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You could read "Celebration Of Discipline" by Richard Foster, about various spiritual disciplines. Among modern Christian books, that's become a classic.

It's the title of a book by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek.

You can use the "Look Inside" feature at that Amazon link to see the table of contents, as well as several pages including the foreword, preface and introduction.

Congratulations on your engagement.

> 4 Views on the Book of Revelation

On that subject, I recommend "Revelation - Four Views, A Parallel Commentary" (revised updated edition) by Steve Gregg. Here's the Amazon link (to see reviews there) and here's the page at christianbook.com.

Steve presents, in an even-handed way, how proponents of each view interpret each chapter section.

https://www.amazon.com/God-Moral-Monster-Making-Testament/dp/0801072751

This is a complex question, please have a look at this book which tackles this topic in depth.

https://youtu.be/NW2dgvRi8lA

Also a video directly addressing the topic.

I recommend the ESV, which is a mostly word-for-word translation from the original languages.

When I became a Christian many years ago, I read the NIV, which has some paraphrasing - sometimes called a "thought-for-thought translation", also called "dynamic equivalence". That was fine for me at the time, but I later learned that some of the NIV's translation/interpretation choices have been criticized.

I sometimes get into discussions on reddit about Bible topics, which come down to the meaning of a single sentence or particular words. At those times, it is better to refer to the ESV which is word-for-word with the original languages, instead of the NIV which has its layer of paraphrasing.

The ESV is freely available in Kindle format. If you don't own a Kindle device, you can install the Kindle app on a phone, tablet, PC or Mac.

> If you're being blessed by God's grace because of your faithfulness, or dealt a difficult life because of your lack or worship or lifestyle

This would be considered bad theology by the vast majority of Christian denominations. The bible repeatedly makes it clear that being faithful doesn't equate to an easy life (just look at the story of Job)

As to actually answer your question, it really depends on what you mean by free will. Many Christians would argue that [libertarian free will](http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Libertarianism_(metaphysics) doesn't work with respect to faith, and instead adopt some form of compatibilism, in which we are free to act according to our motivation. In this case, God could act to change our motivation without impinging on our ability to act, thereby maintaining free will. The process of being in communion with God then becomes one of allowing Him to change our motivation to match His.

This view probably fits best with biblical support. The concept of following God rather than choosing freely is something that we see repeatedly in scripture, whether it is Abraham sacrificing Isaac, or Jonah going to Nineveh, or even Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. This also extends outside of just how biblical characters act; in Matthew 16, we see Jesus saying to his disciples:

> “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

In this case, you could easily link the concept of denying oneself to the idea of free will.

The History and Archaeology of the Bible

It's 1 of the "great courses" and I think is available on amazon, it can be purchased from the below site I believe anyway

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-history-and-archaeology-of-the-bible

Catholic consensus, as far as I can tell, is that there are cases where healing childhood wounds may have an impact on the way someone experiences his/her attraction to the same sex. However, not all people experience this (ie. a change in their attractions after such a healing process) and sometimes people fall into an unhealthy mindset that only leads to frustration and an unhealthy way of seeing oneself.
If you're searching for new perspectives on these issues you'll probably enjoy reading Daniel Mattson's "Why I don't call myself gay". It's a really interesting and balanced take from someone who was not religious but didn't love the 'gay' label as a way of defining who he was. Interestingly enough, he is attracted to other men to this day, but on a couple of rare occasions he met a woman towards whom he was very attracted and they dated for a while.

It’s a tricky one for sure. There’s a few perspectives on it: it happened as the Bible said yet there is no extra-Biblical record or archaeological evidence, it happened but was a smaller exodus than what the Bible said and wasn’t worth the Egyptians recording, or it didn’t happen, orrrrrr more secular reasoning like it’s just a mashup of mythical stories.

I just ordered and received this book, which I’m hoping gives me a major insight into this:

YHWH Exists https://www.amazon.com/dp/0975337505

Stormie Omartian has made a series of books about prayer.

I'd suggest "The Power Of A Praying Mom" and/or "The Power Of A Praying Parent".

I haven't read those, but apparently others found them helpful.

I was raised in a Christian household, and accepted Christ at a young age. However, I would definitely describe my faith in middle school and most of high school as lukewarm. I was a “Christian” but couldn’t really tell you why and you probably couldn’t have guessed based on how I lived. Something changed in me when I became a senior, I had to either know why I believed or stop believing.

I’m not as well read as you, but I have still read a number of books and attended lectures to find my reasons. These lectures were mainly about the evidence for the resurrection of Christ. The guy who put them together has a strong story. He grew up atheist and began his quest to disprove Christianity when he was 20. He read and researched and even learned the original languages that biblical scripts were written in. He eventually converted to Christianity and is now a professor who’s job is to continue researching and sharing what he knows. So I believe there is strong evidence for the resurrection based on what I have learned from him.

Another evidence that our God is the true God is through the creation story in Genesis. I’ve always been a bit of a space geek, and when I first saw this it blew my mind. https://www.slideshare.net/SarahSalviander/the-six-days-of-genesis-63120073. This is based on The Science of God by Schroeder, if you have read it. I think the idea of if Adam was the first hominid vs. human is definitely not agreed upon among Christians based on how they see evolution.

Of course there’s relatability in your story. It’s natural to doubt. I (and hopefully no one) thinks your doubts are something you can just drop and forget about and move on like they’ve never happened. I’m sure you aren’t alone in your long journey.

From https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Mashiach_ben_Joseph.html

Another Christian interpretation emphasizes the minor, non-royal, line of David through Solomon's brother Nathan as recorded in Gospel of Luke chapter 3 (entirely undocumented in the Hebrew Bible), which is often understood to be the family tree of Mary's father. A widely spread traditional Christian interpretation relates the non-continuation of the main Davidic line from Solomon as related the godlessness of Jehoiachin in the early 500s BC, where Jeremiah cursed the main branch of the Solomonic line, saying that no descendant of "[Je]Coniah" would ever again reign on the throne of Israel (Jer. 22:30).[10] This same "curse" is also considered by some Christian commentators as the reason that Zerubbabel, the rightful Solomonic king during the time of Nehemiah, was not given a kingship under the Persian empire.[11]

If they're the ones who launched the missiles, and they're not confessing which one of them has the ability to stop the missiles, I don't think they're innocent parties.

OP, how do you think this scenario compares to the wartime choice by Harry Truman to drop the two atom bombs on Japanese cities (which caused the death of many civilians), but which led to the Japanese surrender, and thus avoided an invasion that would have cost more lives?

Edit to add: Perhaps this is simply a variant of the trolley problem. See also this article about the trolley problem.

I see what you’re saying. What I’m touching on is a particularly studied theme in academia. God (or El, Elyon, etc.), in Canaanite literature is often depicted on his holy mountain. There’s a good study on it in this the Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, and I’d also recommend reading a peripheral study this, scroll to part 1.2.

I read a book quite a long time ago written by a doctor that actually looked at some studies of prayer and medicine. Those studies concluded that patients who were prayed for healed slightly better than those who didn't, even when the patients were unaware of (but open to) the prayers. As in your proposed study, there were different deities appealed to depending on the patient's own views. The deity prayed to didn't seem to make much of a difference.

