I’ve brought this point up to my girlfriend, who then responded with “well there are metaphorical parts of the Bible.” I was left wondering: what metaphorical value could that possibly have?
Anywho, if anybody does this, post the link. Unfortunately, I already bought the DVD, but I could use another copy.
But the actual quote in question doesn’t seem that difficult to deal with.
I’ll take the obvious explanation over your girlfriend’s, if you’ll pardon my saying so. I think that the authors of the Bible thought that if you were to blaspheme, you’d spend quite some time in a rather uncomfortable place.
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
See the thread on God as a Gangster for more on this subject.
Really, this is about as childish as it gets, something only a teenager would do. The idea that saying some magic words is equivalent to a lifetime of denying Truth and making your own is just a laughable matter. That’s like me standing in the middle of a empty country road at midnight claiming I’m not afraid of cars.
Its not what you say, its what you do. Rejecting the Holy Spirit is rejecting God and all that he is including his Love for us and the laws of Truth he has set into motion. By saying and believing he is non-existent and that self is all that matters you are spitting in Gods face and telling him that he is not good enough and you will make good on your own. So that’s what you get when you die, all that you have made on your own without God and all that he made since you rejected it. No one can force you to accept anyone or any thing or idea, not even God, so you get to be all alone with yourself, just like you asked for.
Example:
Like the bad child that complains about the good treatment he receives from his caring parents. The bad child will not be pleased with the shelter and clothing and teaching and love (etc) that he receives, instead he says “its not enough†or “you didn’t give me anything, I hate youâ€. So the bad child forsakes all that the good parents have given to serve himself instead and leaves to go out into the world alone and the world swallows him up because of this ungrateful and ignorant attitude. If you ever have several kids you will understand this better because one will probably be bad and hate you even though you showed them nothing but Love.
This is the best example I can think of to describe rejecting the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit is a good gift from the Father, and to reject his gift and knowledge is to reject him.
I agree with you completely, but it seems to me that most who have posted such videos both are saying they reject the Holy Spirit, as well as believe it, which is reflected in their actions. I’m sure most who post the video don’t go to church, are atheist, and truly believe God, nor Jesus do not and never existed.
This is what I believe, and this would lead me to post a video stating such. Jesus obviously scolded the Sadducees and Pharisees for having contests on who was showing the greater dedication and worship, but stressed that it is actions, not words, that dictate our beliefs. My actions of disregarding the Bible as fiction, not believing in God or Jesus, and even going so far as to make a video stating such, is indication enough for me that I am fully rejecting the holy spirit.
Of course, there is no real way to determine if such actions qualify, as the Bible is notoriously vague, but if there was a hoop to jump through to show I thoroughly reject the holy spirit, and that hoop didn’t violate my own moral system, I would cerainly leap through it.
Of course, it if can never specifically be shown what truly qualifies as “rejecting the holy spirit,” I’d argue we should all fear for our souls, as one day each of us might do just that through one of our actions, but never know it.
Every Christian denomination I’ve run across believes that atheists and so on can be saved, and that they aren’t doomed forever. Atheists implicitly deny the existence of the Holy Spirit, and I’m sure a goodly percentage of them have either said so, or thought so directly. So either every Christian demonination I know of ignores/misinterprets this verse, or it means something different than the video clip suggested.
This clip creates it’s own news, by first stating that what the kids are saying is a sure-fire trip to hell (which is surely controversial among Christians, let-alone theism), then having them do it. What makes this a neat psychological trick is if these kids ever regret what they’ve done (as many of them surely will), they video clip would have them convinced that there’s no point in repentence, or turning back from their decision. Either extremely cruel, or moderately ignorant, take your pick.
Why do you atheist insist on characterizing God from a book written by men or how hypocrites act. Using this flawed input to gain knowledge of God is a sure way to complete ignorance and rejection, but make no mistake; the fault rests entirely on your shoulders for accepting such obvious stupidity out of pure laziness.
I tried to show you an example of actions that would qualify as rejecting the holy spirit in the context that it is supposed to be taken.
Ucciscores wording was much better then mine considering the problems with the kids on the video and I completely agree with that representation.