TRuth Vs. Beliefs: Would you Read a Book Whose Back Cover Said This:

Everyone can hold fast to whatever they want to believe as truth using the same Methodology everyone else uses to hold fast to "what they want to believe" "as" truth. Here's what you do to become a staunch Atheist, Agnostic, Jew, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Muslim, Mormon, Lutheran, ... or any other belief group in the world... Understand, no belief group exists to get it's members "to" truth. They exist to teach, promote, defend, evangelize ... the belief groups beliefs "as" truth. Teach differently on just one topic they hold dear and you will be silenced and/or removed from the group. In this every group heaps to itself teachers having itchy ears ... must protect the flock, after all.

Methodology One(The Methodology of Belief Groups) Entails Gathering:

1.) Tons of “Data” to prove your beliefs are “fact.”

2.) Massive amounts of information that proves all opposing positions wrong.

3.) Figuring out How to interpret their “selected” proof (1-2 prior) to fit their beliefs.

4.) Ways to dispose of “apparent” contradictions:

Everything that appears to contradict our conclusions is invalid, misinterpreted, distorted, added by evil monks... or we simply ignore data we don’t like, or make up meanings for it out of whole cloth, often choosing interpretations that no godly man or women in scripture ever thought or even considered. Some interpretations make God Himself a sinner, violating His own commands and ordinances to the point of blasphemy.

5.) Outside Verification of Correctness of Beliefs:

This includes holding to your faith because of signs, wonders, miracles, casting out of demons, a burning in the bosom, statues of Mary coming to life, including things like those listed in Mat. 7:23. This also includes using belief group details to affirm the voracity of their views. This includes, having the oldest church, fastest growing church, the most highly educated experts, our relatives have been a part of this group for 15 generations … anything that helps justify staying in their own particular group. See also Rom. 9:1-5.


It doesn't matter what belief group you are in, you can hold fast to the beliefs of any of them "as" truth by doing the things listed above. Do more of them and you can harden yourself more and more into any belief group on the planet till your eyes and ears are firmly closed to even considering anything else. It's the Methodology described in 2Th. 2:10-15(The overall principle), Rom. 10:1-3 (The religious lost, Rom. 1:18-32, the non religious lost, and Mat. 7, the lost who believe Jesus is their Lord, God and Savior with all their heart, mind, soul and strength and are doing all the exact same signs and wonders the truly saved are doing. Every one gets what they need to hold fast to what they truly want. If you are using the Methodology above, I do not doubt the zeal for your beliefs even for an instant, but you are still lost and headed for hell. 2Th. 2:10-15

In 1 corinthians it says "some are saved as through fire,they are saved but their works are burnt up"

Carnal Christians still make heaven.

But for you to know who makes it and who does not,in my opinion,is to seat yourself next to God and have him take a backseat to your knowledge.

""Here's the thing. Jesus says that if you ever STOP doing everything in your power to get to truth and everything in your power to avoid what everyone else does to hold fast to what they "want to believe" "as" truth, then you are in the lost group in spite of your beliefs to the contrary. What does this mean, I quite well "could be" in that group and I have missed what I need to believe up till now.

Here's an example: Say you convert from Atheism to Roman Catholicism and you believe that salvation comes from following the rules of the Roman Catholic church, eating the literal body and blood of Christ, going to confession ... but then you become a Jehovah's Witness because you see more truth there and you believe those things, but you keep on studying and become Mormon, ... can you stop seeking, proving all things over and over again, and always altering your beliefs to hold fast to what is true yet? What happens if you do?""

Wow,you skip the new birth.
You skip the center of christianity.

A born again christian is not the same person.
The rebirth is a brand new person with different beliefs than before.

That born again believer has stuff wrong as do all believers.

To hinge some all encompassing heaven or hell dynamic on some perfect belief of "truth" is bs as I pointed out to you before.

Truth is a person, not a concept.
Your entire deal rests on perfect truth that you think you have some exclusive handle on.

The carnal Christians were led astray by the false prophets, preachers ... who didn't have the gifts they professed to have ... 1Co. 12. As soon as Paul wrote this, they repented and corrected their bad behavior. For those who did not repent, Paul had this to say:

2Co 11:13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.