It's a difficult topic to study, though, because the act of belief tends to correlate with hope and optimism, which are also shown to aid in healing.

I'm not positive, but this may have been the book: https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Words-Prayer-Practice-Medicine/dp/0062502522?asin=0062502522&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

The studies it references are really pretty interesting whether or not they provide any reason to believe.

I would say to check out this book by Craig Keener Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World https://www.amazon.com/dp/1540963837/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_J4KRXG0M7SY065SKWF3B He is one of the foremost researchers on this topic. His books document modern miracles using medical documents like pre and post x-rays and other evidence of that nature. From what I have seen he scrutinizes the evidence and makes sure that only miracles are documented that have no other naturalistic explanations.

This is one of the biblical texts that some use when they talk about either Israelite henotheism or "the divine council".

While I don't completely recommend the book, as I believe he reads far too much late second temple period theology into earlier forms of Judaism, Michael Heiser's book The Unseen Realm has a pretty good overview of this verse and how it's thought to relate with Deuteronomy 32 and the Tower of Babel.

But, based off of the specific issues you're referencing, I'm assuming you're probably reading something like that and having questions about the biblical basis for them?

As others have said, it's far less important remembering a particular period of time and far more important about what you actually believe now.

Don't take it from me though, mostly posting this as a comment for a resource, but looking at your flair, the president of the SBC, JD Greear, actually wrote a fairly accessible book about this that I think, if you're struggling, is worth a read.

> How is the universe evidence of god?

In many ways. Former Atheist and professor Dr. Feser explains 5 ways here in his book :

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333

This could get you started and if you’re interested in reading a deeper and more scientifically written document on it, then I’d recommend this book.

I haven't read it myself yet, but I believe Sean McDowell wrote a good resource on this. If you're really interested, I'd start there.

This video https://youtu.be/MNR48hUd-Hw

And this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell-Evidence-Intelligent-Design-ebook/dp/B002C949BI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1615944217&sr=8-1

> My only point here was that I don’t like the images of him bleeding to be on display. I feel the cross is enough.

There certainly are cases where discretion is appropriate. For public view, I have several Benedict crucifixes, which show a silver Jesus. For private meditation and contemplation, I think that the full raw depiction is appropriate.

https://www.amazon.com/Saint-Benedict-Crucifix-Inlaid-Enamel/dp/B003AUBA9M

> It literally makes me cry, but I might just be weird..

You might have a gift for the devotion, which is a great thing. There are several Catholics who actually feel the physical wounds of Jesus, and some saintly Catholics actually have them materialize as stigmata.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmata

It is a great prayer to offer suffering in compassion with Christ and His passion. The devil and his demons can't stand such devotions, because the devil intended the crucifixion to be God's defeat. It turned out to be the devil's defeat.

Celebrating the crucifixion is a victory parade for heaven.

If you can afford it, you could buy a multi-volume commentary set.

I have an older version of a set titled "The Expositor's Bible Commentary". The latest version of that set is 13 volumes for the whole Bible, of which 5 volumes are about the NT.

There are also abridged books that cover the OT or the NT in a single book (paring down from the many thoughts and details that were in the multi-volume set).

Here's the Amazon page about the abridged NT commentary. See the table on that page that compares some books and how many pages they have.

You should read a book called Gospel Centered Life . It answered this question better than I could say and truly is my number one resource on understanding repentance and sin. It’s also really short.

> If Jesus and Satan were alone in the desert were alone during the encounter how can we trust that the story is actually truthful to what happened if it was orally passed down for so long,

There are several scenes in the Gospels where there was no one else except Jesus to recount things, such as when Nikódēmos visits Jesus at night. Jesus told His disciples of these things, so many people knew the details.

More importantly, God inspired the authors of scripture to make sure everything was written down exactly as God wanted it to be written down.

Scripture passes all tests of integrity. Dr. Linda McGrew wrote a book about some of the amazing connections between nuances :

https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Plain-View-Undesigned-Coincidences/dp/1936341905

Here is an interview with the author about it : https://youtu.be/QO7x9p70rrw

>In what context can genocide or owning another human being as property not be evil acts?

When viewed in the context of a legal and spiritual framework in which love is the unambiguously highest and most supreme command, these would be contradictions. Why such contradictions are present is the subject of scholarly inquiry, with significant scholarship published on the subject. 4 different scholarly answers are written in this short work, which is just a primer on the entire field. If you consider yourself an informed seeker of answers and not an ignorant sheep of a meme-driven subculture of harmful disinformation, I encourage you to look into it further.

Do you consider yourself one who forms opinions based on evidence? Or more of a prejudice and peer pressure person?

FYI, sometimes reddit automatically removes a comment that contains links, if the URLs are not in its approved list. In that situation, the comment will not appear to anyone until a moderator notices the situation and manually approves the comment. That's what happened here.

Also FYI, if you give a link to an Amazon product page, it can be shorter, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091214503X/ without all the 'ref=' stuff after that.

Moderator message: That kind of link got caught by reddit's filter, and I had to manually approve for it to appear.

FYI, when you give a link to Amazon, you can remove everything after that question mark (and the question mark itself):

https://www.amazon.com/Boston-Creative-Company-GC-XNR8-XAR4-Cereal/dp/B00L2LQ59G

Ohhhh I get it. I believe in the Trinity 100%. Just doing research. I’m not trying to disprove our faith or anything. Anyway, I think I found exactly what I was looking for: YHWH Exists by Jodell Onstott.

YHWH Exists https://www.amazon.com/dp/0975337505

Seems to be reading a bit more into the text than what is there.

“A text cannot mean what it could never have meant for its original readers/hearers.” ― Gordon D. Fee, co author of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth

Have you studied church history at an academic level? It is well recorded that leaders in the church were way way off track in those days.

It is well known that the major thing Trent addressed was immorality in the leadership of the church. Gonzalez covers all of this pretty well.

> (2) there was never any catholic drift about doctrine I don't know why people keep saying this,

Compare Roman doctrine with what Augustine wrote and you'll see big differences.

But one issue - selling indulgences on its own tells you that the theology of the church had slipped badly.

> There was a war ... protestants also killed catholics and others that didn't believe like them.

Are you even aware of Jan Huss and the Waldensians? If you have never heard of them, have a look. They had nothing to do with war. Just Christians going back to the truths of the Bible and getting killed for it.

> That is why that council didnt "change doctrine" because it was never wrong

Except it was. Compare with the Bible and you see big differences. Consider items such as the declaration that Mary is sinless (In 1943 Pope Pius XII stated that Mary was "free from all sin, original or personal"). Why is this not recorded in the Bible? Why was it never declared prior to 1943?

Jesus is the only one in the Bible who is sinless. Nobody else.

I read a book recently that really shifted my mindset towards capitalism. It is called "Practicing the King's Economy." I can't recommend it enough. A few points were particularly impactful, particularly the gleaning laws and the year of the jubilee, and how both today would be considered "job killing regulation."

