The Bible code
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First, the codes in the Bible are not for salvation. They merely support the truth of God's written Word which testifies of Jesus Christ (Who is salvation - 1 John 5:12). Second, read Revelation 13:18. Does it not tell you to count a number as a part of wisdom? What do you think passage tells you to do? Third, what are the odds that each number in the Bible has a specific repeatable meaning?
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I don't know who you are agreeing with, but it is not me. We are talking about religious faith here, not the kind of faith or trust that I place in my dentist. I know that my dentist is not infallible. He might make a serious mistake, but I trust that most of the time all will go well on my visits. I also know that my views on evolution, for example, are open to modification. I do not have locked-in beliefs, in fact I fully expect changes and revisions and even completely new discoveries that will require that I modify my outlook or interpretation. You, on the other hand, don't expect to modify your religious beliefs at all. You don't expect that new findings will ever require you to dump some aspect of your beliefs about God. Your faith is locked-in because it is a religious faith.
Religious Faith: strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof (Oxford Dictionary of English).
You have asserted that my atheism is a type of faith; however, I also believe Zeus and Quetzicotal do not exist. Is that also something I believe on faith? How would you judge my belief that leprechauns do not exist? Is that a faith? I know you do not believe in Santa Claus, is that a type of faith? Where does it end? It gets a little meaningless after a while, doesn’t it?
If you believed Anubis existed, I would say you had a faith in Anubis; but if you said Anubis does not exist, I really would hesitate to call that a faith. A person who believes in the existence of a supernatural being can be said to hold the belief on faith. A person who rejects a belief in the same supernatural being because he can find no evidence for its existence does not reject the belief on faith. Belief is rejected simply because no corroborating evidence is at hand.
I understand why you want to call atheism a faith. It is because the existence of God seems so obvious to you that you think someone who doesn’t believe must be ignoring the evidence. At least I think this is at the heart of it. You will correct me if I am wrong.
I will end with Hebrews 11:1 – “And what is faith? Faith gives substance to our hopes, and makes us certain of realities we do not see.” The problem is, if we can’t see a specific reality then for all we know we are simply imagining it. There is enough disagreement in Christian theology to make it clear religious truth is not as obvious as some believers would have us believe. For us atheists, on the other hand, the simple absence of belief leaves little for us to quarrel about.
Religious Faith: strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof (Oxford Dictionary of English).
You have asserted that my atheism is a type of faith; however, I also believe Zeus and Quetzicotal do not exist. Is that also something I believe on faith? How would you judge my belief that leprechauns do not exist? Is that a faith? I know you do not believe in Santa Claus, is that a type of faith? Where does it end? It gets a little meaningless after a while, doesn’t it?
If you believed Anubis existed, I would say you had a faith in Anubis; but if you said Anubis does not exist, I really would hesitate to call that a faith. A person who believes in the existence of a supernatural being can be said to hold the belief on faith. A person who rejects a belief in the same supernatural being because he can find no evidence for its existence does not reject the belief on faith. Belief is rejected simply because no corroborating evidence is at hand.
I understand why you want to call atheism a faith. It is because the existence of God seems so obvious to you that you think someone who doesn’t believe must be ignoring the evidence. At least I think this is at the heart of it. You will correct me if I am wrong.
I will end with Hebrews 11:1 – “And what is faith? Faith gives substance to our hopes, and makes us certain of realities we do not see.” The problem is, if we can’t see a specific reality then for all we know we are simply imagining it. There is enough disagreement in Christian theology to make it clear religious truth is not as obvious as some believers would have us believe. For us atheists, on the other hand, the simple absence of belief leaves little for us to quarrel about.
Hi Dan,
I spotted my name so thought I would jump in. I don't know what the discussion was about, but it seems to me Watty might be correct. If something lies beyond our consciousness then that says to me it is beyond our awareness, but is it beyond our ability to detect it? If so then belief in the thing in question must be grounded in faith. What were you guys talking about?
I spotted my name so thought I would jump in. I don't know what the discussion was about, but it seems to me Watty might be correct. If something lies beyond our consciousness then that says to me it is beyond our awareness, but is it beyond our ability to detect it? If so then belief in the thing in question must be grounded in faith. What were you guys talking about?
W
Cycel, you took my post the wrong way. Satan deceives us through changing the definition of words. Words do not evolve. Example: The word gay in biblical days meant happy, joy, and celebrate, homosexuality was not a part of the definition as it is now. Most young people only know the word gay to mean homosexuality, people under 35 years of age. Do your own survey ask various people from different age groups what does gay mean.
Is God's word so weak that it needs support?God's word is truth without code support.... is your faith so little that you need support? then ask God to increase your faith...what can a code tell you that God cannot? You say you trust God but your confidence is in man's devices... Count a number does not mean to look or a code.....or follow a code...
almost everything at the hands of man is birth in simple imagination.....specific reality one could not see.... the Wright brothers and those before them imagined something and there was enough disagreement to make it clear that men would not fly.... until they succeeded...Columbus believed the world was round when everyone else was convinced it was flat...until he sailed beyond the edge of their belief....For those who cannot see the reality of God he simply calls them blind...how does one describe air to a blind man when he himself has not seen it....but that does not alter the fact that it exists....