If you do not seek to get to truth and live in accordance with it, you aren't His, nor were you ever His. Look at all the different belief groups who believe Jesus is God, or "a" God. Look at all the belief groups who hold to the bible as "the" or "a" source of truth. Believing you have the truth with all your heart, mind, soul and strength doesn't save. Having tons of data gathered to prove your beliefs true and all opposing beliefs false doesn't save. ... every belief group from the Atheists to the Jews, to the Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, have all gathered everything they need to hold fast to what they want to believe "as" truth.

Knowledge doesn't save, but certainly a zeal for God with a lack of knowledge doesn't either:

Rom 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. 2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. 3 For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

Yes, everyone who seeks to justify their beliefs gets confirmation that their beliefs are truth. But the very fact that this is what they are doing proves that they want nothing to do with it. They love their beliefs. They hate truth.

Joh 14:6 Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

If you miss the truth, you missed Jesus. Belief in lies, no matter how vehemently, no matter how much zeal you have in accordance with them, does not save. Belief in the truth, Jesus, the truth is Jesus, Jesus is the truth saves. If you missed the truth, you are missing salvation.

Separating truth from Jesus is impossible. Miss one. miss both. Make every effort to be sure you miss neither. Everyone on this planet has gathered everything they need to hold fast to their beliefs as fact, and all opposing beliefs as error, while looking at everyone else thinking about how they are missing the truth/their beliefs. Do as they do and you get the same unquestionable assurance of the correctness of beliefs that Atheists do Rom. 1:18-32, Mormons do, the lost Pharisees and Saducees of Jesus time did. Rom. 10:1-3, and the lost people who believe Jesus is their Lord, God and Savior, but who missed the truth do in Mat. 7. If you do not receive a love of the truth that exceeds all of your beliefs right now, you are lost and headed for hell, while knowing, like everyone in every other belief group on the planet, that your group has absolute unquestionable truth on every core issue. Everyone gets exactly what they want.

2Th 2:10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

there is NO SUCH THING as 'carnal=christians', period!!!
one may give themselves over to 'carnal behavior and thinking', BUT,
one can never 'remain there',, 'For to be carnally minded is death',
but, 'to be Spiritually minded is 'Life and Peace'.
when we do our homework, we discover that God tells us that;
murderers-adulterers-thieves-fornicators, etc, 'Shall NOT inherit The Kingdom of God'.
if, one receives The Holy Spirit, then they are Spiritual, with a very long road ahead of them
'over-coming'...
as it is written:
'To him that overcomes, he shall be granted to partake of The TREE of LIFE'.

Spiritual Truth

In order to really know the truth you must know all things. Life amounts to accumulating knowledge, either through experience or from someone else. Since everyone has unique experiences relative to their limited understanding of a larger picture, people come to unique truths and form biases.

Ultimately, the world ends up as a wheelhouse of competing truths and that causes confusion. Since people cannot know all things, the decision making process must be simplified by giving people the absolute truth and eliminating any other options as alternative truths.

In essence that is why the Bible exists and the theme is Jesus. We couldn't recognize the truth when we stared it directly in the face because, again, we don't know all things. Therefore, faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is the truth God has revealed to humanity for salvation. All other theologies have become secondary and vain.

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we eventually found out, by The Holy Spirit's knowledge that xmas & easter, etc., were born from 'pagan-roots',
=
'If the roots are corrupt, so is the tree'...
no matter how hard we tried 'AFTER conversion', to celebrate these twisted, carnal rituals,
we JUST COULD NEVER FIND ANY scriptures telling to bow down to any Scripture that commanded us
or told us to hunt for eggs or to erect a 'tree', etc
it was kind of like the both of us when we believed our parents lies to us about 'santa' and all of
'the cunningly devised fables=lies'...
this is just 'us', seeking TRUTH, just sharing...

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Sister,
you have shared great Truth for many to chew upon...
HUGS from us both...

I understand your concern. Neither one of those are Baptist doctrines however. Those are just American traditions. I was wondering what it was about the Baptist doctrine that you might have discovered was bad interpretation of scripture. I am not a Baptist.

