Hi all,
Finally got around to creating a new ID....previously posting under Doggys.

Hmm, I just approach this with a 'professional filter'. If you're blessed (or not), which you don't know for sure, the only way to find out is to work as hard as possible. Even those heroes in the book which God directly spoke too has doubt or struggle really hard, whatmore the general believers who dont get a text message from the Lord.

If I go to a group meeting and ppl had this kind of discussion... I will be doing the homer reverse walk and go back to believing the simulation aka Elon musk religion.

JC is the gold standard yes? If someone were to say... Yeah... You can do 51percent of the stuff described in the bible and you're good to go (to heaven). Then that person is gonna be seriously misunderstood as saying you can commit to debauchery 49 percent of the time ya? Might as well say just aim for the top and the listener make their own adjustment.

I don't mean to mind read unknown, but I'm thinking along the line of... Say taking communion is a core activity of some group, while it's non core to others.

Seems like some rather interesting 'legal' battle is going on...

Argument 'A': Baptism as in dunking someone in a body of water, this is a non-core action. Calling the Holy spirit to enter the body of the new believer is the 'threshold' that makes a person a Christian and receiving salvation.

Argument 'B': Baptism is defined specifically to dunking someone in a body of water, this is a core action. Anything else that happens as part of this activity (unseen force entering the body or not) is optional. Performing this core action is the threshold that decide if a person is a Christian not. Non interchangeable or negotiable.

Scenario: In a dire situation where a pastor and a non believer is captured by say ISIS troops and about to be...err have something terrible happened on live stream in a shortwhile. In the prison, the pastor manage convince the non believer to become Christian, but fail to convince the captor to borrow a bathtub filled with nice clean water.

Now, if pastor is into argument A, he can just do a prayer and call the Holy Spirit and turn a man into believer, saved, done deal. Any kind of physical interaction is optional since both could be chained up and so...

On the other hand....

The youversion bible app, with 450mil installation and counting. And everyday they have somewhat different guest speaker on the daily devotional on various verses. The app or bible.com never state which denomination they represent, so my professional filter is, its not a concern. The app are reaching out to people, saving people, its good yes?

Do you need it to be legitimized/filtered/endorsed by a certain organization in order to reach God?

There seems to be a pattern on the type of conversation going on here.
Guy A comes here with a seemingly innocent question. Bersangka baik ya... Heh.
GUY B provided an explanation.
Guy A responded with some quotes which would have answered his own question in the first place. Or purpose fully misunderstood the explanation.
Guy B ask... Why don't you try to reconcile some 2 or more statement which may seem to have issue with.

Personal attack starts. Or things start going off tangent.

Once or twice, some may call it a coincidence. Three times or more... Some call it enemy action.

Just trying to understand this from a professional filter.
You/friend went to 2 or more consultant. Each couldn't resolve the issue or provide similar solution that didn't worked.

In between you most likely had new found knowledge of what doesn't work, and ask better question for next consultant.

Perform a prayer. Had guidance. How does it look like? God gave you the consultant name and address?
Finally you selected the final consultant. What info did you present him? Same as earlier? Didn't tell him what failed so that he can skip the test and trial?

Not doubting you, my friend, just interested to know how God assistance looked like in a professional setting.

Hmm, was there a statement in the book that's says thou should not wear a hip turtleneck, leather jacket and skinny jeans and make cool music video in tribute to God and JC?
Heh, but the other team with the robes and cute hats.. Is that actually described in the book that it's a necessity to conduct mass, sermon/ie official business?

Hmm, some of the poster here make it sounds like God's kingdom is a typical human mnc/Corp. And I need to go through some filter aka his left/Right hand, cfo, coo, secretary, before I can reach him. And whatever message I do want to send sounds even sweeter when it's passed on through the top management.

Hm, are prayers more effective if you have a long cc list?

Hmm, lets put a professional filter on 'reasonable ways you may not be a believer'
a) approached by one or more hard selling 'recruiter' who put you off (for good)
b) born in some land thats highly dangerous to be a believer
c) read this forum and thought that being believer means being a lawyer all day instead of uplifting your life (kiddin)
d) have some 'preference' who are not acceptable to those teams that claim to be more true to the origin (whatever that is)

Seriously, I would just let the Lord decide who gets to pass go and collect your reward.

Just to set some baseline before this discussion goes off tangent.
Same faith = same god and/or at least a huge majority of the core believe is the same
Different faith = clear and distinct core believe, ala Buddhism, Taoism, Cthulhu believers, etc

Hmm, by your statement and example you provide, do you mean AOG is worshipping X, and Anglican is worshipping Y and so on?

I like where this thread is going... Keep it going, my friend.
Anyway just to add a bit; science and all the good stuff are also creation of God. No one bat's an eyelid if a believer get some antibiotics.. But when it comes to ailment of the mind, there seems to still be some resistance to request a member to straight up get a specialist diagnostics. Well, two things can go on at the same time (professional help and also from above).

Hmm, this is definitely a pure example of gov overreach. It probably wouldn't be popular but it would be great to see democracy being tested to its limit if some lawyers want to do some class action lawsuit to stop this madness.

On your other statement, you read the current state of things as an analogy to revelations? I suppose in every era, some great crisis, real or manufactured (best if both) are often manipulated to move people in a certain direction.

Friend...this scenario is so on the nose that I need to bersangka baik...youre not trolling I hope.

You have doubt on this whole deal, which is reasonable. There's a non zero chance that some issue will occur, that is your gf stays alone with another guy.
The better question to ask would be, is there any workaround which you can reduce doubt to zero percentile?

Which fanfiction did you read from first BC that has the same epicness and beauty as the Bible? There must be a few hundred thousand of similar stories right? To be called statistically likely.

Here's a scientific answer from me. There's a chance that you may not encounter any supernatural experience for x amount of time. But even then, the actual experience from being in the community, exploring the book, acquiring a new sense of peace, that everyone can achieve.

Hi, unknown, if still lurking here, do give us some update on your well being, its ok if this thread not being updated as often.
@unknown