People are so differrent...

[BigV]

You were asked

how do you know what the Lord God Almighty wants, JB? specifically.

Your answer was to read the bible.

let's pause here. I understand that you're saying how to know what God wants is to read the bible. Ok, like how do I operate the vcr? Read the manual. Easy. However, I've read the bible, and lots of times I find that one section contradicts another section. To compare this to the vcr example, it's like saying to play a tape press the A button, and then in a different section, it says to play a tape press the X button. Well, what is it, the A button or the X button. Look, with the vcr I can just try the A button and the X button. But I can't make such an empirical examination of the mind of God. It's not possible to use your answer "read the bible" to resolve conflicts like this.

Then, as a clarification to me, you suggest that I "have faith". You further explain that good faith is practiced by singing and prayer and doing what the bible tells us to do. This isn't much help, JB. Singing? That can't really be your answer to having faith. Or praying either. Is it prayer that gives you faith and gives you knowledge of what the Lord God Almighty wants?

I ask this seriously, incredulously, and respectfully. I find my experience with prayer is the most intimate, individual experience I can have, and that's at the opposite end of the spectrum from "read the manual" and "read the bible". If my answer to what does God want is what ... ... comes to me (?!?) via prayer... that is... man. That is .. that's my mind talking to me. Not God. I can't verify it, I can't test it, I can't confirm it, etc.

I'll give you a little clue here as well. I don't know you, and I can't say anything about your actions and your words and the distance, if any, between those two. But others might. And I can discuss that distance I see in others. That distance is where hypocrisy flows in. And hypocrisy is the enemy of credibility. The credibility of those that show more hypocrisy suffers, even to the point that I discount what I hear when it doesn't match what I see. Not you, not you. But there are a lot of others I know that are making a very bad name for Christianity. This "fundamentalist" stance starts out fine, but has never been sustainable.