It is childish and dishonourable to expect someone else to pay your debts.This is precisely the expectation of those who seek forgivness through the merits of Jesus Christ.

No-one other than yourself can forgive you your sin and this occurs when you reverse your behaviour.

Evan you have written a beauty of an article.

BOAZ-David

RE your comment “Lorese, imposing your understanding of how God should or should not act, is a tad arrogant :) Your statements are very naive. Pls read 1st Corinthians 15 in full.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=53&chapter=15&version=31”

It is of little use referring me to the bible to prove your point although I have read the thing from cover to cover and studied it for many years. It is clear that you believe in the god of the bible by faith. I don’t. I just believe it is an interesting historical book written by men; some of whom claimed the right to define god and therefore to control other peoples lives by doing so (now you could call that arrogant!) I also find it hilarious that you accuse me of arrogance and naivety for challenging your concept of god, even though I did not address you directly. In my humble opinion I believe I have the right (as does anyone) to question the concepts presented in a literary/philosophical/historical product of my culture that claims to be absolute truth; that is to say people such as you claim it is absolute truth. You need to learn to be less threatened by the opinions of others, then you might not need to rely on insults to underscore your point.

To Alan Grey

Its fun to do logic 101 isn’t it Alan? Good on you, throw a spanner in the works, muddy the waters, accuse Evan of not making sense even though you are not doing too well yourself, but it sure sounds clever (to some) See you in class next week.

Lorese, it's also interesting that BD and others have the arrogance to reject the claims of other gods.

BD has the arrogance to reject the claims of Allah, all the Hindu, Greek, Norse, Roman, Egytian gods etc. It appears that many christians consider it arrogance to examine the claims about their god to see if they make sense but have either done so to other gods or dismissed their claims out of hand.

To have accepted the claims of one god without question while rejecting the claims of all other gods speaks of a fairly high degree of arrogance on their part.

R0bert

Dear Lorese
dismissing the Bible as "some people claiming the right to define God and thereby control other peoples lives" probably tells us more about your own perhaps regrettable experience with a beaurocratic church than the scriptures themselves ?
Pauls testimony in 1Cor15 is hardly that. If you see it there, would you mind sharing with me just where and how it fits your description ?

Paul is not speaking about some imaginary experience or event. He is speaking about nothing less than the resurrection of Jesus, and his own encounter with the risen Christ.

Portraying this as some 'power trip' to control others hardly accords with the actual evidence before us.

I suggested that your approach is a bit arrogant in this sense... Those closest to the events have faithfully recorded their testimony and are most qualified to speak about such matters. But then you who are far removed from the events, decide you know better :) ... see my point ?

If Paul was speaking about 'crop circles' I might have a few doubts, but his words have the ring of truth about them.
The central thrust of Scripture is God reaching out and calling fallen humanity back into fellowship with Him.

Robert.... the 'other gods' you describe are faint and distorted echo's and abhorations of truth. This should be clear to you from your own study of the Scriptures, in spite of your current predicament of denial.
Cheers all

Ex-Christian........hmmmmmmmm, hate to be a bearer of bad news for ya buddy, but there is "no such thing as an ex-christian" You never truly believed in the first placed, so you never were, thus not being now.