That sample seems to be from a book by William Nicoll, which is different than the multi-volume set that I own, in which the commentary about each Bible book is by a different author (for example, the Matthew commentary is by D.A. Carson), and the volumes also say "Frank Gaebelein, general editor" on the front. Each commentary section has various scholarly references and footnotes.

You can use the "Look Inside" feature on that Amazon page that I linked, to see what the contents are like.

> I have a funny feeling it's the sort of thing my Granda had in his bookshelf)

There have been three major versions - the first was published in the late 70s/early 80s, and has a beige color. The second, which I have, was published in the 90s, and has a black-and-blue color. The third version was published around 2010 and has a brown color.

The whole hardback set costs hundreds of dollars, but you could get ebooks of the latest edition, or used hardbacks of the earlier editions, for not too much.

> Why would a loving god send his enemies to suffer forever in Hell?

One of the typical answers to that question is this:

"Only a punishment that is eternal is suited to the crime of sinning against the eternal God.
Sinning against God is a crime against infinite Majesty, and warrants punishment of infinite duration."

Another line of thought is this:

"As a consequence of being made in the image of God, people, unlike animals, are immortal beings, and must necessarily spend eternity consciously in one state or another."

(in combination with)

"Only those who believe in Christ may dwell in God's presence for all eternity (John 3:16).
All others must remain forever absent from God, apart from all light, joy and consolation (2 Thess 1:9)."

P.S. The above quotes are from pages 9 and 10 of this book by Steve Gregg which gives verses and arguments for and against each position.

I don't have the 'eternal torment' position myself; I instead have the positions of conditional immortality and annihilationism, for reasons such as these listed by Greg Boyd.

> Can you explain what you mean by this?

I mean what Jack Deere means: Why I Am Still Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: Discovering How God Speaks and Heals Today. https://www.amazon.com/Jack-S-Deere/dp/031010811X

> Do you mean to experience this and remain agnostic?

No, I would probably cease to be an agnostic if something like that were to happen.

> What sort of power are you expecting?

The power of the Holy Spirit.

> And is accepting Jesus only possible if you experience the Holy Spirit?

I don't know.

Because of Symbolic Logic’s built in nominalism its calculations are detached from reality. Not only does Symbolic Logic lack the ability to apprehend anything, but it also reduces truth to validity because of this failure.

Imagine trying to say something about an objective world in which you cannot apprehend. Then imagine saying self contradictory statements and believing them to be true. That’s the result of the “problem of material implication”.

These problems are structural and cannot be rectified.

For more information check out Peter Kreeft’s book Socratic Logic.

> Abraham couldn't have seen the Father, because no one living can see Him, so whoever "the Lord" is in Genesis 18:1 is either Jesus who is apart from the crowd, Jesus among the three men, or simply is addressing messengers of the Lord

Right, so "the men" weren't necessarily angels.

God Himself can certainly manifest himself as human though, and eat. Genesis 1:8 mentions that He walked in the Garden, so I presume that God had manifested Himself a body. "And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. "

> Men can eat and drink, therefore 'angels' can also eat and drink.

I don't agree with that. As Aquinas outlines, there is a big difference between corporeal matter, and spiritual nature. Not sure if you know it, but Aquinas laid out a whole metaphysical model of reality with essence and substance. It's a beautifully coherent model that matches scripture and has stood up to centuries of scrutiny by bible scholars.

BTW, the spiritual nature of Angels is why Devils can never repent. They don't slowly learn and unlearn things like we do. When they know something, they know it completely. They rejected God knowing that they'd have to be separated from Him.

Dr. Peter Kreeft wrote a book about this stuff that I would recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Angels-Demons-What-Really-about/dp/0898705509

Here's one of his talks about it: https://youtu.be/cvSsXK174aQ

> That makes sense of Hebrews 13:2, whereby "showing hospitality" usually included providing food and drink;

That's a good thought, but hospitality also means offering accomodations like Lot did. Lot did not offer them food, and if he did, they could easily avoid it.

I'm a fan of Bible teacher Steve Gregg, who in previous years wrote books about the Book of Revelation, about various beliefs concerning hell, and about the kingdom of God.

I'd heard he was working on a book refuting full preterism, and I see now that his book is now available.

I have the 'annihilation' belief about hell, which is a minority position.

I don't know how many percent have the 'eternal torment' belief, vs the 'annihilationism' / 'conditional immortality' beliefs, vs the 'universal reconciliation' position, or some combination, or something else.

This article provides a good list of reasons and supporting verses.

For a thorough discussion of various beliefs about hell, with arguments and verses both for and against various possibilities, I highly recommend this book by Steve Gregg.

For some perspective on how the Vatican (at least in part) goes about confirming something as miraculous or not, consider the following segment of Jimmy Akins Mysterious World.

He mentions one case in particular involving an atheist who was involved in helping to confirm whether a particular claim was miraculous or not. The episode is linked to the appropriate time stamp.

https://youtu.be/pVNetO2PXKM?t=3002

If you care to dive deeper Randall Sullivan who used to write for Rolling Stone magazine wrote a book about how the Catholic Church investigates and authenticates miracles.

The Miracle Detective https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802141951/

Don't forget that Jesus spoke mostly in parables. He was literally a storyteller that communicated through fiction. Even as a devout believer I didn't go around claiming that fiction was a waste of time and rots your brain. I didn't say that humor was pointless and sucks your energy. You don't think he had a sense of humor? That he was an emotionless zombie? I linked to a great book above, I highly recommend it.

This is the other one I used, another great read:
https://www.amazon.com/Footsteps-Jesus-One-Mans-Journey/dp/1565078578/

Those are the two I had the whole cast read for our yearly community wide easter pageant, but especially the 8 of us in rotation as Jesus. Such a big event we had multiple scenes going on simultaneously with multiple casts, so all the Jesuses, Johns, Marys, etc would often bond and compare notes, do Bible studies together, etc. to prepare and get in the right mindset for the role. Those books really changed my perspective and broke me out of the classic stoic view of Jesus.

That's why I loved the portrayal in the Matthew series from The Visual Bible. He spent so much of it smiling! How crazy is that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMa6L7iB8YU

Also, I'm pretty sure the disciples told fart jokes. They were as blue collar as you can get, gruff and crude, short tempered, and low-brow.

Fart jokes take brain power? LOL Although I'd be careful to say amusement and entertainment of any kind is a waste of time or energy. Sounds pretty puritanical. Humans aren't meant to be miserable. It's ok to laugh and have a good time.

I found this book to be really good.

https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Man-Sherwood-Eliot-Wirt/dp/0736900462

> Alright, so porn has existed since 1994

1994? For real? Where did you get that? No. Porn existed way back..

> Most single mothers are 30-50 and appear to come from a mostly catholic/Christian society.

citation needed.

> What I stated was that sexual freedom and acceptance should be allowed. That we do not judge those who do decide to have an open marriage, orgy or to be homosexual or transgender. That we can together as a community accept and shine light on the judgement in the world and be more accepting of each other.

