What if you were God....would you let anyone in...who spent their whole life ignoring you...shooting you down, cursing you time after time, blaming you for everything, denying you...etc the list goes on....you would let someone in?

Well firstly, I don't have God's capacity for love, forgiveness and compassion. In what I have seen in Christ, I strive but naturally fail to acheive, even a semblence of those traits.

And so yes, God does have that level of capacity to forgive. No evil crime or sin would ever cuase God to turn His back on any one of His creation, however, I do believe that before final entry and your day of jundgement, you will first have to recognise the error of your ways and accept God and His law before entering His Kingdom.

Let me put it this way, a child molested, raped, hurt grows up never being able to accept that any God present could have allowed her such intense pain and suffering and so denies God right up to her death, would God reject her or understand and in her final meeting with God, would He not show her His incredible beauty and offord her the opportunity to accept Him as her infinite King ?

Being certain of Gods existance and turning to satan or denouncing God is far different to non beleiving or being uncertain. Yes, beleive in God yet choose the ways of evil and Satan deliberately above that of God, and I think you may have a tough time in the end.

I was taught once that you would never be condemned for what you firmly beleive in, even if, ultimately, it is wrong. The danger of course is exactly as was mentioned, changing the rules of faith to suite oneself. So one needs to dig deep inside of themselves in answering their many questions and in the end, whatever our answer is that you genuinely beleive - follow it.

Let me put it this way, a child molested, raped, hurt grows up never being able to accept that any God present could have allowed her such intense pain and suffering and so denies God right up to her death, would God reject her or understand and in her final meeting with God, would He not show her His incredible beauty and offord her the opportunity to accept Him as her infinite King ?

No. Why? Because...throughout that childs life...as they grew up, they were given the chance to hear the truth and change their life. They made a choice...realizing and knowing that God has a purpose for each one of us...its not going to be all good...there are going to be bad parts. If that person fails to understand why that horrible part of their life was allowed to happen, and rejects God for their entire life, they are rejecting him.

I was taught once that you would never be condemned for what you firmly beleive in, even if, ultimately, it is wrong. The danger of course is exactly as was mentioned, changing the rules of faith to suite oneself. So one needs to dig deep inside of themselves in answering their many questions and in the end, whatever our answer is that you genuinely beleive - follow it.

I was once taught that Santa Claus existed, along with the Easter bunny. There is a difference between what you are taught, and what is the truth. How can you not be condemned for something that you believe in, if its wrong? First part....its wrong. Second part...you follow it. I can dig deep inside myself and come up with some kind of answer that invovles me having 6 wives. I believe in it...so that makes it right? No. Its wrong....why? Because the Bible says it is. The written word of God says it is.

You can believe what you want to believe...whatever turns you crank. There is only one truth, and you must ask yourself if you are twisting the truth to fit your own lifestyle and personal beliefs.

THe only inconvenience I see is that a science teacher should not be made to dabble in beliefs that have no bearing on investigative observations. Leave it to a course in morals or philosophy.

evolution is a belief.

Evolution is an unproven theory.

Evolution is a weak attempt to try and prove that God doesnt exist.

Evolution is not what this topic is about.

I hear people talking about how they believe this or that, which is not what the Bible teaches. It later turns out that these people have formed their own personal beliefs about that thing, which contradicts what the Bible teaches

considering you were brought up catholic, you may be able to appreciate that the catbolic church would feel youre doing exactly what you condemned by leaving the church and then trying to explain it away with this statement:

Pentacostal...now this is what I believe.

youve decided to interpret scripture and history the way it serves you best.  one mans heretic is another's prophet. 

Kingbee...
interpret scripture? everyone and their dog interprets scripture in their own way. There is a extremely vast difference between the catholic church and pentacostals.

Catholic church: They tell you what they want you to hear...you dont have your Bible in front of you...so you listen to what they say.

Pentacostal: You have the word in front of you as you go over verse after verse in depth.

Catholic church: reading, reading, hymn, alleluia, gospel...sermon

most other churches: Open the Bible...read a verse and reflect and apply.

I switched because I felt the Catholic church was all song and dance when I looked back on it. They didnt really seem to care about you, you werent encouraged to go to others if they needed spiritual help. The priests felt akward praying with you over something you had a concern about. Want me to go on? No? Ok I will. They take communion at each and every single mass. Communion, first off, is NOT the body of Christ...it is a representation of the body and blood. It doesnt actually mean we are eating the flesh and drinking the blood. Why? because the Bible tells me so.

They also have communion at every service. If you drive to work every day...driving gets old after a while and you really dont think about it that much....but if you drove less often, you would think much more about it. The same is true for communion. After time, people who have communion at every service, start to forget the meaning of why we take part in communion. Other churches have you sit and reflect for a moment before going up because its important to remember why God gave his body and blood for us, and why we need to accept that.

I don't believe in confession of sins to a priest. I believe it is important to confess your sins...but not to a priest in hopes of earning brownie points. What does the priest serve in all of this? Nothing. Nobody can come between you and God except Jesus. You need to confess to Jesus your sins...not a priest. I quoted scripture in the book of Timothy to a priest and he pretty much poopooed it because he didnt like that verse.

By saying the Hail Mary, Our Father, and all the other 1834309 prayers they have, you dont develop a personal relationship with Christ. After confession they tell you to do 8 hail marys and 2 our fathers. What is that supposed to do? Create a magical spiritual potion which absolves you of your sins?

After I left that church, I realized by reading the Bible...which I was never previously encouraged to do (sort of like slavery in a sense), I realized that alot of the things the Catholic church was doing...was made up by itself...and not by the word of God.

If a hypocrite is between you and God...guess who is closer to God? At least hes in a place where he can get some help.

Thanks Ziggy. You'd be surprised how many people in our churches don't really believe what the Bible says Bro. One major problem I've seen in our pulpits this last 25 years plus is our tendency to take scripture out of context to back up what we want to believe. common sense says however, if we're all being led into the truth by the same Spirit of truth, we'd all believe the same things . What many seem to forget is this, knowledge is a dangerous thing. It was also a forbidden fruit in the garden. why? mankind isn't really equipped to handle it; especially when it comes to understanding God's kingdom. How can we with our finite minds understand infinite truth? The truths of God's kingdom must be spiritually discerned (1st Corinthians 2:14 I believe)