I Don't Want To Pay Any Taxes When I Win The Lottery Tonight

[DryOatmeal]

i still can't figure out if camping went nuts, was lying, went senile, or just thought he was right (till that day came and went of course)

a lot of people think he was just lying but if you're going to lie about religion, you don't date set because sooner or later that date is going to come and proof you wrong

back in the 80s he was really good though. he knew the bible inside and out and did straight up bible teaching with no nutty end of the world stuff

thank you for calling and sharing and shall we take our next call please, welcome to open forum

[MatthewT]

i'm dead serious. if Jesus doesn't come back within the time frame that I thought He is going to come back (like really soon), it would drive me nuts.

i heard camping on the radio once after his latest fiasco; he seemed genuinely bewildered that his math was wrong. who knows? maybe his math wasn't wrong; maybe he was accidentally right; there are an infinite number of explanations. i personally think not only his math was wrong, but his "fudge factor" of 51 days was arbitrary; his date for creation was too old; his date for the flood was too old; etc.

it's just that the very act of attempting to know the day and date is an act of futility, and if you have peoples' life savings invested in it, i could see where that pressure would be overwhelming.

[DryOatmeal]

it's just that the very act of attempting to know the day and date is an act of futility

that last year before the "end" i would listen to his callers say nobody can know the day or time and his answer was always something about something that was in the book of Mathew, that the time would be revealed, as we get close to the end

i used to get him on 2 FM stations 94.3 was the one i found him on in 1986 and that's still going and covers north jersey and NYC. 106.9 was south jersey and philly and that station was just sold and now carries rush limbaugh sean hannity mark levin etc.

[MatthewT]

we're supposed to know the "times" and the "seasons", which to me means "year(s)" and "seasons", if we are wise.

i'm not sure we're wise anymore

[DryOatmeal]

let's keep talking about Jesus

Jesus is all that matters

unless you plan on spending eternity in the lake of fire

[MatthewT]

the more i think about the next time Jesus comes to earth, the worse i feel for the people who mock Him

[SiriusDawg]

the more i think about the next time Jesus comes to earth, the worse i feel for the people who mock Him

Oh, he plans on taking a vacation down here soon?

[MatthewT]

no, He is coming to judge the nations with an iron rod, rule the earth for 1,000 years, and usher in eternity.

but you keep worrying about democrat/republican issues; maybe you'll catch a break

[SiriusDawg]

He is coming to judge the nations with an iron rod

So, he is not here for how many years again....and is coming down with an iron rod?

Sounds like a prick

[MatthewT]

yup. He's a real prick. got tortured and died so you could live in heaven. what an asshole.

[SiriusDawg]

yup. He's a real prick. got tortured and died so you could live in heaven. what an asshole.

So, if he doesn't die, we don't go to heaven? Real shitty plan God gave him

[MatthewT]

yup, we'd all go to hell, just like we deserve

some of us are smart enough to not want what we deserve

are you?

[SiriusDawg]

yup, we'd all go to hell, just like we deserve

some of us are smart enough to not want what we deserve

are you?

So, there was nobody 'good' on earth when Jesus came?

God did a shitty job picking out humans pre-Jesus

[MatthewT]

nope, there are none righteous, no, not one. there were two in the beginning, and now there's none. so, i guess if you want what's coming to you, you can pay for your own sins. me, i prefer to accept the pardon being offered to me.

but that's me. you do as thou wilt

[DryOatmeal]

i have trouble with the whole "free will" thing

[DryOatmeal]

253am

[MatthewT]

i have trouble with the whole "free will" thing

it's a scary proposition: a Creator God Who works with free willed agents. scary because, in order to exercise that free will, a seductive, and to some equally available alternative to loving God would have to be presented. as God is worshipped in the spirit, the counter-proposition seems mostly based in the flesh. so people (and angels) are free to obey God, and do His will, and please God, or disobey God, attempt to overthrow Him, and act against His will.

that way, all of the free willed agents who choose to love God are free to do so, and do so out of love. these free willed agents are glorified by God, and kept by God forever. the other free willed agents who choose to separate themselves from God have to suffer the consequences of that choice. to be separated from all that is good in the universe is to be in a place where nothing good exists.

if you doubt the integrity of your own free will, or free will in general, consider this: are you inferring that God's omniscience somehow clouds or affects the exercise of your free will?

in other words, if God knew you would order apple pie for dessert, and He knew that 1,000 years ago, were you free to choose cherry pie instead?

of course you were; whatever you were going to choose was known to God, Who exists on top of time, and not linearly confined to time. so if you were going to choose cherry pie, God would have known that too.

however, to confer some sort of coercion is simply non-sensical. God does not push you one way or the other; you are free to choose. you just do not have the power to surprise God. you can please God, and glorify God, and praise God, and love God, and worship God, but you cannot surprise God. it's a natural consequence of being omnipresent and omniscient.

when it comes to who chose whom, it seems clear that God chose the people that God knew would choose Him; so in a sense, God chose the elect before the elect chose God, but again, knowing the end from the beginning, God did not cause the elect to choose Him; God simply knew ahead of time who would choose Him, and who would not.

9:48 a.m.

[DryOatmeal]

i'm still confused. if god knows everything then the idea of free will can't possibly exist

god can't create a random act. he can't roll the dice. he knows all because he made every atom & molecule & subatomic particle

a very crude example would be placing a bowling ball on top of wet paper towels and saying you have free will not to fall through the wet paper towels knowing full well the ball is going to

he knows the outcome of every possible "butterfly effect"

god laughs at the chaos theory

he sits back with a beer and some friends laughing as we try to exercise our "free will"

Christmas is coming, it's the 2nd week of advent, i can't wait for midnight mass

[MatthewT]

i think you're confusing free will with the ability to do whatever you want

i see free will as the ability to choose between possible options. i do not have free will to turn off the sun. i do have free will to put on sunscreen, go inside, put up an umbrella, or get sunburned.

God's omniscience and your free will are not interdependent; you do not know what He knows, and He does not make you choose one way or the other.

God is an amazing being capable of doing more things per smaller time fragment than we can imagine; if He were completely understandable, He might be too small to worship