Read this today- it is so true. Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God make for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

I was the first one listed above- pride. I used to think to myself. I am a great guy, I am such a good person- I don't muder, steal millions of dollars like those folks on TV. Then one day I truly looked at myself and found I myself was a liar, thief and a murder of other people character (all the little things that I used to given myself a pass on). The reason I was blind is I was comparing myself to others in the world. I used to think- yes I stole but it was just a little, yes I lied but it is no big deal, everybody does it.

One of my happiest days was to finally get it and understand, that I do need saving, that I am a sinful man. My favorite bible verse: Luke 18: 13 O God be Merciful to Me a sinner

But you are now a saint so be joyful.

And I will tell you that peace in The Lord and a personal relationship with Christ is more important than anything else.

More important than money, family, looks, job, etc.

And once you have it, you have it.

Thanks be to God!

I for one am glad I no longer have to try to compare myself to a standard established by a god that feels no need to follow his own rules.

Christianity teaches that your true nature is wretched. What a wonderfully psychotic seed to plant in the minds of children.

Schendeler- knowing how most nonbelievers work on this forum, I presume you are probably confused about some OT verses and quotes.

Again, If you are confused, just look toward Jesus. he will show you way to God the way to Love. If I am wrong and you were referring to some NT verse, please let me know which one it was.

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Christianity teaches that your true nature is wretched. What a wonderfully psychotic seed to plant in the minds of children.

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The world teaches us to compare ourselves to the standards of the world. Christianity tells us to compare ourselves toward the true source of Goodness , Love and Purity which is God/ Jesus.

Just look at our politicians and what we are willy to accept- lying cheating and stealing because that is just how things go, we give them a pass, because they are on our team (Republican or Democrat). It is ok, we tolerate it because everyone does it!

When you read what Saints say, is they recognize their sinfulness (here are folks who are holy, who walk the walk but yet they speak of them being sinners). This is because they are correctly comparing themselves to God. It is like driving in your car into a light and you can then see all the smudges & marks on your windshield.

If you are in darkness, you think your windshield is spotless, even though it is filthy. Common Christian Message- I was Blind but now I see! The truth is you need Light (God) in order to see things properly (spiritually).

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Christianity teaches that your true nature is wretched. What a wonderfully psychotic seed to plant in the minds of children.
The world teaches us to compare ourselves to the standards of the world. Christianity tells us to compare ourselves toward the true source of Goodness , Love and Purity which is God/ Jesus.

Just look at our politicians and what we are willy to accept- lying cheating and stealing because that is just how things go, we give them a pass, because they are on our team (Republican or Democrat). It is ok, we tolerate it because everyone does it!

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Not sure how much lying is accepted from politicians. Nobody is perfect and that's just the way it is. Picking the "right" God doesn't get you any closer to perfection based on the religious people I've observed.

You're teaching them how to get along with others which is great. It still doesn't mean we are all wretched.

That doesn't mean they are wretched per the supernatural. It means that their human nature needs to be tweaked to play a positive part within human civilization. So it's easier for them to survive.

So we admit they are wicked in the human sense because the behavior of a 2 year old is not acceptable in society. But somehow, we get to judge what is and isn't wicked in the supernatural?

I don't think children are wicked in any sense. They just have to learn that doing whatever they want whenever they want isn't going to work in society.

I wouldn't use the word wicked to describe a child that is still developing social skills and trying to figure out what the world is about.

And i would add that they don't have innate supernatural evil as taught in Christian doctrine.

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So we admit they are wicked in the human sense because the behavior of a 2 year old is not acceptable in society. But somehow, we get to judge what is and isn't wicked in the supernatural?

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How do you get any of that out of my post? Human nature isn't wicked. It's just human nature.

BTW, Wretched per the supernatural is what you are basing it on. I was pointing out how irrational it is... Since we have no proof and all. That's the judging I'm doing. Just to clarify.

Love and unselfishness are not developing social skills. They are changes in our normal behavior. I teach them social skills like saying yes maam and no sir to give the appearance of concern for others. The concern must come from changes within. We don't naturally want to have concern for others, that would go against our animal instinct.

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Love and unselfishness are not developing social skills. They are changes in our normal behavior. I teach them social skills like saying yes maam and no sir to give the appearance of concern for others. The concern must come from changes within. We don't naturally want to have concern for others, that would go against our animal instinct.

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Good post but, what does it have to do with wickedness. What are you blaming our normal behavior on?

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Love and unselfishness are not developing social skills. They are changes in our normal behavior. I teach them social skills like saying yes maam and no sir to give the appearance of concern for others. The concern must come from changes within. We don't naturally want to have concern for others, that would go against our animal instinct.

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Good post but, what does it have to do with wickedness. What are you blaming our normal behavior on?

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Our normal behavior is from our sin. Original sin has caused man to have a normal behavior that is not loving. That is why Christ came to earth and died, so that our wickedness could be forgiven and we could have relationship with God.

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Love and unselfishness are not developing social skills. They are changes in our normal behavior. I teach them social skills like saying yes maam and no sir to give the appearance of concern for others. The concern must come from changes within. We don't naturally want to have concern for others, that would go against our animal instinct.

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Actually, they are perfectly natural. We are social animals, we naturally develop very strong bonds with our groups. The issue is how one defines the group. We have to teach children who is and is not included in society and how to behave around them. Suspicion is natural, but so is altruism.

I think this is more accurate.