No one is going to slap them with a fee or arrest them. They are free to do whatever they wish, but they cannot be allowed in a sense of a moral authority figure (in this case the church or priest) saying yes. Do you know one of those ridiculous rules that prohibit someone from doing something so minor, like for example "NO FREE REFILLS", but they enforce them anyway because they don't want someone to take advantage of that. Most people will take a refill or two, but someone will bring their 5-gallon jugs and dry up the entire soda fountain. It's like one of those. We do not, and cannot say, "it's okay". It shall remain to be frowned up, because you should feel guilty committing those.

> Why do you think atheism involves something coming from nothing?

Maybe you should ask Atheists like Laurence Krauss. He wrote a book called "A Universe from Nothing", and it is cited by many atheists :

https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/1451624468

> What form of government do you think we were intended to have?

A Federated Republic with universal human rights, and local subsidiarity that recognizes Christ as King.

Israel had a "Fatherly steward" or Prime Minister as mentioned in Isaiah 22. He was not the king, but the steward for the King, like a Prime Minister.

I believe that the 3 branches of the US were divinely inspired : Executive, Judicial and Legislative.

Our US system has been corrupted in a lot of ways, but it has the right bones. The Judicial system ideally would consist only of faithful baptized and confirmed Christians.

Timothy Gordon wrote the following book that shows how the US drew on a lot of principles from classical Catholic Education, which also recognized God's providence in Greece+Rome.

https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Republic-America-Perish-Without/dp/1622828364

I'm not sure if physical print is important, but you can get a digital copy with all that pretty easily.

If you don't mind digital I'd recommed: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bible.kingjamesbiblelite I use it (I use the NKJV version, but it's exactly the same except a different translation) and it has great UI, easy to navigate, search, make notes, or bookmark sections, and can make the text very large as needed.

(I'm a different redditor than the one to whom you responded.)

I have the 'annihilationism' position. This article gives some reasons toward that.

I highly recommend this book by Steve Gregg which thoroughly discusses verses and arguments for and against three beliefs about hell.

> No trans person or trans activist has said that, i've never seen someone actually say that apart from TERFs claiming that TRAs say so.

Ok, I'm not sure what TERFs and TRAs are, but the point is a young boy or girl can read a trans book for children and come to the confusing conclusion that he or she is in the wrong body because they don't fit the gender norms.

I did a quick google search on trans books for children and came up with this website:

https://pflag.org/transkidsbooks

For example:

https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Jazz-Jessica-Herthel/dp/0803741073

> I Am Jazz
> > The story of a transgender child based on the real-life experience of Jazz Jennings, who has become a spokesperson for transkids everywhere
> > "This is an essential tool for parents and teachers to share with children whether those kids identify as trans or not. I wish I had had a book like this when I was a kid struggling with gender identity questions. I found it deeply moving in its simplicity and honesty."—Laverne Cox (who plays Sophia in “Orange Is the New Black”)
> > From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl's brain in a boy's body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn't feel like herself in boys' clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz's story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers.

So, say a young boy likes the colour pink and likes mermaids, he reads this book and thinks he must be trans when it is really kids being kids.

Highly recommend this book for a full treatment of the topic.

https://www.amazon.com/God-Cant-Believe-after-Tragedy/dp/1948609126/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547219512&sr=8-1&keywords=god+can%27t

The context and language is very important, as well as the type of literature. For instance, it is clear that when Jesus tells a parable, it is not literal. But a large proportion of the Bible is intended as historical narrative. A book I will recommend is How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth

This simply doesn’t make sense.

If god puts the highest value on belief… higher than good deeds… higher than charity… higher than anything, it makes zero sense for him/she/it to allow charlatans and liars to mislead anyone. People like David Koresh, Pat Robertson, Celo Dollar and thousands more are pulling out all of the stops to prey on everyday normal people. Sucking their bank accounts dry and leading them down a path of eternal torture, yet god allows this evil trap to continue?

These people mean no harm, in fact, they are truly seeking a relationship with god. Muslims, Jews, all Eastern religions are void of salvation just because of where they were born. When the price is eternal torture, the people on the chopping block must be able to make sense of it.

If it’s your position that gos allows them all to be sent to hell for nothing that they did wrong, you gotta look at that.

Depends on what you want to do with it?

I use an interlinear bible for reference that has all the Greek and Hebrew words with pronunciation and Strong's meanings.

It's free to download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hagiostech.greekinterlinearbible

Rock Island Books is a great resource for learning the fullest meaning of ancient Hebrew words. Lately he's been doing prophecy videos but the bulk of the channel features threefold meanings of ancient Hebrew words.

Rock Island Books

If you're looking to learn to speak ancient Hebrew, I'm sure someone else can help.

>The problem is that science doesn't say the universe came from "nothing." This is a general misunderstanding that creationists (especially YEC) use to strawman the scientific position.

u/thedudeabides138

Well, to be fair some atheist scientists do say that science points to the (purported) fact that the universe came from nothing. For example, in a very recent book (2022), physicist Laura Mersini wrote:

>Along with Stephen Hawking, Penrose went even further. He and Hawking derived from first principles a logical argument in a theorem (a proposition that can be proved mathematically) that if our universe has been expanding since its creation, then it must have started from a point in space of literally infinite energy density—what is known as a singularity. Hawking and Penrose’s singularity theorem implied that scientists could never explore the actual moment of the universe’s creation because nothing, absolutely nothing, existed before creation. ... According to Hawking and Penrose, nature forbids scientists to explore the moment of creation, let alone look past it, because nothing, absolutely nothing, existed before creation. (Before the Big Bang)

There have been a ton of great books written about the subject. Two seminal works that are highly regarded in Orthodoxy are The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

The problem is not factual knowledge that is taught through education; the problem is that the education system has become very left-wing (see, for instance, Shapiro's <em>Brainwashed</em>).

Read Arise O God and Religion of the Apostles, they can explain it way better than a reddit post. You should be able to finish the first one in an afternoon and the second in a weekend; they're both pretty short

I own this book but haven't read it yet:

&quot;Seven Revolutions - How Christianity changed the world and can change it again&quot; by Mike Aquilina and James Papandrea.

It is about how the early Church (in the 3rd century) affected the Roman Empire, and drawing lessons about how the modern Church may affect the societies it is in.

Anyone in your situation would struggle with forgiveness. She has mistreated you and lies to you about it. She continues to behave the same way even now.

We know that Christ calls us to forgive, and it's something he has to do in our hearts. It sounds like he has already worked in your heart through this but it's an ongoing issue of having to keep forgiving.

I recommend Chris Braun's book on forgiveness. https://www.amazon.com/Unpacking-Forgiveness-Biblical-Answers-Questions/dp/1581349807

> So with that explanation I would expect to find out you're a fundamentalist, would that be true?

That's a very imprecise term, and by some measures it might be possible to apply it towards me, but I think it doesn't fit what either of us typically think of as that term.

> And if not, the question remains how you picked which parts to not be fundamentalist about. I think that's what the original question was getting at

Yes, I think so, too, and I think I find fault with the question's assumptions for that. How does anyone decide what to understand of any text? We ... read it, and we think about it. We look at internal and external context, try to understand the language, and just like ... we apply our capacity for understanding things to it. If OP thinks that there is some simple formula for understanding any text, that seems rather overly simplistic.