Scribe,
it is written:
MARK 7:7.
Howbeit in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Scribe,
there are many variations of Baptist Doctrines, sects, who believe and practice their 'own' interpretations' -
the pagan xmas and easter are a very good clue to 'us both' of worshiping in vain and following the traditions of man...
also, we have visited several Baptist churches over many years who apply the 'old-rules' of the scripture/principle
of 'spare the rod and spoil the child' in an abusive manner, etc...
we are simply sharing some of our experiences, and hope that these will help you to understand some things that
are real and that you have not experienced, thankfully...

1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.2 I gave you milk to
drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, 3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? 4 For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not mere men?

The context is a church with only one letter from Paul that is getting most of it's doctrines, beliefs ... from pe0ple with spiritual gifts, who are, for the most part, acting like they have gifts they do not have for self-glorification, filling the church with false doctrines and beliefs.

The question is not whether or not true Christians can act like "mere men", all of us can. Jealousy and strife, believing that a particular pastor or religious leader makes your group superior to the next, occurs. Being fed false doctrines by religious teachers and leaders also abounds, resulting in improper behavior.

But this is not the "division" I was focusing on, i.e. the divisions caused by seeing oneself as superior to other groups with other leaders, or Jealousy and strife being present. I was looking at the division a love for beliefs where people keep on proving their beliefs true and holding fast to them, rather than proving ALL things over and over again, always holding fast to what is true/good is the issue. i.e. truly a Christian verses just believing we are. Indeed, true Christians can be deceived, posses jealousy and strife ... but also indeed, if the pursuit is of truth, of what the fullness of the word of God says and means, and if all thoughts and beliefs are held captive to truth, not the positions held to by ones belief groups, then indeed salvation and correction of belief and behavior will result for those truly saved.

Even in this passage and in the results found mentioned in 2 Corinthians, we see that those who were behaving improperly, / were deceived by false prophets, preachers, speakers in tongues ... correct their behaviors upon discovering the truth. Paul calls the rest, false apostles, workers of Satan... and says that their ends will be in accordance with their deeds. Can a Christian commit murder? Yes. Could a Christian deny Christ 3 times? Peter did. The issue is not whether or not a CHristian can sin. We all can. the question is, can we remain there? THe answer is no for two reasons. First, True Christians cry out for the pure milk of the word of God like a new born babe cries out for food. THey are hungry for truth, are found to be examining the scriptures diligently daily to see if what is said is so, they keep on continuously proving all things over and over again, cutting straight every single passage of scripture that anyone thinks might apply. SUrface answers are never good enough. they search out seek out, pursue truth, not proof of their beliefs so they can justify what they want to believe and do,

Secondly, once they have searched things out, they cannot leave their lives in that old state. If you understand the debt you have been forgiven, you love much. WHen we love we seek to figure out what to do to please our Lord, God and Master, no matter what beliefs need to die, no matter what changes in our lives are needed.

Overall, I believe we are in agreement here.

Hi EmethAlethia


I agree i think one has to remain spiritually aware of all that's going on around to try and establish that 'firm base' within to find some surety. but Jesus is saying a lot of people will just go with the flow. this just resonates with me on so many levels
I think we all have to decide what we believe and ready to confess one day to the Lord, and be ready to do that.


I don't agree with you on this and here is why. In the process of narrowing down what the unforgivable sin is to one specific thing which then never happens, hooray! Unfortunately it misses a far greater point which is the Holy Spirit is very important, so important and feeds into what should be a concern for spiritual discernment. I've been to church services that pretty much welcomes any manifestation as being 'of God' no matter what was going on, they didn't care. definately there were other spirits reaching into that place and that might sound crazy to you i know what i saw. that to me is the entire bedrock point of that command of Jesus to get the Holy Spirit right because he gave his life to give it to us, it's throwing everything back in his face to accept any other spirit
i just can't understand how a command like that gets dismissed as not relevant to today


No way, i think he was hammering home a message to make a point
At some point grace takes over and gives the validation we seek
what i'm trying to say is there is a reason he said what he said because he knew human nature its not that becoming more religious puts you in the saved camp, so if its not that then what is it? its something else, a love of God a genuine desire for God that does it

I would guess that no righteous judge could ever condemn anyone for missing the truth and being sincere while doing so from this post. Objective truth would seem to be quite impossible to determine for the average man, and without access to the truth, a righteous judge cannot condemn or convict. Yet this is not what I see in scripture.

