Posted on 01/03/2002 11:19:13 AM PST by ArGee
A very rich man decided that he wanted to show kindness to the people of the fair city where he lived. Since he was very rich indeed, he decided to throw a banquet for the entire city. He rented the largest sports arena in the city and began his plans. He planned for huge amounts of the best food possible, making allowances for every religious and medical diet. He advertised the banquet in every possible manner - television, radio, billboard, door-to-door canvassing. Considering that there might be some who could not travel, he arranged for free bus transportation to and from the event, and some special-needs vehicles for all who could not ride busses. He even scheduled the banquet to run for 24 hours a day for several days so that everyone could be sure of being served.
He planned long and hard and finally the big day came. The rich man ate quickly and then went about wishing all his guests well and personally making sure that all had every need met. After a while he went outside to tour the grounds and talk with those who had not yet gone in, and those who had already left. Everyone was happy. Many were profusely thankful. It was a glorious occasion.
At one point the rich man noticed a group of people sitting outside a locked door with most unpleasant looks on their faces. Sensing they were not happy, he went over to them. He did not introduce himself but simply asked them if he could be of service.
"We want to go in through this door," one of them replied.
The rich man explained to them that the hall was arranged to feed a large number of people as quickly and effortlessly as possible. This required order inside, and the entrances and exits had been carefully planned to be as efficient as possible. He then offered to go call one of the golf carts that were avaialbe to help people who could not walk far to take them to the entrance. But the man replied, "We do not want to go in the entrance. We want to go in this door. We don't understand why we can't go in any door we wish. We think the man who set this banquet up is mean and hateful for insisting we go in through the entrance. He has tried to bill himself as a very kind man by offering this banquet, but he is not kind at all if he will not indulge us and let us go through this door.
The rich man was distressed at these words, but still attempted to please these people. He tried once more to explain to them what was behind this particular door, and how if they went in this door they would disrupt the meal service being offered inside. He offered to drive them himself, not only to the door, but inside the hall to their tables if they would only go through the entrance to enjoy the meal. Again the man said, "No, but only a hateful man would keep us from going through the door of our choosing. And we will sit here and tell anyone who will listen to us what an awful man he is until he lets us in."
At that the rich man was enraged and he shouted, "Enough." Then he called a police officer to have them thrown off of the property and ordered that they not be allowed to return until the banquet was over and all the scraps had been hauled away. Then, mourning for their loss, he turned to visit with other guests.
Digital IS analog!
(You've got to have a real good d/a and comparator first: all analog.)
Behind the crusades and the inquisitions lies man's greed. They would have occured with or without the worship of God. Hitler wanted to wipe out all who were different from him, and he worshipped no one but himself. Much evil has been done in the name of religion, belief in God is not the cause of this, man is.
Sorry if I have ruffled your feathers wrongly.
Amazing how terrible disasters eventually befall countries that practice slavery. Look at the U.S. Civil War, for example. Or if you don't care for that example, how about WW2? Hiroshima? Was the U.S. immoral for dropping the atomic bomb? The consequences of a society's ills are inflicted on the children, God or no god; fair or unfair.
I read that God inflicts all manner of painful and horrific diseases on his faithful servant Job, in a bet with the devil.
Assuming Job wasn't in on it....
I read that God floods the entire world, killing all of the innocent children, because he thinks none of them are worthy of living.
Actually, the implication of Noah is that there were no innocent children among those killed.
I read that God demands that Abraham kill his firstborn son, as demonstration of his devotion.
Which I've covered.
We can argue which interpretation is right and which is wrong.... You'll say I'm imposing my beliefs on the writing; I'll say you are; and we'll both be right.
Great comment! Those doctrinally-asleep pastors are actually describing the planting of tares!
And God will finish it later. In the parable, He says "Leave the tares alone. I fully intend to burn these hypocrites."
OOOOPS.
That IS what I said, but in practice you get a higher effective resolution by doing a conversion from analog to digital encoding for non-volatile storage than not doing the conversion. In other words, the analog circuitry in the conversion process supports a much higher resolution than an analog recording medium.
Sorry if I have ruffled your feathers wrongly.
Thank you. I'm glad you can see how bad I take any comparison to that evil doer! :-)
PROBABLY? For the only issue which transcends the proverbial "matter of life or death", a probably (for me, at least) does'nt feed the bulldog.
you have to add that, just for curiousity, the disbelievers went to the banquet site, but didn't see any banquet
Actually, when I was a disbeliever, I saw the people waiting in line and laughed at them. Then I came up with a lot of flawed reasoning to support my belief of how stupid people could be to pin their hopes on the writings of goat herders, fishermen, and tent makers, not to mention the interpretations of those writings by televised snake oil hustlers.
But, I never REALLY, HONESTLY sought out the guy putting on the event for his input.
others who believed in the banquet kept disappearing thinking that they were going to the banquet
Here's a news flash; we ALL "disappear".
But they never returned and no one really knew (except by faith) that the banquet ever happened.
Not quite right. One man did come back in widely reported historical event. This historical event is mentioned in more non-biblical ancient texts than is the historical event of the assasination of Julius Ceasar. What's more, is that several of his closest followers went willingly to their deaths for the "crime" of reporting what they saw; they could have avoided some very painful deaths just by copping to their "lie". But they did'nt. They knew what was waiting for them. And as they stood at the very entrance to the banquet hall, being eaten by lions, being burned alive, being killed by having rocks thrown at them, or being crucified; they asked the "banquet organizer" to forgive their killers, and thanked the "banquet organizer" for everything they had been allowed to do (including being killed for His sake).
Except to the person who experienced it directly.
Except to the person who experienced it directly.
Wrong again. If only one person can experience something, it is not reproducable nor is it falsifiable, hence it is unverifiable.
There is no exception here. The experience is unverified, ergo, it is not submitable as evidence.
At least were talking, huh! If there is enough charity between us then maybe we could continue a conversation as some lenght.
I fully agree. I just maintain that the seeking has to be earnest, or it is not to be regarded as seeking at all.
In Jeremiah, the Lord says "You shall seek Me and you shall find Me on the day that you shall seek Me with your whole heart." The Lord seems to be saying that the only kind of seeking which is real seeking is the whole-hearted kind.
This explains Jesus' warning in Luke 13 about agonizing to make it through the narrow doorway of true conversion.
Perhaps even more important, the statement found in Jeremiah fits beautifully with Romans 3:11. Paul really does believe that less-than-wholehearted seeking counts for nothing at all.
The whole picture is wonderful.
Shalom.
As well you should. But Jesus was trying to make a different point, and speaking to a different audience. I was not trying to reword His parable. That would be too great a task for me.
Shalom.
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