@captain:
Reading all this, makes me think of a situation my friend was in last year. My friend has a set of Tarot cards. My friend is also Christain. Another christain girl kept badmouthing her because playing with tarot cards are "sinfull" (suporting another higher athority other than god) My friend just does it all in fun, and was sick of being badmouthed, so next time the girl brought it up; My friend menchioned that sex before marrage was also a sin. (this girl was doing it) That shut her up pretty quick.
I don't know what I'm trying to prove by that. I just think it was interesting how that girl was trying to prosocute my friend for her sins, when she was no better. I guess I jsut think that people should think before they speak, and quit putting other down. None of us are angels.
This is a big, big problem that exists with Christians. Jesus addressed this problem a lot too with the woman caught in adultry ("Let he who is without sin be the one to cast the first stone") and
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." and
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:12).”
It occurred to me somewhere down the line that if I'm telling someone that they can't do something as a Christian I'm pretty much condemning myself at the same time. I'm not saying we should do whatever we want, but there's a wrong and right attitude to have. But getting into the whole Liberty v. License thing can be lengthy.
@Malintex_Terek:
Not at all; people are, of course, permitted to be publically spiritual. However, "freedom of religion" is a concept that is rooted in much more than the first amendment, and many feel that there is a distinction between expressing spiritualism and "imposing one's will on another". In sum, a person wearing a cross or praying in a classroom would be seen as an expression of spiritualism. Picketing in front of a person's home, yelling, screaming, waving signs (not unlike the Westboro Baptist Church) is in gross excess of merely expressing "spiritualism", and that is the stuff that tends to be controversial.
I agree…and I think that kind of stuff gives a bad wrap on Christians. However, it's not like Christians are the only people gathering in numbers, picketing, and yelling. That's kind of part of our country. Envirnomentalists do it, women rights activists do it, various ethnic rights activists do it, gay rights do it, other religious groups, and pretty much everyone else under the sun. Aren't we all used to this by now?
I was using "personal relationship with God" in the protestant sense, which I don't fully understand. As far as I'm concerned, I've already established my "connection".
I don't know what you mean by the "protestant sense". How do you make "your connection"?
Jesus said,"I am the way, the truth and the life; no one can come to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.__"
And
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." and "Come to me." "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoevever believes in me… out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And Paul said in Ephesians, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."
"Temptation" exists regardless of action, so in order for someone to conceptualize the capacity for evil, they must be put in a situation to channel that temptation and make the good/evil decision. In Heaven, it seems strange that someone would understand "evil" as we know it without a "channel" to vent that evil; it's like temptation without a possible evil action to submit too. Think of someone possessing SCUBA gear but has no body of water to dive into; the desire to go diving is there, but there's no ocean to dive into. Or, a quadriplegic who wants to move yet cannot physically manipulate limbs.
I think you're making an false assumption that in order to grasp evil, we have to commit it. As I said before, Jesus, in the body of a normal human being, on earth which is filled with evil and temptation, and constantly tempted by Satan, grasped sin but did not commit it. In heaven, we are given a brand new, glorified body in which the curse of our sin nature is removed, and we no longer have evil and Satan tempting us. I think it could be POSSIBLE to be temted to sin, but we have matured know that sin only causes pain and destruction so therefore we won't do it. I don't know about you, but there are a lot of sins that even now, I have matured past desiring to commit them, because I fully grasp the insidiousness of them and what destruction I would reap from it.
So it wouldn't be torture - when you're a little kid, and mommy and daddy say "No!" to not touch a hot stove, It's frustrating because we don't understand why. But once we get older (or get burned), it's no longer a temptation. And that's why God doesn't like us to sin - because he knows it's harmful to us, mentally, spiritually, and even physically at times.