I see people who suppress the truth, exchange the truth of God for a lie, those who miss the righteousness of God because they go to scripture to justify what they want to believe "as" truth. I see that not receiving a love of the truth that far exceeds any of your current beliefs, that results in habitual seeking, proving of all things over and over again and altering our beliefs to fit what is true, ... is what those who will "eventually" get to truth keep on habitually doing, verses those who merely love their beliefs and seek out what they can use to prove them true and all opposing beliefs false.

ALl belief groups who believe themselves to be Christian believe the bible is the, or at least a source of truth. ALl of them also know that it is their belief group who gets all the core beliefs correct, and that all opposing beliefs are false. And all belief groups do the same things to hold fast to their beliefs as truth. Christian or not. The key issue is, which do you love more, the truth or your beliefs. If you love the truth more, your beliefs remain moldable to it, you are continuing to seek, prove, rightly divide, and not trust your beliefs as infallible, unquestionable truths. WHy?

Because once any belief is infallible, unquestionable truth, to even consider anything else is to consider exchanging unquestionable truth for a lie by definition. No Atheist, Agnostic, Muslim, Jew, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran ... or person from any other belief group in the world, can justify exchanging their unquestionably true beliefs for anything else. No one will exchange the truth they KNOW is fact for a lie. Therein lies the sin of pride, resulting in closing eyes and ears firmly lest any of us see or hear the truth and return/alter our lives and beliefs.

Truth is a lifetime pursuit. Those who have it already, and are no longer seeking, proving, rightly dividing on those topics because they have arrived, ON ANY ISSUE, are guaranteeing that they have a deluding influence from God to believe lies. And no, they cannot see this in themselves, but they can recognize it in all the "other" belief groups who do not hold to their core beliefs. But that is what the hardening process is all about. Everyone gets what they want. 2TH. 2:10-15

I agree, there are dozens of things that are either traditions or precepts of men being taught as truth in our churches while what is actually taught in scripture is often openly taught to be sin. But that's not unusual, the religious of Jesus day did the same things. But false doctrines, beliefs, holding fast to the traditions of men while nullifying what the word of God really does say and mean has it's roots is a love for beliefs we hold to "as" truth, and a subsequent hating of anything that might go against our all precious beliefs.

The point being, which belief groups heap to themselves teachers having itchy ears? All of them. How can I say this? Are Baptists free The point being, regardless of the belief group, teaching contrary to any belief held to as an axiom will get you silenced and/or removed under the guise of protecting the flock. Thus the only teachers any group tolerates teach in accordance with the groups beliefs.

Truth is something that many don't want. The sign of being a true prophet of God is that everything He/She says comes to pass exactly as states every single time. Yet people still teach good Friday and Easter Sunday. The truth is good Wednesday and Easter "JUst as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. ". Most people forget that Mary Magdalene arrived "before" dawn on the first day of the week and Jesus was already gone. Also most people never realize that the Sabbath Jesus died on, passover was a High Sabbath, not the regular Sabbath, and that it can be any day of the week.

Add to that the days lasting from dusk to dusk rather than our modern times and "Early on the first day of the week" is dusk on Saturday evening. So figure it out. He was in the tomb at dusk. He had to rise at dusk or He missed His time period for His prophesy.

Now count back, Saturday day, Friday night, Friday day, Thursday night, Thursday day, Wednesday night. Jesus was buried on Wednesday at dusk or He was a false prophet and should have been stoned to death for His own sins. We grab a few passages to have enough data to hold fast to our beliefs, refusing to examine everything that might pertain, refusing to consider that the vast mass of beliefs those who believe themselves to be Christians have amassed might just be plain wrong. In truth, few love truth. Few pursue truth. Most just seek out the passages they can use to justify what they want to believe then stick their fingers in their ears and close their eyes saying la, la, la ... loud enough that no truth that might fly in the way of their beliefs can affect them.

Do you think the following verse is an adequate scriptural concept in regards to your quote above?

"for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law." Romans 5:13

The rest of what you stated is well-said and I generally agree you.

That does pretty much sum it up, ... but from what I understand you were implying people exist who can't find truth that truly want it no matter what beliefs they might have to change ... that ... contradicts scripture. But there was judgment based on conscience/the heart prior to the law. Belief in truth has always been the main point. That always assumes truth is available to those who want it.