W
Good question Dan, If I have never seen a triangle shaped airplane and someone comes to me and says what they have seen and describes what they have seen in detail, I may accept what that are saying. Just because I accept what they are saying does not mean I am a believer. They may have said the airplane was in the shape of a triangle and no engines could be seen (Stealth fighter jet). If I have never heard of any type of triangle shaped airplane before, my acceptance of his story may persuade me to further investigate so that I can believe.
First, none of what you said here refutes any of the points I made in my previous post. Second, noticing that God's Word is divine by seeing that there is evidences that back it up is not a lack of faith but it is simply recognizing a truth that exists about God's Word. One still needs faith to believe. I have posted these evidences to atheists and they still don't believe. So no. You still ultimately need faith. For my decisions of faith was not based on evidences in 1992 (When I first accepted Christ) and or when I renewed my faith in 2010. However, to recognize that there is evidence that proves God's Word is true is not wrong. Christian apologetics ministries are not wrong for showing people that there are evidences that back up the Scriptures.
A
No Cycel, you are talking about religious faith. I'm talking about a great many things which include both faith in general and the faith that you've chosen to willfully exercise.
Atheism is a metaphysical worldview which requires faith to assert a certainty about the falseness of all transcendent religious assertions and the non-existence of God.
As someone who interacts with God and experiences the supernatural, I know that your atheistic worldview is false. But that's a result of actual experience at present and not faith though initially my journey began by exercising my will in a saving faith toward what turned out to be the correct worldview in which case faith became an instrument and not a fruitless exercise like your own faith in the false atheistic worldview is.
And you're continuing misunderstanding of how faith is used in the bible needs to be constantly corrected. In the bible, faith is a word that refers both to intellectual belief and to relational trust or commitment. Biblical faith certainly is not the unsupported belief in flying spaghetti monsters you atheists misrepresent it as.
Atheism is a metaphysical worldview which requires faith to assert a certainty about the falseness of all transcendent religious assertions and the non-existence of God.
As someone who interacts with God and experiences the supernatural, I know that your atheistic worldview is false. But that's a result of actual experience at present and not faith though initially my journey began by exercising my will in a saving faith toward what turned out to be the correct worldview in which case faith became an instrument and not a fruitless exercise like your own faith in the false atheistic worldview is.
And you're continuing misunderstanding of how faith is used in the bible needs to be constantly corrected. In the bible, faith is a word that refers both to intellectual belief and to relational trust or commitment. Biblical faith certainly is not the unsupported belief in flying spaghetti monsters you atheists misrepresent it as.
Watty, words do evolve. Language evolves. We don't need a supernatural explanation to explain why this happens. Are you really unaware of this phenomena? The evolution of the English language is very well documented. You can look it up.
First of all the word ‘gay’ did not exist in biblical days. According to my 3 vol. Oxford Dictionary the earliest appearance of the word gay in English (meaning mirth or joy, light hearted or carefree) was in the late 17th century.
I am well aware of the shift in meaning of this word. Dan Dennett, a leading member of the 'new atheists' tried to match the success of the homosexual community in re-branding the word 'gay' by appropriating the word 'bright' as the new catch-all term for atheists. So far it has not caught on.
All languages evolve, Watty. I could give you quite a number of examples of this, but I will leave you with the Lord's Prayer in Old English from the year 990:
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod. To becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg, and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. Soþlice.
First of all the word ‘gay’ did not exist in biblical days. According to my 3 vol. Oxford Dictionary the earliest appearance of the word gay in English (meaning mirth or joy, light hearted or carefree) was in the late 17th century.
I am well aware of the shift in meaning of this word. Dan Dennett, a leading member of the 'new atheists' tried to match the success of the homosexual community in re-branding the word 'gay' by appropriating the word 'bright' as the new catch-all term for atheists. So far it has not caught on.
All languages evolve, Watty. I could give you quite a number of examples of this, but I will leave you with the Lord's Prayer in Old English from the year 990:
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod. To becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg, and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. Soþlice.
If you say God is truth why do you need man's truth to tell you that God is true.....If a man does not believe God's truth do you think he will believe man's truth about God? ...I am convinced of God I need no other truth outside the scriptures ....that does not mean they are bad or good....they just don't measure up to the faith that God has given me... so to even consider them would be a retrograde step ......
Actually, Jesus used real world examples called parables. So you're belief is unbiblical. Also, Paul quotes secular works. The Bible tells you to count a number as a part of wisdom and the Scriptures declare the magnificence of God's creation, which is not His Word. In other words, you would have to close your eyes to even the Bible itself just to fit a false belief that you have about God and His Word.