David at Your Service

Jesus himself was clear that no one is good except God (Mt 19:17). But the Bible is also clear that Jesus was sinless (Heb 4:15), which seems to us Trinitarians to imply that he must have been good, and therefore God. But you non-Trinitarians say he was not good, as only God is good. What’s your logic, because we Trinitarians are not understanding it? Do you believe Jesus sinned or something? What did he do that makes you believe he was not good? Thank you in advance for helping us Trinitarians better understand God’s true nature.

To properly set this up, please indulge me with some admittedly lengthy background. (I apologize in advance.) For many, a miracle is defined as an event where the chances of it happening by pure luck are so remote, the only or best explanation is that there really is no explanation, and thus the event is called a “miracle”. For instance, let’s say someone called the Rush Limbaugh show (where millions would be listening and the call recorded), claiming that they could predict the future, and saw that the next day, President Obama would commit suicide by hanging himself in his pajamas in the oval office with a green nylon rope, and his dead body would first be discovered by his youngest daughter, precisely at 4:47 pm. And then sure enough the next day President Obama committed suicide by hanging himself in his pajamas in the oval office with a green nylon rope, and his dead body was first discovered by his youngest daughter, precisely at 4:47 pm. (Assume Law Enforcement rules out any foul play.) I don’t think anyone would claim the caller just made a lucky guess. The chances of making a lucky guess like that would be beyond astronomically low. I believe even the most hardened atheists would admit such an event was inexplicable and therefore could be at least considered possibly beyond the natural.

I ask my question because in their latest revision to their NWT, the WBTS Governing Body removed the latter half of the 16th chapter of Mark, which I find confusing. Does that mean it was never God’s word, but for some reason God didn’t tell the GB, and he just let people mistakenly think it was his word? Was it at one time God’s word, but God sort of changed his mind and made it no longer his word?

With that in mind, how does a JW intelligently discuss scripture since they don’t even know if that scripture will be in the Bible next month?

If the JW GB was wrong for decades about part of Mark actually not being part of God’s word, how do we know they are not wrong about other parts of the Bible that are in there, but shouldn’t be? In fact, could it be possible that the whole Bible is not God’s word, but God just hasn’t told the GB yet?

I was reading the following:

D&C 89: 9 And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly.... 12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; 13 And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

In verse 9 we have the well-known teaching which forbids Mormons from drinking hot tea or coffee, but verses 12 and 13 seem to me to make it also a sin to eat a Big Mac during the summer. Do Mormons faithfully follow that passage, or is it somehow interpreted differently from what appears to be plain language, and therefore in fact there really aren't any dietary restrictions that Mormons are required to follow?

Also, if you don't mind, how do you get drinking iced tea, iced coffee or a coke is a sin since all of those drinks are cold?

Thank you for helping me to better understand the LDS Church and its teachings.

How do atheists explain their inconsistency with their threshold of proof for the existence of God, but not the existence of other things like the Oort cloud? Below are some excerpts from Wiki’s article on the subject (emphasis added) to make my point.

The Oort cloud ... is a spherical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals that is BELIEVED to surround the Sun at a distance up to 50,000 AU, nearly a light-year.

Although NO CONFIRMED DIRECT OBSERVATIONS of the Oort cloud have been made ...

The outer Oort cloud is THOUGHT to contain several trillion individual objects ...

Back to me. The Oort cloud is based on a belief without any direct observations, yet many if not most atheists believe it to exist. Yet if a theist asserts that God exists based on a belief without any direct observations, the question is asked, “Where is your proof?”

Does the inconsistency arise because an Oort cloud does not make an issue out of sin, whereas the God of the Bible does?

(Heb 11:1 Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. Sort of sounds like what is going on with the Oort cloud.)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

That's how hoaxes are exposed. James Randi exposed Uri Geller as a hoaxer by duplicating his spoon bending trick. Pharaoh's magicians attempted to do the same thing with Moses (Ex 7:10-12), (although when it came to the lice "trick" they owned up on that one being from God; Ex 8:18-19).

All an atheist would need to do is write a short essay about morals and such, throw in some ridiculously fantastic miracles they or their friends did in it (like walking on water, raising the dead, feeding over 5000 people with a kid's sack lunch), make copies, give them to friends and even the press, and then just wait for the inevitable religious following of thousands and eventually millions.

Now no one is saying one can't get a big religious following by writing something religious like Mohammed (Islam) and Joseph Smith (Mormonism) did, but those guys didn't mention any miracles they or their friends did in their works.

The atheists in this forum seem so eager to want to disprove Christianity, but refuse to use the time-tested way of showing how something is a hoax--by duplicating the hoax. Why is that?

For a "Religion and Spirituality" forum, there sure seems to be a lot of non-religious anti-spiritual people that frequent this forum. Is it because atheists don't have their own forum, or is there some sort of sense of satisfaction that is derived from answering posts about God with "There is no God" or words to that effect?

If atheists had their own forum, would most go to it, or continue commenting in this one? I'm just curious.