ANSWERS TO VIENNA’S RESPONSES TO MY CRITICISMS:
1: I said: However you need to understand that people suck. And Christians are people, they are saved people, but they are still people. I for one can say that I suck probably worse then most atheists.
VIENNA RESPONDED: Isn't that how I sounded to you, and you judged me for it, note the word "Judged"!
Okay Vienna, Christianity was created because people are failures. Now Jesus died on the cross so that we don’t have to pay for our failure. Christians accept Jesus as their savior, acknowledging that we are failures. YET Christians then strive to be like Jesus. God commands us to at least have the desire to be like Jesus, to be perfect. However when I tell you where you are going wrong, where you are not perfect, you respond with astonished indignation. You sound as if you haven’t yet truly realized that you are not perfect. Either that or you haven’t yet realized that God commands you to strive for perfection. If you had realized both of these things, then you would take criticism from the Bible, and correct your actions, if only to show your gratitude to Christ for dying for your sins. Christ asks you to be like Him, yet you think it is alright not to even take another Christian’s criticisms, which are from the Bible, and change yourself so that you are more like Christ. All I did was pass on the message of the Bible, I never “Judged”! you. I had my youth pastor tell me to stop going into so much depth when teaching younger people, because they aren’t as interested as older people, and I don’t have to complicate things for them. He was criticizing the way I tell people about God. How did I respond to him, I agreed with him and said thank you for the criticism. Not only that but now a try to simplify my teachings. One time I was talking to my friends while my pastor was talking to the youth, and he turned around and told me to shut up. I didn’t say anything back; I thought damn what a mean ‘you know what’, at the time I thought this. Yet now when I look back, I see that he was right to get up me. He was spreading the good news, and I was talking and disrupting it, taking away glory from God. I would never criticize or rebuke you, if I didn’t see any Biblical and Godly reason for it. Just like I expect any other Christian on this forum to rebuke me, if I say anything that takes away Glory from God. Don’t you get it Vienna? If you truly believe in, and love God, then you won’t care about your pride, you’ll only care about pleasing God!
2: I said: Although I fail every single day. But all Jesus asks you to do is to try your best, even if it is mostly failure. He really has made it easy to be saved, there's no doubt of that.
Vienna responded: I fail often, but does that make me any less of a Christian than you.
According to you it would appear so.
MY ANSWER: sorry Vienna I should have been clearer on this. It seems to me that you are ‘just’ a Christian. Let’s look at it. You don’t believe that everything in the Bible is true. You think the Bible has been changed; you don’t put any confidence in the word of God. I just seriously don’t understand how you could doubt so much, and then have absolute faith in the fact that Jesus died for you, and that God exists.
I never said you are less a Christian then me. You just fail in different areas, areas I criticized and which you should now try to fix up. I fail in many areas as well, areas that I expect you to criticize, with righteous anger if they have taken glory away from God, and then I will try to fix up those areas as well.
My main problem, as I just mentioned above, is that I simply don’t understand how you could have faith in one page of the Bible where it says Jesus died for you, and yet doubt the rest of the 1000 or so pages of the Bible. I don’t know, I really can’t relate to this, I just simply don’t understand???
3: I wrote: It's called righteous anger, it’s the only type of anger, which a Christian is allowed (and commanded) to have.
Vienna responded: And there I was thinking Christianity was all about love and peace. Who commanded and gave Christians the right to be angry, and why be angry at anyone for their choice, didn't God give mankind freewill?
My answer: Who commanded and gave Christians the right to be angry? This question is easy to answer, God did, and if it’s alright by Him why are you so upset?
Ephesians 4:25 – 26
25Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. 26“Be angry, and do not sin (The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.)
I spoke truth with you, and because my anger was righteous anger, I was angry and did not sin.
Now in the same chapter it says this:
32And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.
Now I was angry with you, and rebuked you, do you think I still hold a grudge against you now? No! Anger is an emotion, and emotion subsides over time. In fact verse 26 continues and says: “do not let the sun go down on your wrath”. God realizes that we have emotion, but He says forgive before the sun goes down. Emotion strikes us because we aren’t robots. God says righteous anger is an acceptable emotion. Yet don’t have it for more then a day, because we should forgive and love one another.
Now in reference to your comment that basically said that God gave us freewill therefore our choices shouldn’t be punished (your exact words “…why be angry at anyone for their choice, didn't God give mankind freewill”). I just simply don’t understand the logic behind this. It is so flawed. – God gave us freewill so that we could either choose to do what He says to do, or choose to do what He says not to do. God didn’t make us into choice less puppets, what’s the point of that; it is worthless and meaningless obedience when you don’t have a choice. Now I’ve just got to ask you: why did Jesus die on the cross for us? It was because we made and still make the wrong choices all the time and God, because He is just and demands justice, says that we are to be punished for our evil (not doing what God says). I don’t see how you could accept Jesus’ sacrifice and be a Christian; yet not understand even why He made the sacrifice in the first place? Because if you don’t understand that God demands payment for your debt of sin, that God demands punishment for wrongdoings, then you simply don’t understand the very foundation of Christianity.
4. I wrote: If you can sit back and watch someone spit in the face of someone you love, then I doubt you love that person. Similarly if you can sit back and watch someone say false things about God, taking away His glory, while that person says they're a follower, then you're not a true Christian.
Vienna responded: I feel that you are talking about the answers I gave. I was honest and gave truthful answers, isn't that Christian-like, if I'm wrong then tell me. I was also using the freewill that God gave me, am I wrong to use that gift, tell me if I'm wrong.
My answer: Okay you are wrong to say it was Christian-like, because you weren’t telling the truth, you were telling what you thought was truth. If anything this is Relativistic, definitely not Christian. What matters is what is true. Even if you think you are saying the truth, it doesn’t matter, because the Christian view of Correspondence, demands that truth be measure not by our views alone, but by our views corresponding to reality and fact. – By the way I’m not smart or anything, I’m just saying what I have read and agree with, so don’t think I’m being all self-righteous again. –
Now you are not wrong to use the gift of freewill. However the way you used it was wrong. You used it to choose to take glory away from God, when the right way to use freewill is to give glory to God.
LASTLY
MY COMMENTS - YOU ARE RIGHT CONCERNING THIS TO AN EXTENT: I did get too angry with you before, a simple rebuke would have been fine, but I went too far, for that I do apologize. At 2am in the morning you aren’t always in your best mood, but that still doesn’t excuse how far I went with rebuking you. I’m not saying this because I feel like I owe you or anything. After you calling me a Jerk and a little fakir and implying that I don’t have a life and calling me an upstart and saying that what I say is crap, I don’t feel all that obligated to being nice to you. However to get it right with God, I sincerely apologize for going overboard before.
Hope you understand.
CyA’s
P.S I'll respond to the rest of the questions over the next few days. Right now I'm going outside to the bay to surf ski, yay
