This thread is like a scrapyard: some posts are useful (after some considerable recycling), but many posts are only good for destruction

Is success a sign of creativity, diligent preparation, properly appropriated opportunities and intelligence or is it all just predestined luck? IMO God's blessings are not 1-track, a blessed man is blessed entirely and it shows up in everything including his finances. How he handles it will indicate how he got it. A true believer knows that the church operates a commonwealth purse. What excess finances you have, another has as such excess insight and understanding of unrevealed truth. And thats where the body parts complete one another, no one should accumulate wealth while a brother has no meat.

one love, Krayola. I know you meant no ridicule.

JeSoul my dear, lol, trust me I posted this before I saw your reminder. You are welcome, &Girl, that attachment was unputdownable! Wow. Talk later.

*Yawn*

Gnostic mythology and anthropology. So what's new?

@OP: Your facts about Hercolubus are bent out of shape.

Astronomical findings have stated that at the end of every sidereal year (time for earth to make a complete revolution round the sun), after moving from Pisces to Aquarius, the orbit of the Earth approaches the orbit of a planet. The planet is known as "Hercolubus", is believed by some eschatologists, to be the planet the Bible referred to as "Wormwood", while modern astronomers have named it "Barnard I". Hercolubus is about 600 times the size of the Earth, and so as the orbits of the two planets get closer their gravitational and magnetic fields exert forces on one another.

(Emphasis mine)

Hercolubus never comes close enough to physically collide with the Earth, but due to its size exerts very strong gravitational and electromagnetic forces. These forces cause great natural catastrophes to occur on the Earth, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, etc. In addition, Hercolubus' gravitational fields cause the Earth's axis of rotation to tilt. Currently it is tilted about 23 degrees from its original position, and as Hercolubus comes closer and closer the tilting will accelerate. This will result in the poles becoming the equator and vice versa.

Source: http://home.earthlink.net/~gnosisla/March5.html

But then, for you and all the others, its just speculation. Cos someone else seriously thinks Hercolubus is a energy grid that the lost Atlantis city was plugged into, and the last time it was available was when Christ walked the earth, and that this grid is the "Wormwood" of the Bible.
Source: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/mystic-e.htm under the section "Atlantis"

Enough of this joo, abeg. There's today to deal with 

JeSoul:

Lol, my brother, I know no say na interrogation I go face this morning 

In any case these questions should be charged to more articulate people such as yourself and nuclearboy, perhaps, you will be able to do it much more justice than I have.

So you sef, why do you believe the bible and christianity and not other religions? oya talk your own.

JeSoul my dear, now I am back to respond to your question.

Okay, let's roll!    My response is directed at Krayola, DeepSight and co.

Simply put, many people do not know the difference between ice-cream and medicine. There are many flavours of ice-cream: vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, butter pecan, etc. It's the beauty of icecream: choose what you prefer. The flavour you prefer is only a temporal matter. Afterall, you will only eat the icecream and shakes hands with Sir John afterwards. But as for medicine, it does not make sense to choose what you prefer! You can't choose to take Vitamin C in place of an anti-malaria drug just because the first tastes better. And that is very much how faith matters are: some things are not palatable or believable or loveable, but you gotta take em cos that's what you need! Yes, there are ice-cream parts of the Christian walk: like an NL thread I saw JeSoul on - "Makeup is evil for Christians", the defenders screamed. "No! You can't be listening to an RnB song!!" Another mum screams somewhere. "No more TV!", a father tells the family. "Jonah swallowed a trout, the writer got it mixed up!", screams a Nairalander  (sorry I couldnt resist the joke). "The earth is 6 trillion days old!". "322 contradictions in the Bible!". All that stuff is ice-cream. Gimme medicine, and let me live!

About Buddha's elephant, I'm not a Buddhist so I can't tell you what flavour of ice-cream it is if it is ice-cream or medicine. I would like to taste and see but my mouth is full at the moment.
Psa 34:8 Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see-- how good GOD is. Blessed are you who run to him.

Whether some Biblical stories were not historical accounts or NOT, they have made me understand man's relation to God through the ages. Whether they are allegorical or not is a moot point. Aesop's fables are allegorical, so is Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. And Sun Tzu's The Art of War. All over the world, people are still studying them and deriving volumes of new understanding about what the author was referring to. Or does the fact that Jonah's story is an allegory, does it stop me from understanding that when people decide to take turns away from what God instructs them to do, they PAY heavily for it, and when they repent they find out that God had been waiting for them to come back home? Or, if you say Christ's birth was not immaculate, how does that affect me, who has taken the medicine, gotten healed and moved on with my life? Maybe you saw me take the medicine and lick my lips, and so you think its ice-cream that you can decide to take or not to take. But understanding the nature of Christ's birth, for me, is/was medicine, not ice-cream. But it's sweet medicine and I have tasted of it, so you may see me licking my lips each time I approach the matter and think its ice-cream  No, people, it's not.