Perhaps it would make sense if OP had been a former fundamentalist, because that seems like an overly simplistic approach to understanding a text.

For either of you, if you're curious about how to approach understanding a text, this might be a good place to start. For more insight into Bible understanding as a whole, you would be exploring a topic called Biblical Hermeneutics, and there are many books on the topic. But if you already know the fundamentals of "How to read a book" (which despite it's dumb / patronizing sounding name, is a rich starter resource for that type of thing), then you already understand most of what comes into play in Biblical hermeneutics.

I think God created in 6 phases to symbolize the work week of 6 days of work and the last one of rest.

Here's a pretty decent book on the multiple views of the days.

What evidence are you looking for exactly? You're received some good answers both for how it contributes to the Biblical narrative and how it has been used in history.

What else would you like us to add? Picking up a commentary may be helpful if you want to drill in more carefully yourself.

I'd recommend this one from The Bible Speaks Today series which is pretty good at fitting books in their Biblical context.

Good book which discusses several viewpoints on this:

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Views-Church-Politics-Counterpoints/dp/0310517923/ref=pd\_ybh\_a\_sccl\_18/132-2067454-9486766?pd\_rd\_w=rU7Ka&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.8e5a2e6a-2480-42b2-b29b-9d31f472f1fb&amp;pf\_rd\_p=8e5a2e6a-2480-42b2-b29b-9d31f472...

I use New KJV generally, but also NASB and ESV because they are all word for word translations. An Interlinear translation with Strong's is great to have.

This is a free downloadable app with no ads:

Hebrew-Greek Interlinear

This online app is what I use. Makes it easy to look up phrases and switch between different translations:

Biblegateway

Yes. The marital union is an invitation from the almighty to partake the wonder of his creation. Any attempt, whether it be via homosexual behaviour, masturbation, artificial contraception, mutual masturbation in place of sex etc, to get the pleasure from the sexual act but purposely thwart its primary purpose for creation is sinful in nature. This does not mean that every time a married couple have sex, they should get pregnant. Leaving aside the obvious point that some couples are infertile to begin with, a reproductively intact woman's body is always sexually receptive but not always fertile thanks to her monthly cycle. Therefore, God wrote it into our biology that we are allowed to have the pleasure of sexuality without conceiving every single time, it's the purposeful act of artificially closing the the door to conception which is sinful. If a married couple don't want to become pregnant but still be sexually active, then they ought to track vaginal fluid and basal temperatures, find a woman's regular cycle and simply abstain from sex during her monthly fertile period. Try reading this book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility for more info

Lastly, the flawed logic comparing birth control to medication like painkillers or antibiotics is so unconvincing it's incredible any Christians accept it. Medication fixes a problem with the body and puts it right, birth control takes a perfectly functional reproductive system and makes it dysfunctional.

Follow the manufacturer's instructions.

This article by Greg Boyd lists a number of reasons and verses toward the annihilationism position.

If you're interested in the subject of hell, I highly recommend reading through this book by Steve Gregg which discusses the verses and arguments for and against three possible beliefs about hell.

> When was Revelation written?

I'm undecided on that question. I'm a fan of Steve Gregg who wrote this highly-rated book about Revelation and four overall ways it may be interpreted.

Steve currently believes Revelation was written before AD 70 instead of sometime later.

In any case, by "soon", I think Jesus meant within a matter of years, so those early Christians could have hope that their persecutors would receive due judgment, and also He gives warning to some of the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3 that they better shape up, because he's going to discipline those churches soon as needed.

I find that most non-Catholics don't understand Catholicism, so I would be wary of non-Catholic books on the subject.

"Why we're Catholic" by Trent Horn is a good overview of Catholicism:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Were-Catholic-Reasons-Faith/dp/1683570243

Here's a scholarly presentation of Lutheranism/Protestantism from a Catholic perspective :

https://youtu.be/voniryM5dlc

Pray for her. I recommend this book on prayer: "Fresh Wind Fresh Fire." The pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church talks about how prayer revolutionized his church. His daughter left the home and became a drug addict. They never stopped praying for her and she came back to Christ. https://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Wind-Fire-Happens-Invades-ebook/dp/B072TN1QP8

I highly recommend this book by Steve Gregg which thoroughly discusses the verses and arguments for and against the three possibilities ('eternal torment', 'annihilationism', and 'purgatorial universalism').

You could alternatively watch some of this playlist on YouTube where Steve summarizes some of the things discussed in the book.

You should dig into some of Walter Benjamin's interesting early notes on Language and Theology.

His theory was that in fact Genesis was a rehashing of the story of the birth of language, which is why the very first assignment God tasked man with was to give things names.

Read in this light, both Genesis and John - two disparate books in disparate Testaments - are rich.

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Language tends to be a layer that we add to phenomena to describe them to each other. As essentially a social construct, it is imperfect and broken. I can tell you in many, many words what I experience, but I can never by way of language give you that same experience.

God, who is the logos, is the perfection that we strive for in linguistic expression. He repairs our brokenness and gives us a way to transcend what we talk about, likely by being performative in his speech acts.

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Unfortunately, the way we communicate that healing, as you have noted, is in our socially constructed language. Religion is largely encounter-based rather than being a purely (human) linguistic phenomenon. I think part of the phenomenon of glossolalia ("speaking in tongues") can be understood as people trying to translate that encounter into human language. In my tradition (Catholicism), we go to the other extreme, often asserting that the language of God is silence: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Silence-Against-Dictatorship-Noise/dp/1621641910/

I've removed this post as not a "straightforward inquiry".

I found the listing on Amazon which indicates it's a self-published or independently-published book, listed only about a week ago.

If you are publicizing and promoting the book, then making a post here is not the way to do that.

If you are genuinely asking what people think, this is not a straightforward inquiry for redditors here to answer since it is extremely unlikely that anyone here has even heard about the book, let alone read through it.

My usual copypasta:

What's often lacking in these conversations is a consistent ethical model that lets us identify what sin is. The Church in my experience is shockingly bad at teaching this. I argue that Christian ethics are not rule-based, but are instead virtue-based; our goal is not to check the boxes, but to build a Christ-like character. We build that character by virtuous acts. So the question "is this action sinful" could be rephrased as "does this action tear down or build up Christian virtues in me?"

What are the Christian virtues? There are a number of lists, in the Bible and outside of it. But the ones in the Bible are impressively consistent. These are the virtues I can identify from scripture.

• Humility before God: Serve God, and see that his ways are higher than your ways
• Drive for righteousness and restorative justice: Make your life and the world more in line with God's will; mourn sin and repent
• Embrace of knowledge, wisdom, and truth: Learn true things, reject false things, and spread that learning
• Love and respect: Place others before yourself
• Joy, satisfaction, contentment, gratitude: Recognize the good God has given you
• Forgive and build peace, covenant, and relationship: Give up revenge, and encourage reconciliation
• Patience and hope: Remember that God will act, and that He rules all things
• Kindness, mercy, and generosity: Do good for people, especially those in need
• Integrity and self-control: Be one thing, all the time; subdue bodily impulses
• Faithfulness and endurance: Keep your covenants, carry on in the face of all adversity

https://airtable.com/shrUeWRc4gUj6JDXG

My usual copypasta:

I argue that Christian ethics are not rule-based, but are instead virtue-based; our goal is not to check the boxes, but to build a Christ-like character. We build that character by virtuous acts. So the question "is this action sinful" could be rephrased as "does this action tear down or build up Christian virtues in me?"

