Ok, I'm Starting Again....

[nailit]

Im a blank slate.

''Many are called but few are chosen''
(Matthew 24:13)

Am I chosen?
Or called but am not chosen?

Why would God call some and eventually not chose them?
What kind of mind game is this?

[archibaldy]

Matthew 24:13 doesn't say anything like that in any of the online translations:

https://biblehub.com/matthew/24-13.htm

[archibaldy]

On another note are comments allowed about the Bible being a drug?

[THECORBYLOON]

It is in Matthew 22:14.

[archibaldy]

Not knowing one’s Bible l verse numbers could be a reason for not getting chosen.

[THECORBYLOON]

As I understand the meaning, the "called" are ones who will be given the opportunity to repent but if they refuse, they'll not be chosen.

[JimF]

How any rational person can believe any of this garbage is beyond me...

[archibaldy]

That’s Jim not getting chosen then. Thanks for playing though.

[JimF]

If that means I won't end up in heaven, and heaven is full of Christians, than I couldn't be happier, because eternity in the company of Christians would be a hell for me.

[gness]

Same here, Jim. We’ll end up together somewhere else…………bring wine.

[ToraToraTora]

jimf, you are one of gods chosen people, like wee jimmy you will be preserved in heaven.

[THECORBYLOON]

I would have thought TORATORATORA believed the English were God's chosen folk...

[Stargazer]

Because the gospels were written down several years after Jesus was crucified does not make them fairy stories. Imagine having no books, internet, telephones in the years since Martin Luther King died or Nelson Mandela for example and only those who knew them at the time recorded their experiences some thirty years later, would that render their remembered experiences to be false.

[gness]

Well it would if they too came up with a lot of cock-and-bull, Stargazer.

[naomi24]

Stargazer, the gospels weren’t written by people who remembered him. They were written by people who never met him. Likewise the meanderings of Paul.

[nailit]

Getting back to the question...
(If you have no interest in the Bible/Theology/or Reason/ feel free to ignore this thread.....others DO have reason to question)
The NT categorically states that
''Many are called but few are chosen''

What is the Bible believers response?
I really believed the Bible to be true, as an evangelical, teenage, Christian. I was as 'Born Again' as you ever were.

And yet my intellect took over.
I read many hundreds of books (Yes, Hundreds) both Christian Apologetics and counter arguements.
Mostly to boost my faith, but it did the opposite.

So!
Was I called and not chosen?
And if so, why was your God playing mind games?

[nailit]

//Because the gospels were written down several years after Jesus was crucified does not make them fairy stories.//

It wasnt several years,
It was several DECADES!

[Stargazer]

If it is all make-believe and fabricated, how did it not die out through lack of evidence over the hundreds of years that have passed since the first century? Why did believers die horrible deaths willingly rather than deny their belief?

[William51]

The Gospels were written years after Jesus lived and were from memory. Also the question is a mind game dreamt up to start a debate about consciousness, am i really here or am i a figment of someones imagination ?.

[nailit]

// how did it not die out through lack of evidence over the hundreds of years that have passed since the first century?//

How/Why did the Krishna's not die out then?
Or the hundreds of different religions that abound today?
Are they all true as well?

//Why did believers die horrible deaths willingly rather than deny their belief? //
Why did Buddhists die horrible deaths during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests?
I could quote hundreds of other examples.
But can you quote me JUST ONE example of historical evidence
of ST Peter dying?
Or ST Paul?
Or ST Thomas?
Or ST Andrew?
Or ST Luke?
Or...you get the idea!
Not one bit of historical evidence exists for
this claim that the 'Apostles' died for their beliefs or even that they existed.

And it doesnt answer my OP anyway,
just a distraction.

[nailit]

//If it is all make-believe and fabricated, how did it not die out through lack of evidence over the hundreds of years that have passed since the first century?//

I can ask the same about Hinduism or Zoroastrianism or other belief system much older that Christianity/Judaism