Lest I forget, one interesting difference about the Christian faith is that UNLIKE every religious and non-religious leader who came before of after him, Jesus never promised that following him would be ice-cream, or that his followers will eventually "get there", that point of satisfaction (or Nirvana, or Enlightenment, or a promise of 72 virgins or so) and be able to rest on their oars. In fact, he said it WAY TOO OFTEN that it was going to be bitter medicine. He kept on preaching the impossibility of earning your way into heaven, and how it was necessary to put your trust entirely in God.

This was what he told Simon Peter,
Joh 21:18  I'm telling you the very truth now: When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you'll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don't want to go."

And this was what he told me, JeSoul, Mavenb0x, Nuclearboy and some other folk here:
Mat 10:34  "Don't think I've come to make life cozy. I've come to cut--
Mat 10:35  make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law--cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God.
Mat 10:36  Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies.
Mat 10:37  If you prefer father or mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don't deserve me.
Mat 10:38  "If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me.
Mat 10:39  If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me.
Mat 10:40  "We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me.

It was gonna be bitter, but it would go easy on our stomachs and make sure we stay well. 

Joh 4:13  Jesus answered her, All who drink of this water will be thirsty again.
Joh 4:14  But whoever takes a drink of the water that I will give him shall never, no never, be thirsty any more. But the water that I will give him shall become a spring of water welling up (flowing, bubbling) [continually] within him unto (into, for) eternal life.

The sweet ones would make you thirst more, not to talk of the excess calories from the ice-cream. 

Mat 8:21  And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Mat 8:22  But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

Mat 10:16  Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Mat 10:22  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Mat 11:30  For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good--not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.

Bitter stuff, but it will make your belly sweet and lengthen your life  

I don tire abeg.  I know it would probably fall on "deaf ears". No offence meant by that, though! 

ancel:

Interesting. I will definitely have something to say here. Be right back.

Ancel enters the thread and sees posts by DeepSight, and the united dissenting responses by Krayola, Easylogic, Viaro, Aletheia, Bawomolo and Mavenb0x and he hides under Ilosiwaju's seat, peeping out to wink at the laughing JeSoul. Asks her, [i]"Hey sis, where's the icon for eating your words? I need to eat the promise that I'd be back to post. O, forget it, this in itself is a post."  . Ancel whispers to the smirking Mazaje, Toneyb and Chrisbenogor, "This thread doesn't seem to be going very nice for the OP".

@Jesoul: Sorry, lovey, Im busy at work right now. When I get home I will answer the questions and post my (other) views!

^^^^
@conversation:
I just love this JeSoul gal!

Interesting. I will definitely have something to say here. Be right back.

@Sauer: You need to grow a functional joke organ. Last time I checked, you were joking about some other people on another thread: "Fundamentalist Christians", and you found nothing wrong with the comedian that was making fun of them (us) on international TV.

Viaro, do you know how many times i press Ctrl+Alt+W to bring up my dictionary whenever I read YOUR posts?

JeSoul, its schadenfroh and yeah I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I couldn't resist it!
By the way, I love I, Robot (and your point). That's one of the very best movies I have ever seen!

edoyad:

In my village the wife cooks while the husband washes clothes. My wife changes dresses like 4 times a day and i have to wash, starch and iron them with a coal iron. That woman will kill me.

edoyad! Always the comedian!!

JeSoul:

No qualms brotha .

and I want you to see and understand that believing in something you or other consider ridiculous has almost no bearing on anything. Whether or not I am fundamental or literalist in my beliefs of the virgin mary is of no consequence to anyone but myself.

 Pardon the blowing of my own horn, but I am a contributing citizen of my community, I do my part in making the world around me better, everyday I am a good ambassador of my family and my country of birth and country of home. I am a research scientist currently working on a drug for psoriasis. I help my neighbors in any way I can, I help strangers find their way around town. And if there's ever a need, I count it an incredible joy and priviledge if I can help. I do all these things . . .

 but yet, according to Religulous and its followers, because I happen to believe little ol' Mary was a virgin when she had Jesus, I should be dismissed as stoopid? and irrational? and a danger to society?

I hope you can see how ridiculous such a gross overgeneralization is.

Thanks, JeSoul, for kitting sauer's head on a nail. I mean, for hitting the nail on toneyb's head. I mean, the head 

Yeah, mavenb0x you are welcome. Great minds post alike  

Tudor!!! What's with the name-calling: fat oaf? Come off it already. And for saying he will steal and repackage, I gotta say Libel is haywire, no matter who you are speaking about. I think that statement's not fair.

Abu[b]zookeeper[/b]! Yeepa! I laugh in banana skins!!!

@Lady Tudor, Who no like better thing?  After all, it could be a supporting aspect of our light that shines before mankind and will make men give glory to God.

Money, to God, IMO, is basically nothing. It doesn't cost him more to forgive sin, or to protect his own, than to make them rich. But the thing on God's heart, I believe, is the REASON WHY the person wants to be rich. If you want to be wealthy so as to be a blessing to others (like how Abraham was), then I guess it's fine. But if are accumulating wealth for the sake of it  , well, I dunno.