What are the Christian virtues? There are a number of lists, in the Bible and outside of it. But the ones in the Bible are impressively consistent. These are the virtues I can identify from scripture.

• Humility before God: Serve God, and see that his ways are higher than your ways
• Drive for righteousness and restorative justice: Make your life and the world more in line with God's will; mourn sin and repent
• Embrace of knowledge, wisdom, and truth: Learn true things, reject false things, and spread that learning
• Love and respect: Place others before yourself
• Joy, satisfaction, contentment, gratitude: Recognize the good God has given you
• Forgive and build peace, covenant, and relationship: Give up revenge, and encourage reconciliation
• Patience and hope: Remember that God will act, and that He rules all things
• Kindness, mercy, and generosity: Do good for people, especially those in need
• Integrity and self-control: Be one thing, all the time; subdue bodily impulses
• Faithfulness and endurance: Keep your covenants, carry on in the face of all adversity

[Work shown here: https://airtable.com/shrUeWRc4gUj6JDXG]

So we should always do the most virtuous thing, but no imaginable rule set will describe the most virtuous act in all possible situations.

My usual copypasta:

What's often lacking in these conversations is a consistent ethical model that lets us identify what sin is. The Church in my experience is shockingly bad at teaching this. I argue that Christian ethics are not rule-based, but are instead virtue-based; our goal is not to check the boxes, but to build a Christ-like character. We build that character by virtuous acts. So the question "is this action sinful" could be rephrased as "does this action tear down or build up Christian virtues in me?"

What are the Christian virtues? There are a number of lists, in the Bible and outside of it. But the ones in the Bible are impressively consistent. These are the virtues I can identify from scripture.

• Humility before God: Serve God, and see that his ways are higher than your ways
• Drive for righteousness and restorative justice: Make your life and the world more in line with God's will; mourn sin and repent
• Embrace of knowledge, wisdom, and truth: Learn true things, reject false things, and spread that learning
• Love and respect: Place others before yourself
• Joy, satisfaction, contentment, gratitude: Recognize the good God has given you
• Forgive and build peace, covenant, and relationship: Give up revenge, and encourage reconciliation
• Patience and hope: Remember that God will act, and that He rules all things
• Kindness, mercy, and generosity: Do good for people, especially those in need
• Integrity and self-control: Be one thing, all the time; subdue bodily impulses
• Faithfulness and endurance: Keep your covenants, carry on in the face of all adversity

https://airtable.com/shrUeWRc4gUj6JDXG

I'm just going to put my usual copypasta here...

What's often lacking in these conversations is a consistent ethical model that lets us identify what sin is. The Church in my experience is shockingly bad at teaching this. I argue that Christian ethics are not rule-based, but are instead virtue-based; our goal is not to check the boxes, but to build a Christ-like character. We build that character by virtuous acts. So the question "is this action sinful" could be rephrased as "does this action tear down or build up Christian virtues in me?"

What are the Christian virtues? There are a number of lists, in the Bible and outside of it. But the ones in the Bible are impressively consistent. These are the virtues I can identify from scripture.

• Humility before God: Serve God, and see that his ways are higher than your ways
• Drive for righteousness and restorative justice: Make your life and the world more in line with God's will; mourn sin and repent
• Embrace of knowledge, wisdom, and truth: Learn true things, reject false things, and spread that learning
• Love and respect: Place others before yourself
• Joy, satisfaction, contentment, gratitude: Recognize the good God has given you
• Forgive and build peace, covenant, and relationship: Give up revenge, and encourage reconciliation
• Patience and hope: Remember that God will act, and that He rules all things
• Kindness, mercy, and generosity: Do good for people, especially those in need
• Integrity and self-control: Be one thing, all the time; subdue bodily impulses
• Faithfulness and endurance: Keep your covenants, carry on in the face of all adversity

https://airtable.com/shrUeWRc4gUj6JDXG

So given that, sex can be sinful in any context. Assuming it's not sinful for violating any of these virtues... well, how does sex even fit into this scheme? That's a very good question.

I argue that Christian ethics are not rule-based, but are instead virtue-based; our goal is not to check the boxes, but to build a Christ-like character. We build that character by virtuous acts. So the question "is this action sinful" could be rephrased as "does this action tear down or build up Christian virtues in me?" So the moral imperatives are not things we do, but things we are or become.

What are the Christian virtues? There are a number of lists, in the Bible and outside of it. But the ones in the Bible are impressively consistent. These are the virtues I can identify from scripture, as summarized by me, your mileage may vary.

• Humility before God: Serve God, and see that his ways are higher than your ways
• Drive for righteousness and restorative justice: Make your life and the world more in line with God's will; mourn sin and repent
• Embrace of knowledge, wisdom, and truth: Learn true things, reject false things, and spread that learning
• Love and respect: Place others before yourself
• Joy, satisfaction, contentment, gratitude: Recognize the good God has given you
• Forgive and build peace, covenant, and relationship: Give up revenge, and encourage reconciliation
• Patience and hope: Remember that God will act, and that He rules all things
• Kindness, mercy, and generosity: Do good for people, especially those in need
• Integrity and self-control: Be one thing, all the time; subdue bodily impulses
• Faithfulness and endurance: Keep your covenants, carry on in the face of all adversity https://airtable.com/shrUeWRc4gUj6JDXG

What's often lacking in these conversations is a consistent ethical model that lets us identify what sin is. The Church in my experience is shockingly bad at teaching this. I argue that Christian ethics are not rule-based, but are instead virtue-based; our goal is not to check the boxes, but to build a Christ-like character. We build that character by virtuous acts. So the question "is this action sinful" could be rephrased as "does this action tear down or build up Christian virtues in me?"

What are the Christian virtues? There are a number of lists, in the Bible and outside of it. But the ones in the Bible are impressively consistent. These are the virtues I can identify from scripture. (Work shown here.)

• Humility before God: Serve God, and see that his ways are higher than your ways
• Drive for righteousness and restorative justice: Make your life and the world more in line with God's will; mourn sin and repent
• Embrace of knowledge, wisdom, and truth: Learn true things, reject false things, and spread that learning
• Love and respect: Place others before yourself
• Joy, satisfaction, contentment, gratitude: Recognize the good God has given you
• Forgive and build peace, covenant, and relationship: Give up revenge, and encourage reconciliation
• Patience and hope: Remember that God will act, and that He rules all things
• Kindness, mercy, and generosity: Do good for people, especially those in need
• Integrity and self-control: Be one thing, all the time; subdue bodily impulses
• Faithfulness and endurance: Keep your covenants, carry on in the face of all adversity

So does using a butt plug either build up or tear down any of these virtues? Depends on the circumstances. You tell me.

