Unforgivable sin.

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Meh, what's the big deal? A blasphemer really isn't hurting anyone. Why should God be so damned sensitive? It isn't as if a blasphemer were going to do any real damage to God.

I finally made good on my promise and actually studied up on this.

First, Jesus was speaking specifically to a small number of a specific group of Pharisees. The context of the verse in Matthew is that they were accusing Jesus of casting out demons in the name of Satan or Beezelbul. When Jesus spoke of the unforgivable sin, He was referring SPECIFICALLY to those who had witnessed the acts of the Holy Spirit, the only force by which Jesus was able to work miracles such as casting out demons/spirits, and so on. By ascribing the power to do so to any other source than the Holy Spirit, and honestly believing such, the Pharisees were denying something that had been proven outright, and such things are unforgivable. Jesus would say that blasphemy against Him or God can be forgiven. But denying the power of the Holy Spirit after such incontrovertible proof of the power of the Spirit was unacceptable.

Take the apostle Paul, for example. Paul was confronted by a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. He had previously persecuted Christians, denied Christ, and so on. For all that, he could be forgiven. But having been shown UNDENIABLE proof, Paul had to choose either between stubbornly dismissing his experience as nonsense or accepting the experience as real. Had Paul resisted in spite of this experience, he'd certainly have been guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Such an act is a very deliberate, purposeful one. If you are troubled/worried that you might have committed this offense, MOST LIKELY you're actually safe. Anyone who can truly deny the Holy Spirit won't have any remorse over it.

Maybe the proof wasn't sufficiently convincing, if the Jews didn't believe it. Obviously, the Gospel writers are going to present a biased account of events.

There must have been some aspect of the miracles that could have led to the honest belief that Jesus' powers did not derive from the Holy Spirit.

Even today, there are plenty of television evangelists who claim that they have the power of the Holy Spirit, and many have been proved to be outright frauds.

The blatant fact that thousands of people in this world continue to be Jews (and most of them have had a good education, and have been raised within Christian countries) suggests they have a very good reason not to believe Jesus's claims.

The idea of God taking a sh*t everyday borders on Blasphemy.

ruveyn

Sucide... If I wasn't Christian I would have attempted it until I was sucessful. I did try to kill myself once but when I tried to reach for the gun it's as if an invisible force was holding my arms.

What's blasphemous about a daily bowel movement? For me, it is a moment of profound meditation, and really the closest that I come to a religious experience.

Now, how come I never thought about that? There are a number of places in the Gospels which mention that "and Jesus retreated to a quiet place to pray" or some such. lol I've often wondered if it was a BAD thing that most of my Bible reading was done either on the crapper or while taking a bath. Now I don't feel quite so bad!

Angels flying out of one's a*se? topic

Every living, breathing thing has got to eliminate waste. I was not aware that a supreme deity (god) was living and breathing and subject to decay (death). Jesus was an interesting dude but no god, so no ethereal beings are shed though the nether regions . Thus, for him to take a daily cr*p would not be unusual or blasphemous.

i think you've just found the link between christianity and science! the big bang was the result of dollar beers at god's favorite pizza parlor.

Deuteronomy 23:12-14

The Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, and He hateth to step in poop.

i share the sentiment.

Ummmm.... Basic sanitation? Ever since I moved out of the city, we do something similar in concept--we have a septic tank.

But, yeah, the idea in the NT was somewhat like the modern-day proverb "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." That appears nowhere in the Bible, of course, but here you go. In the case of God's army fighting a war, the idea of God walking in the midst of the camp was very real to the Israelites.

Also--the ark of the covenant would have been a prominent feature in battle because it did symbolize the physical presence of God. As long as they were doing what they were supposed to do, they won some unlikely victories.

I don't know, what do you think? At one point event the ark of the covenant was captured in battle, which represented God abandoning His people even though their enemies suffered some ugly consequences for being in possession of the ark. Could one reason have been that Israelite warriors got lazy, forgot to cover their poo, and God (among other things) was too disgusted by it to tolerate it further?

That sure sounds like a reasonable explanation.

God's people sure did fight and massacre a lot, back in the day.

Yeah, but they also fought and GOT massacred a lot, too--perhaps more often than the victories they won.

Read the end of 2 Chronicles.

Yeah, Cyrus was a pretty decent old chap.