Tudor, why don't you forward it?  I'm sure you still have contacts from way back in college, to ensure the message is personally delivered to the MOG.

@Mavenb0x: no mind her abeg. 

Bookmarked. Sounds like an interesting discussion!

I like this! Let me highlight my favorite parts of the post.

Hearing the Word and Receiving it are not the same thing!

These heard it and didn't understand it. They took no heed of it, took no hold of it, didn't bother and didn't really care so the devil came and STOLE what they heard. These guys see church like a fashion or routine.

Without chewing the Word, they swallowed it. There can never be good digestion in their systems! These guys are happy to go to church, pleased with the Sermon, they don't argue with the Pastor but deep down inside, they're not changing! It's hypocrisy, in essence. They endure for a while, for as long as they feel the impact of the Word they got. Yes, that’s it, they go by their feelings, until persecution comes and finishes them off.

These heard the Word and received it, but the little thorns that they had initially ignored sprang up and choked the Word in them! These thorns did not appear overnight, but the soil thought they could be ignored. Riches are not evil, but it’s the deception that often hangs around it, tempting people to put their confidence and expectation in the riches.

These guys not only received the Word, but by meditation understood the Word (not only the sense and meaning of the Word, but their own concern in it, how it applies to them in particular). They got a hold of the Word like how a business tycoon knows his business, and they ran with it; and their fruitfulness was evident to all.

@Mavenb0x: Thanks for sharing! Pls let's have the business enterprise post ASAP.

Toba, but we know little or nothing of the kind of person that Enoch was, from the generally-accepted books of the Bible, besides the simple phrase that he "walked with God, and was no more, for God took him". Doesn't that remind you of Moses, who walked with God so much that he saw him face to face, and God even had to bury him by Himself? If anyone else was in the spirit of Moses (besides Jesus, as Moses prophesied), then it was Enoch. That's what i think.

Two prerequisites for getting things from God.
Heb 11:6  But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].

I think God knows those who are actually praying and believing (as opposed to church groupies who attend services and wail their hearts out with no faith, and return to their vomits after the service), and sometimes what you are praying for is bad for you, but depending on your level of faith, he may decide to go ahead and give you if you are persistent. That's why, IMO, it's great wisdom to enquire if he wants you to have it before you ask for it.

James 5:16
The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].

Is the prayer earnest, heartfelt, continued, and effectual and fervent?
Are you righteous in Christ?
Then the prayer will make tremendous power available, and the results will be dynamic in their working.

Pax Vobiscum.

@GoodMuyis:
I think the two witnesses are Enoch and Elijah because they are the prophets who, according to the Bible, never died and have no bodies.

Heb 9:27 And just as it is appointed for [all] men once to die, and after that the [certain] judgment

So, IMO, they are going to return so that they can die once.

@Topic: I don't do that stuff. The matter of the heart is the heart of the matter: God is more concerned about how you VIEW that "Daddy" figure with respect to God. Some people worship their pastors as infallible, forgetting that Jesus is the Shepherd, and the Pastors are simply the earth where the lush green grass (the Word) grows. Ignorant peccant sheep, they eat the lush grass and they think the earth is their shepherd, whereas a good shepherd will direct the sheep to a special green pasture (maybe even cultivated specially by himself). That pastor-worship thing is a very big problem, I think.

@Pastor AIO: Thanks for the clarification as usual, I was going to say that when I saw Tonye-T's post. I really respect you, sir! Always unassuming but when you have hard facts, you lay them bare. Keep it up.

@Tonye-T: Maybe you meant well when you posted, but it appears you have been misinformed.

FMK, as d winds keep blowing, with each poster revealing another perspective, the winds raise your fowl's rump, and we see more of the sh!tty details you believe.

More crap. In Noah's day, God gave him the mandate and the whole world was meant to listen to him.

But in this case, we have many confused voices talking trash. God is orderly, he does not initiate chaos, so he will deliver the message through a seed, someone He can trust to carry it out. Show us the one person that God delivered the details of 2012 to, and we will hear him out.

Otherwise, abeg leave story, nothing dey happen.

Abu Zola:

Ancel, hope you now know the truth that Muhammad is a messenger of Yahweh

@Abuzola: Yeah. And I remember another messenger of God: a talking donkey in Numbers 22.

And last time I checked, God can even speak through a burning bush, or allow stones to rise up and praise him.

Ki ni big deal?

But as for your friend Mohammed, the eventual fruits of his life did not show that he was in agreement with the Living God. Simple.

Mugu of the highest order! 

And as for those advising him to request a webcam, don't you know that webcams can be faked? (http://www.fakewebcam.com/).

Webcam or not, your Greek sweetheart may be a ritualist from Ojuelegba, Lagos on special assignment in Greece!

Chai! You people still dey here!! Did you bother to ask what the last poster will win?