Or don't. That's fine too.

I am in my 30s and have been in Bible studies since my 20s, including several 'men's groups.' My general takeaway is that there is often little benefit to trying to to take a "men's" approach to studying scripture. Often such "men's group" studies add little, or are reductionist. Often better is getting a quality Bible study guide that doesn't bother trying to focus the study through a gendered lens.

That said, gathering in a community of men will bring out shared priorities and emphasis, and enable sharing of a short that might not be possible in a coed setting. So studying as a men's group is great (though of course not essential).

That said, two books that I've studied while in men's group come to mind as being having been good studies.

David - Developing a Heart for God. David is often looked at as an example of Biblical manliness, whatever that means. Regardless, I recall this study was appreciated by the men's group, without actually being a "men's-focused" look at David.

A Man of God the only "men's-focused" study I recall really appreciating, though we also had a great group and great facilitator which led us to becoming close confidants of each other and enabling personal sharing and growth. So YMMV, but it worked for us.

When I was really young, we had a Christian video game we bought for the Nintendo, this one:

https://youtu.be/QDe6PenubTg

Anyway, game wasn’t working. We tried it over and over again, my older brother was getting angry with it, and I was praying to God to make it work so he would calm down. Mom called the company, they said some of them were defective and we would have to return it, so we gave up.

Later that night, I was sitting and reading a book. This one: https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Island-Aquarius-Cooper-Adventure/dp/1581346190

I’m being super specific because the memory has stuck with me all my life.

Anyway, I was reading the book, and I heard a voice in my head that came outta no where and wasn’t like my own thoughts. But it said my name, and told me to go try the game.

So I went. And the game worked immediately and never had a problem since.

Never heard that voice like that in my head ever again either. Though I’ve prayed for it often.

> only because you are coming with fully formed assumptions.

That's false. I was an atheist for most of my life and slowly started recognizing more and more signs of design.

Former atheist Nobel Laureate Dr. Francis Collins explains some of the evidence in his book:

"The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief"
https://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/1416542744

> because if really humans are so important why even create it all?
God is love and wants to allow others to share in eternal love and joy.

> ... if god really made everything there is then why make literally everything but one tiny planet on the outside of a very basic galaxy the only place where humans can exist?

God is truly infinite, so He created this Universe as a dumbed down way so that people could start to learn about Him, which is much greater than this Universe. All the animals are also designed to help us know about ourselves, and Him. Since the fall, some animals became Evil, which is a manifestation of the evil that people took on.

> there are magnitudes more evidence for it than "god did it".

That's false. You could falsify much of Christianity if you could create life and consciousness via natural causes. There is no evidence that could happen.

If you found a book in the middle of the woods, would you assume that some trees accidently formed the book? No, some intelligent being had to put it there. The same is true with life. There is no good evidence that life could arise here. Science shows that organic chemicals decay. They don't rise up into living beings.

Meteorites have organic compounds because God made this Universe for us.

>Is there a source for that, cause that explains alot and makes sense that it happened

Yes. Bella Dodd was a lawyer for the Communist party in Chicago. She later converted to Catholicism, and said that she herself helped place over 1000 Marxists into Catholic Seminaries. Many of those were homosexuals and some of those rose to Bishops. They went on to persecuted faithful masculine priests and fostered gay priests.

Not sure if you know it, but about 90% of the abusers were homosexuals, not pedophiles. They were men preying on young men, which is pederasty, not pedophilia.

Here's one article about Bella Dodd :

https://issuu.com/latinmasssociety/docs/final_moa_summer_2021/s/12266868

There are several books about it. Russian leaders were pretty open about their plans to infiltrate US institutions, including the Catholic Church :

https://www.amazon.com/Aa-1025-Memoirs-Communists-infiltration-Church/dp/0895554496

For some perspective on how the Vatican (at least) typically goes about confirming something as miraculous or not, consider the following segment of Jimmy Akins Mysterious World.

He mentions one such case involving an atheist who had helped confirm whether a particular claim was miraculous or not. The episode is linked to the appropriate time stamp.

https://youtu.be/pVNetO2PXKM?t=3002

If you care to dive deeper Randall Sullivan who used to write for Rolling Stone magazine wrote a book about how the Church investigates and authenticates a supposed miracle.

The Miracle Detective
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802141951/

> imaginary friend

I agree that your imaginary friend idea doesn't make sense.

Please try to pay attention.

The Universe is evidence of God like a book is evidence of an author

> Be careful with being too open minded, your brains could fall out or garbage could fall in.

I would agree that is what Atheism is because it has no conclusions about what the Universe is.

> Life is formed. Make requires a maker.

Life is only formed by life. God is a living being.

There is no evidence that life can come from non-life.

> I don't know what information theory has to do

I recommend that you start learning, like this former Atheist and Nobel Laureate wrote when he saw the evidence in life :

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief https://www.amazon.com/dp/1416542744/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_P4PPW2CNFF66AKWBG4SG

> Please give me empirical evidence of a god

Please try to pay attention.

Life is empirical evidence of God like a book is evidence of an author.

Raised on the Third Day: Defending the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus lays out a reasoned argument on many different aspects. It's new, too, so benefits from recent scholarship.

The catechism I was iven on Mary is from this book. At the same time though, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic beliefs about the Holy Virgin have some important differences.

Their deaths aren't included in the Bible so it's mainly based on church tradition. Stephen was a martyr, and his death is included in scripture. Foxes's book of Martyrs gives a short paragraph about the disciples which you can read about in the Amazon sample. https://www.amazon.com/Foxes-Book-Martyrs-John-Foxe-ebook/dp/B08GJ4FHL8

Yeah I mean I've always been pretty judgemental, sometimes I lay awake at night and wonder why I'm such an áss to people, amongst other things. Sometimes I almost feel like Paul, with my conscience weighing on me so heavy it's almost like Jesus himself is asking me why I persecute others. Perhaps that really is God reaching out, Perhaps the conscience is a God given construct and it is simply doing it's job, Perhaps it's just me. I don't know really. I'm thankful either way, it's good that I should feel such attacks, it at least means I'm not evil, I think. I'm glad we have the scriptures for wisdom, I read them a little, I study them through other works much more.

I believe in the resurrection of the dead at the end of the age, I'm somewhere between Annihilationism and Universalism in regards to what happens to the "unsaved". I'm not now and never have been an infernalist. I think humans will live forever in physical bodies on a paradise earth, which is the view Jews have tended to have & that most of the early Christians had. I don't think we float up to the clouds.

We don't know for sure though, I know there will be "life overflowing" (a literal translation of what usually reads everlasting life) and that's enough for me. As this book points out, the purpose of the scriptures is to give wisdom & rules for life, not answers to every great question.

Book

Sounds like you discovered philosophy. I recommend reading Socratic Logic by Peter Kreeft for clarity on the subject.

A is what philosophy calls Natures or essences

B is is what philosophy calls Metaphysical Realism and Epistemological Realism (that the world is intelligible and we can know it)

C isn’t useful. A child must believe a parent when they say playing with fire can hurt. The child may have some notion of hurt, yet have no clue as to what fire feels like in contact to skin. Or I don’t understand the tax system, yet I believe and rely on tax software or peoples advice.

