If you are not a child of God? You are a child of the devil. That is the Word of God - so take it up with him, Capstone. Your propensity for bringing up Lucifer / satanic symbolism - pentagram in your past avatar and signatures before - is coming from somewhere - be it cloaked in humor or not - you've made your choice to not follow Christ but could still change your mind about it (which is what I am praying for). ...
Well, I
do have a dark sense of humor, but the upright pentacle I used for awhile in my signature line was far more reminiscent of the symbol found in abundance in the 'Holy Land' on vessels dated to as early as 300 BC. This symbol includes the Hebrew letters Y, R, Sh, L, and M, prompting archeologists to regard it as 'the seal of Jerusalem'. It's also worth mentioning that the
Testament of Solomon (pseodepigraphical work though it is) describes Solomon's ring as bearing the symbol. In other words: I was using a symbol of the
ancient Israelites (the
true 'chosen people'), as opposed to the six-pointed star of their fraudulent modern-day counterparts.
I did, however, briefly invert it, when I responded to a series of private messages initiated by you; and I have, from time to time, posted distinctly
Satanesque images and vids in your threads. I'm sorry, Jeri, but you really do bring out the worst in me.
In any case, your black-and-white worldview is the direct result of your fundy indoctrination. Since, by your standard of mindless obedience to some sect's preferred set of interpretations, anyone who doesn't believe as you do is a "child of the devil", I'm only too happy to wear that tag! After all, according to your
irrationalist dogma, the only alternative for me would be to shut off my
god-given faculties and fall in line with the flock on its way to the slaughterhouse, demonizing the most noble and beautiful aspects of humanity along the way, all for the sake of spending my 'afterlife' (whether or not such a thing exists outside of the diseased imaginations of fundies like you) in the presence of the psychotic deity described in the Bible. No thanks. Frankly, Hell sounds more appealing to me.
jeremiah said:
...On the matter of my own understanding. The Bible warns against it. Have you not heard?
Lean not upon your own understanding...........?
It is written:
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not upon thine own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5
I should point out to you, this is precisely where your faith became shipwrecked, Capstone.
You started off good but when you were invited by someone to "listen to why they didn't believe" and began to be lured away with their lies, you learned you were no match for the devil and his cunning craftiness. You had not business listening to what you knew was not the truth but you nevertheless went down that road because your intelligence deceived you into believing you could handle it - your intelligence could "keep you" when God already warned you that you were to TRUST IN HIM AND NOT LEAN UPON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING. What part of that memo did you not get, Capstone?
You became your own worst enemy when you decided to disregard the Word of God and cut your own path. What foolishness!
As for the wickedness of the wicked. God speaks to the consequences you will face if you refuse to turn from it.
There is this scripture from Jeremiah:
Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the LORD.
Jeremiah 49:16
and this Scripture from Amos:
Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:
Amos 9:2
No need to quote the holy writ in favor of rejecting rational thought over mindless obedience. I'm well aware of the fact that even the ancients had a good handle on "the evils" of promoting
reason over
indoctrination. They knew, just as well as some of the wealthiest modern-day prosperity preachers, that the gravy train would likely dry up if the flock ever figured out that they could
think for themselves.