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Human nature comes with individual specifics but is at the base homogenous. Culture (religion in this case) converts part of it for the better or for worse and adds a lot to it. The culture based part can change or collapse. The natural based part cannot.

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Original Sin is added. It's not a part of our nature.

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Original Sin is added. It's not a part of our nature.

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It's apparent who DOES and who DOES NOT have children.

I have two children.

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And so you like stopping in on obvious Christian threads to spread the good news?

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i see, so now we can only post on threads that say "non-christians allowed"? i'm sorry i thought a thread titled "why we need jesus in our lives" would be open to discussion on whether or not we actually need jesus in our lives. silly me.

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Read this today- it is so true. Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God make for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

I was the first one listed above- pride. I used to think to myself. I am a great guy, I am such a good person- I don't muder, steal millions of dollars like those folks on TV. Then one day I truly looked at myself and found I myself was a liar, thief and a murder of other people character (all the little things that I used to given myself a pass on). The reason I was blind is I was comparing myself to others in the world. I used to think- yes I stole but it was just a little, yes I lied but it is no big deal, everybody does it.

One of my happiest days was to finally get it and understand, that I do need saving, that I am a sinful man. My favorite bible verse: Luke 18: 13 O God be Merciful to Me a sinner

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I am a little troubled about the use of 'wretchedness' in the quote also. Someone or something who is wretched is miserable, and in a very sad state. What redeeming qualities does something wretched have? To describe oneself as wretched feels especially masochistic.

This post makes me think that you must feel humans are wretched, sinful souls compared to God and that we must beg to God for a mercy and a forgiveness that we are undeserving of. Yet despite your wretchedness and unworthiness - you KNOW that your faith entitles you to Heaven. It seems to me to be a confused philosophy. . . Are we humans deserving of Heaven? If yes, surely we are not completely wretched, sinful souls. If the answer is no, we do not deserve Heaven - then why do you keep nagging the big man upstairs about it?

Kurt,

Definition of Wretched- of a person in a very unhappy or unfortunate state. That is what happens- LONG TERM when you remove God from your life. Example- think of what happens to a plant when there is no sunlight- (for a day or so- no big deal) the plant can fool itself and say I don't need the sun, I am fine with out the Sun. But the truth is long term without sunlight the plant will die. A plant without Sun is in a wretched state.

In same way, remove God (Love) totally from your life = Hell, this is a very unfortunate state

" There was my way and God's way, my way sucked" Mickey Rourke

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And so you like stopping in on obvious Christian threads to spread the good news?

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i see, so now we can only post on threads that say "non-christians allowed"? i'm sorry i thought a thread titled "why we need jesus in our lives" would be open to discussion on whether or not we actually need jesus in our lives. silly me.

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This. Can we maybe petition Staff for some kind of emoticon that lets non-Christians know when a thread has been pre-cleared for them expressing their opinions on it?

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And so you like stopping in on obvious Christian threads to spread the good news?

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i see, so now we can only post on threads that say "non-christians allowed"? i'm sorry i thought a thread titled "why we need jesus in our lives" would be open to discussion on whether or not we actually need jesus in our lives. silly me.

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Sure. And you would be just as engaged in a discussion on whether or not we actually needed Thor in our lives.

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And so you like stopping in on obvious Christian threads to spread the good news?

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i see, so now we can only post on threads that say "non-christians allowed"? i'm sorry i thought a thread titled "why we need jesus in our lives" would be open to discussion on whether or not we actually need jesus in our lives. silly me.

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Sure. And you would be just as engaged in a discussion on whether or not we actually needed Thor in our lives.

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You say this as if such a thread would ever happen, or if it's a topic that ever comes up in real life. This is a total false equivalency. If we lived in a majority-Thorist society, non-Thorists would absolutely be more engaged in such a thread than they would in a thread about why we need the Christian god in our lives.

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I genuinely don't understand why a dagger-wielding angel is more ridiculous than any of the other supernatural stuff that supposedly happened in regular Christianity.

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--Beer Baron


I stand by what I said.

You've also failed to comprehend my opinion.

Enjoy your discussion on ridiculous supernatural stuff.

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You've also failed to comprehend my opinion.

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I guess I don't. And I don't see what point you're trying to make by quoting me above, either. If we lived in a country full of Thor followers, and the mainstream Thor followers were making fun of a minority Thorist sect's supernatural beliefs that fall outside the mainstream's supernatural beliefs, my point would stand. How would the minority sect's weird supernatural stuff be any weirder than the mainstream sects's weird supernatural stuff?

And again, if Thor were the focus of so much societal/legal discourse as Christianity is, the same people who appear on these threads about Jesus would be saying the same things on the "here's why you need Thor" threads. It's a false equivalency because such threads don't exist.

So are you saying Jesus is a fictional
character like Thor?

There is a lot of historical evidence for Jesus, Thor not so much.

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Kurt,

Definition of Wretched- of a person in a very unhappy or unfortunate state. That is what happens- LONG TERM when you remove God from your life. Example- think of what happens to a plant when there is no sunlight- (for a day or so- no big deal) the plant can fool itself and say I don't need the sun, I am fine with out the Sun. But the truth is long term without sunlight the plant will die. A plant without Sun is in a wretched state.

In same way, remove God (Love) totally from your life = Hell, this is a very unfortunate state

" There was my way and God's way, my way sucked" Mickey Rourke

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When you say long term, do you mean to say a length of time exceeding my life span? I do not have God in my life, but I feel very happy and fortunate with my life and my family.