D I’d say is mainly false. Atheists don’t like the idea of natures or essences because that heavily implies a creator.

A2. Yes everything has a nature; therefore things we discern have natures

Big Bang- We can understand the Big Bang like other things. From sense observations and use of logic

C2 sounds like what philosophy calls empiricism; if you’re using discern as sense observations

The best defense against the kind of person who demands that you justify your beliefs on scientific evidence alone is to try and take them into a discussion on the philosophy of epistemology. Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know (or whether we can know anything at all)...and that's what the atheists you're describing are doing: they're trying to attack your claim to be able to know something. I find that the weapon they're trying to use on you can be very easily turned on them, because the kind of atheist who does what you're describing (which is a very specific kind and not all of them) is very often philosophically illiterate.

I'll be honest though, these kinds of arguments take years of practice, and it's an art to be able to make them in a real time discussion. Your time would be way way way better spent learning the scriptures and building a prayer life. I would suggest not throwing your pearls to swine and shaking the dust off your feet in such cases. But I'm terrible at taking that advice myself, so if you really want to dig into these arguments I'd suggest starting with R.C. Sproul's book Defending Your Faith...it's a fantastic intro into apologetics. Ligonier Ministry also runs a daily podcast called "Renewing Your Mind with R.C. Sproul"...if you look through them you'll find the lectures that this book was based on...definitely worth a listen, I listen to one every day for a daily dose of fantastic preaching.

There's a lot of scientific imposture around alleged neanderthal fossils and the conclusions supposedly based on them. Recommended reading for you: https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Alive-Jack-Cuozzo/dp/0890512388

By celibate, I just mean not engaging in sexual activity. For example, take New Testament scholar Wesley Hill. He identifies as gay, but believes that homosexual activity is sinful. Therefore, he chooses to live as a single, gay man. Would it be acceptable to call him a gay Christian?

https://www.amazon.com/Washed-Waiting-Reflections-Faithfulness-Homosexuality/dp/0310534194

Science is what you can observe through experiments. You can't manipulate God into doing or not doing something, so you can't conduct an experiment on Him unless He wants to let you.

Second, there is a lot of science that is used to explain things from the Bible, but it isn't mainstream. Teaching about God is a career killer. But in history, there is a lot of scientific discovery done by Christians who used their discoveries to talk about God. The Big Bang theory was proposed in 1927 by a Belgian Roman Catholic priest. I don't think you need a full scientific model to say "God created the universe through the Big Bang" to explain things in contrast to "There was a point where the Big Bang started from and who knows how it started."

and I haven't read this, but there are modern "full send" explanations https://www.amazon.com/Starlight-Time-Russell-Humphreys-Ph-D/dp/0890512027
This is a book that explains how the universe is old, but the earth is young.

I know there are even books about why the earth is flat that go into great detail. Overall, I'm sure with any theory of how things work, there is probably an in depth explanation by someone.

I have had spiritual experiences where I've felt the Lord's presence in very physical ways. This has included audible, plain English. I won't share here because these are precious to me, you understand.

A good writer on this topic is Dallas Willard, in his book Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. In it he recounts several instances of documented occurrences of God (or his messenger angles) speaking to humans. Fascinating stuff.

I'm not personally qualified to answer your questions properly, but I can recommend two pretty short books that I feel do a good job of addressing them. Truthfully you don't even need read all of them, but I don't have them tabbed by subject or argument to say which portions talk about your questions.

Also, neither book is a apologetic work in the sense that they're trying to answer specific questions or challenges. They're simply expositions on what Christianity historically has taught and the background to those beliefs.

The first is Arise O God, by Andrew Stephen Damick. It's 150 pages and available in paperback, kindle, or audiobook. It basically outlines what the gospel teaches in historic context, and what it means to be a Christian.

The second is Religion of the Apostles by Stephen de Young. It's 320 pages, and also available in paperback, kindle, or audiobook, and addresses the content and historical context of the various Christian beliefs.

Both books are pretty short, and an English educated person should be able to read both of them in a lazy weekend, and someone who reads a little slower should be able to get through them in a week or two pretty easily.

I do hope you're interested in reading them, because I think they'll clear things up for you

I think you might like the book Angelic Visitations and Supernatural Encounters: A Diary of Living in the Supernatural of God by Michael Van Vlymen

He is one of my favorite Christian book authors and I love how he teaches that any believer can walk in close fellowship with God

> The Hebrew language has the specific words to describe what they mean, they said circle of the earth because it’s a round plane not that they somehow meant a “globe”.

The Hebrew and Greek (Septuagint) had a limited vocabulary. Globes weren't common objects, and people use colloquial expressions.

Human language isn't like math. It's full of figures and contextual expressions, like "Look me up". God left things that was because He wants us to get to know their culture and history. If someone doesn't know the culture and history, they will force-fit their preconceived notions onto what those expressions meant.

I wish that all Christians would take a primer course on the fundamentals of Human language. The following is an excellent course on the subject :

https://www.amazon.com/The-Story-of-Human-Language-audiobook/dp/B00DTO69D6

OP, if you're interested in understanding what's taught about the kingdom of God, and living accordingly, I suggest this book by Steve Gregg about that.

(I haven't read that book myself yet.)

This is a great at home devotional resource:

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Story-New-Ten-Minute-Devotions/dp/1936768666/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=28MXOODI4TPMN&amp;keywords=old+story+new+by+marty+machowski&amp;qid=1646622231&amp;sprefix=old+story%2Caps%2C106&amp;sr=8-1

The OT edition is great too. It’s so good that I purchased copies for every family with kids in our church. I highly recommend it.

I'm not sure where you're getting a lot of this from.

For example, while a little gruesome (and dependent on your interpretation of Revelation), there are spirits under the throne who remember being slain and were asking God for justice (Revelation 6). That's the Bible showing that people remember their life on Earth, so I'm not sure where you're getting that we'll forget everything.

It might be worth picking up a copy of Randy Alcorn's Heaven. He did a lot of good work digging into what Scripture actually says about the renewed Heaven and Earth instead of leaning on pop-culture interpretations of it. He (from what I remember) argues that the renewed Earth will be a dynamic place of culture and work. For example:

>Will Our Life's Work Continue?Because there will be continuity from the old Earth to the new, it's possible we'll continue some of the work we started on the old Earth. I believe we'll pursue some of the same things we were doing, or dreamed of doing, before our death. Of course, people whose jobs depend on aspects of our fallen world that will no longer exist on the New Earth--such as dentists (decay), police officers (crime), funeral directors (death), insurance salespeople (disability), and many others--will change their work in Heaven, but that doesn't mean they'll be unemployed. What's now an interest or hobby may become their main vocation. Others, however, may continue with work similar to what they do now, whether as gardeners, engineers, builders, artists, animal trainers, musicians, scientists, craftspeople, or hundreds of other vocations. A significant difference will be that they'll work without the hindrances of toil, pain, corruption, and sin.

Heaven won't be a bunch of people sitting around on clouds strumming harps for a trillion years.