Any Christians (or other faiths, for that matter) should say a quick prayer for everyone involved......
If you can still make a joke about it, you're sick.
Nobody's stopping you from praying - just keeping you from subjecting other people to listening to YOUR prayers.
According to the Bible, even Jesus cringes at public grovelling by Christians:
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt 6:6)
Actually what you need to do is to take the quote in context - like any other quote from any other written work. If you pick and choose bits and pieces, you can make anything say nearly anything you want
Reading past the passage you mentioned would have cleared things up a little
I am well aware of the context. If anything, it states even more forcefully that faith alone is insufficient and works are required.
Let's look at one of the contradictory verses. As you point out there are many:
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Faith alone and not works
To a normal reader, this is a contradiction in the clearest possible terms. Christian special pleading considers that contradictory passages, when taken together kind of smooth each other out into some vapid platitude like this:
This passage, when considered alongside the many other verses that say salvation is achieved through faith and not deeds, tells us that 'good works' 'living the good life' (read James 2 1-12, previous to the verse you posted) is intertwined with faith (see verse 22 above).
So is faith without works sufficient or not? Yes or no. Since eternal torture is the penalty for getting it wrong, it would be nice if your loving God gave us a proper answer.
I'm not saying that there aren't contradictory passages where God's power is not limited, only that there are passages where it is.
There are also occasions where God's information is less than perfect and he has to ask information of human agents or Satan. Even Jesus is portrayed sometimes as being unable to perform miracles because of the skepticism of onlookers.
Of course, like everything in the Bible these instances can be 'interpreted' to mean the opposite of what the appear to mean.
You could look it up, but the rest of the chapter spells out the point far more forcibly, citing examples of Bible characters revered for their deeds, pointing out that even devils have faith, and stating three times that 'faith without works is dead.'
The God of the Bible is limited in power, easily confounded by mundane hindrances like iron chariots (Judges 1:19) or human sacrifices to rival god (2 Kings 3:27).
No, according to the Bible, works ("living a good life" in your words) don't count, no matter how great and wonderful you think you're being. Faith, and only faith gets the job done. It's an incredibly simple requirement: profess your faith in Jesus as your savior, accept the gift of redemption offered by his death (and proven valid by his resurrection). That's it. Nothing else to it. It's in black and white in the Bible
And in black and white in the Bible we find the exact oppposite:
"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" (James 2:14)
You'd have to actually read it to know that, though.
Let me guess: you also have to 'interpret it properly'.
The battle of Helm's Deep in TTT was gayer. Recall the bit where Gimli calls to Aragorn "Toss me! Toss me!", and then asks him not to tell anyone about it.
We can design some public plaza space or neighborhood that is absolutely award-winning, and on the cutting edge of the design world. The problem is, we often have to (at our client's direction) water our design down to something that the average Joe can understand.
What is there to not 'understand' about a public plaza, even for an 'average Joe'? Or, do you just mean that most people dislike your designs?
Slashdot Mirror
On the plus side, their eyes may go back to normal after a generation or two.
Google should simply put politically sensitive items along the top and bottom edges of the screen, where Chinese people can't see them.
If he could only have held out just another year then who knows....
And maybe five years after that, Ken Bigley.
Sicker than using it to push religion?
According to the Bible, even Jesus cringes at public grovelling by Christians:
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt 6:6)
This will be a bastard to crucify.
I don't remember about "violence against women" in lyrics from Lou Reed.
Perhaps this ?
Java compiles code such as you describe without warnings. Try it.
The obvious issue with Gideon Bibles in space would be weight, and the second volume.
Would that be "Jesus Strikes Back" ?
Actually what you need to do is to take the quote in context - like any other quote from any other written work. If you pick and choose bits and pieces, you can make anything say nearly anything you want Reading past the passage you mentioned would have cleared things up a little
I am well aware of the context. If anything, it states even more forcefully that faith alone is insufficient and works are required.
Let's look at one of the contradictory verses. As you point out there are many:
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Faith alone and not works
To a normal reader, this is a contradiction in the clearest possible terms. Christian special pleading considers that contradictory passages, when taken together kind of smooth each other out into some vapid platitude like this:
This passage, when considered alongside the many other verses that say salvation is achieved through faith and not deeds, tells us that 'good works' 'living the good life' (read James 2 1-12, previous to the verse you posted) is intertwined with faith (see verse 22 above).
So is faith without works sufficient or not? Yes or no. Since eternal torture is the penalty for getting it wrong, it would be nice if your loving God gave us a proper answer.
There are extraterrestrials, but their Prime Directive forbids contact with primitive worlds still dominated by religion.
I'm not saying that there aren't contradictory passages where God's power is not limited, only that there are passages where it is.
There are also occasions where God's information is less than perfect and he has to ask information of human agents or Satan. Even Jesus is portrayed sometimes as being unable to perform miracles because of the skepticism of onlookers.
Of course, like everything in the Bible these instances can be 'interpreted' to mean the opposite of what the appear to mean.
You could look it up, but the rest of the chapter spells out the point far more forcibly, citing examples of Bible characters revered for their deeds, pointing out that even devils have faith, and stating three times that 'faith without works is dead.'
Considering the unique role of Jesus Christ,
Maybe other worlds get alien Jesuses, crucified on special four-dimensional hypercrosses, or whatever.
The God of the Bible is limited in power, easily confounded by mundane hindrances like iron chariots (Judges 1:19) or human sacrifices to rival god (2 Kings 3:27).
No, according to the Bible, works ("living a good life" in your words) don't count, no matter how great and wonderful you think you're being. Faith, and only faith gets the job done. It's an incredibly simple requirement: profess your faith in Jesus as your savior, accept the gift of redemption offered by his death (and proven valid by his resurrection). That's it. Nothing else to it. It's in black and white in the Bible
And in black and white in the Bible we find the exact oppposite:
"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" (James 2:14)
You'd have to actually read it to know that, though.
Let me guess: you also have to 'interpret it properly'.
Jesus was a motherfucker. Literally.
And if not, the Second Coming is at hand.
Defense in depth...
As if Koreans weren't identical enough already.
The battle of Helm's Deep in TTT was gayer. Recall the bit where Gimli calls to Aragorn "Toss me! Toss me!", and then asks him not to tell anyone about it.
Can't they just hijack one?
If you're too much of a spaz to play computer games, should you really be soldering?
I'd like a button on the Mozilla toolbar to initiate a p2p search and download of an album while I'm browsing its page on amazon.
We also suggested design approaches that differ from typical Unix design approaches, to ensure our code would not resemble Unix code.
Hence, the infamous GNU indentation style.We can design some public plaza space or neighborhood that is absolutely award-winning, and on the cutting edge of the design world. The problem is, we often have to (at our client's direction) water our design down to something that the average Joe can understand.
What is there to not 'understand' about a public plaza, even for an 'average Joe'? Or, do you just mean that most people dislike your designs?