supporting verses. If its not in the Bible how can you say God applies this Rule? if it is please quote the relevant verses so I can have a look at them myself.
Many thanks
Squidge

Hey Squidge!

Does this help?

When I was a born-again christian, questions about the ultimate fate (heaven/ hell/ somewhere else?) of aborted babies and infants who were too young to make proper choices came up quite often. The pastor of our church directed us to the following passage of O.T. scripture.

Psalm 139, verses 13 - 16.

He then used logical argument to work out their fate, based on what was stated in god's word. His arguments (as best as I can recall) went like this...

1. The whole psalm makes it clear that god's presence is everywhere and cannot be escaped from or evaded.

2. Therefore three people are responsible for the creation of a child, not two. In alphabetical order these are the child's father (contributing his genes via his sperm), god himself overseeing the conception and growth of the the child and the mother (contributing her genes via her egg). Those verses talking about "knitting a person together" make it clear that god is intimately involved in the cell by cell formation of every human that has ever lived or will ever live.

3. Therefore, since god is involved like this and also knows the full future of every unborn baby (being fully omniscient and all-knowing) he will automatically know in advance whether they will accept him or not.

4. Therefore they will be judged on this basis.
Since every human since Adam and Eve carries with them the inherited original sin of that first act of disobedience, even unborn children need to accept Jesus' sacrifice - they cannot rely on their own innocence. God knows that an aborted baby cannot ever have understood the concepts of sin and redemption. However, knowing all things he always knows what choices that person would have made if they had lived long enough to understand and decide.

5. Since god is also totally just, fair and compassionate he will never make an error in these matters. He is completely trustworthy and we should put our faith in him, especially when it comes to unknowns like the fate of an unborn child's immortal soul.

There. I think that's about all of it.

So you see Squidge, it looks at first glance as if they've got all the bases covered.

Amazingly enough, I used to swallow and believe all of this! Can you believe that?

I've got more to say on this (these arguments don't hold water and I'll explain why) but I'll wait on your response before I do that, ok?

Thanks,

BornAgainAthiest.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 549

Did this pastor of yours believe in free will, or was he Calvinist?

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 2:44 pm

I always hated the Predestination tripe. If I am preordained saved, why proselytize? If am I preordained damned, why proselytize? You can't change God's mind.

Basically, since some are saved no matter what, and you don't know who, why have a religion? And for all I know, the pastor is preordained damned and just wasting all of our time.

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 8:42 pm

Hi
Thanks Bornagainatheist

I do see where they are trying to deal with this but I think the holes a re alittle too big to plug.

I found this quote from the Protestant Theologian Wayne Grodem( very well accredited and lettered etc)

Quote["God is able to save infants in an unusual way, apart from their hearing and understanding the Gospel, by bringing regeneration to them very early, sometimes even before birth. This regeneration is probably also followed at once by a nascent, intuitive awareness of God and trust in him at an extremely early age, but this is something we simply cannot understand".(6) ]end quote.

The only really credible part of that statement is the unusually frank admission that we cannot understand this.

Grodem continues
Quote["How many infants does God save in this way? Scripture does not tell us, so we simply cannot know. Where Scripture is silent, it is unwise for us to make definitive pronouncements. However, we should recognize that it is God’s frequent pattern throughout Scripture to save the children of those who believe in him.]end quote

So there is an admission that it is beyond understanding, Scripture does not help in this and I presume that as science cannot be of any help ( at least not in any heplfull way to Christians) then we just cannot know and therefore it is unwise to make definitive pronouncemnets.

I think that if the Christian position is one of follow scripture, then it seems that there is no evidence that very young infants automatically go to heaven and therefore the logical position to take is that scripture actually, if anything indicates that they are off to hell.

Okay I admit I am being a little harsh but I do think its at least as worthy position to take as the counter arguement of " we dont know, scripture doesnt deal with this, therefore well accept a fluffy happy outcome, rather than a disturbing and most unhappy outcome and just say God has saved children elsewhere so by default he must always do so.

To me that reasoning does not work, if scripture singles out certain cases of God saving children then that can be seen as evidence that God only acts to save childern in certain circumstances and that its not a regular practice ( in other words its worthy of reporting so is unlikely to be a routinr matter).

I admit I am just skimming this topic but I really would have liked foreversaved to try and argue this one. As someone who was so keen to point out our almost certain destiny of Hell and damnation it may have been refreshing for him to be able to deal with a part of Gods creation who look like they really are damned.

Cheers

Squidge


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