Let's talk about god

mpaper345 · Apr 12, 2016

God surely does exist,which creation testifies that there is a higher power,that is good,and loving,because He provided for our needs,food,clothing,and shelter,and is wise,intelligent,and powerful,so people are without excuse,and the Bible testifies that He is the true God,because He showed us the whole history of mankind.

Evolution is a joke,because all things did not come about by chance,so if evolution had a reason for what it did,it would not be aware of it,but evolution is not true,for evolution perceives nothing,and evolution has to perceive things,to cause things.

Why would evolution give us eyes to see,when during the evolutionary process,it would not be able to perceive that there is anything to see,to give us eyes to see it,it would not be able to perceive that there is anything to hear,to give us ears to hear.

Evolution perceives nothing,so how could it cause all these things to come about.Our body parts are in the best place they can be,not only for best functioning,but also for best looks,and believe me evolution did not do that.

Evolution perceives nothing,so evolution is not true,for it could not cause anything to come about.

God said if He gave people eyes,can He not see Himself.God perceives that there is things to see,He gave us eyes.God can perceive there is something to hear,He gave us ears.God can perceive everything,so He can create greatly,but evolution perceives nothing,so nothing would come about.

JesusLives · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

I have prayed to God and in some cases He answered right away.... One time while driving the car it stalled as I was coming up to a stop light and it was during rush hour and I prayed God please don't let people honk at me because it will make me so nervous and I tried to start the car while it was still rolling forward but nothing.. So I saw a gas station on my right and thought if the car will keep rolling when it hits this incline into the station I will jump out and push the car off the road.

Mind you the car never came to a complete stop and no one but God knew I was having trouble... So I had my car door cracked open looking at the ground to see when the car hit that little incline and when it did it still had power rolling and I looked up and saw the biggest whitest smile from a man pushing the car that I just couldn't believe it. All of this took about 30 seconds.

I had my young daughter with me and I was so anxious about the car that I got out and took her to the bathroom at the station which just sold gas not a full service and worried what to do....I realized that I had not thanked the man that pushed us in the lot and I wanted to say thank you and when we came out he was nowhere to be seen I looked up and down the street and we were not in the bathroom that long...

So we got back in the car I was pretty broke and I prayed Father please start the car and I turned the key and it started when it had not when I tried to start it before.... We drove home and I even later made a call to a friend to check out and see if it was the fuel pump and he couldn't find anything wrong with the car and it never stalled like that again..

I don't know how that man knew we were in trouble or what caused him to push the car but he did and he was there in an instant and gone the next....after I had said that little prayer when the car stalled and was rolling....

I have other stories too but that one came to mind the quickest for an instant answered prayer....and God fixed the car too after the other prayer...

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

sorry mpaper, i do not really want to discuss evolution with you, i am trying to stay focused on other things that are less polarizing... i would respectfully advise you to read more into it though because it seems that you have an incomplete understanding of what evolution is about and it seems to influence the way you think about this matter... but i don't want to start that debate here. i acknowledge that what you are saying might be a powerfull reason for believing in God but if what you are saying is representative of what you understand about evolution, then you are very misinformed about evolution. i have looked into the argument you are presenting in depth and I (once more, respectfully) disagree with you. Evolution is certainly not a joke and beside evolution certainly isn't incompatible with a belief in jesus, as shown by catholics for example. evolution could very well be the method God used to create and that is the belief of a lot of christians and non christians believers. If the argument from design was compelling to me i wouldn't try to go deeper into the question as I am. what I am trying to go into right now is more the personal experience and faith aspect of belief and how it leads to certainty.
thanks for your input though.

JesusLives · Apr 12, 2016

I haven't always walked with God there are times that I walked or ran away from Him...

I was talking to Him one time as I walked across the work parking lot and for some reason that I don't remember right now I was mad at Him and said... God I'm not going to talk to you and as I continued my little rant.... I then heard in my head a little chuckle and a question... What are you doing now? I had to laugh as I realized that even though I was mad I was still talking to Him so I can also tell you He has a sense of humor.

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

jesuslives,

interesting story, for the sake of discussion, and in no way trying to take this away from you, could i ask if there are times when you pray as well and your prayer is not answered? it seems to me that if I heard your car stall and saw you needed a push i would have done the same as this man. from your story is sounds like the man helped you, not God. as for fixing the car, I am well versed in fixing engines, and believe me, sometimes engines stop and restart for seemingly no reason... how do you know it wasn't the case this time? so i guess what i'm trying to ask is what do you do to find out whether your prayer was answered or whether it was just a fluke?

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

and to answer your latest post, can I ask you how you know you are talking to God in those instance, and not merely having this impression? your experiences seem powerfull, i don't have them, but i understand some people , for example a muslim guy i'm talking to as well at the moment, is talking to Allah in the same way you do. i 'm trying to determine how to figure out which of you is correct. can you help me with that?

Word_Swordsman · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

An issue most common between most people in the world now and for thousands of years back, is religion. The notion there is no "god" at all could still get you beaten to death in India. The main reason, as I understand it, is any dismantling of established, accepted religious entity there is illegal, why still priests forbid conversion from Hinduism to any other religion. Right away an agnostic or atheist ought to realize their membership in a tiny minority of humanity.

I like to point to Acts 17 as applicable to any nation on earth, among all people groups to some extent. Paul visited Athens, found some Jews and other God-fearing citizens or maybe fellow visitors, sharing the gospel with them. He was heard by some Athenians who were among the elite Greek philosophers called the Areopagus. Paul was brought before that committee, which besides debated ideas, also guarded the realm of ideas such that Athens was protected from new religions, or adding of one more Greek god. They had plenty to deal with, many idols throughout the city. But Paul had been to mars Hill and found one altar "To the Unknown God".

All along was with that city an accepted god idol they knew nothing about! God has been among people like that all along, yet few if any bother to investigate. It remains just another idol, an idea. Paul resorted to that altar, having by it opportunity to present a new religion, identifying the Person that altar spoke about. Some of the Aeropagus scorned the idea of Jesus and his resurrection, but some believed.

The hearing of the word of God, the gospel, allowed some hearers to believe by faith such that some Aeropagans of Athens followed Paul.

All people of earth can begin using belief in idols enough to sacrifice even their children to them, giving up kmouontains of wealth to dumb idols of stone and metal. Possibly they do so through superstition mostly, but many do so because their very culture exists around some supposed god or goddess.

Belief like that becomes biblical "faith" when a person not only agrees with knowledge of the only living God, but acts upon faith such that they change the direction of their life by the power of God through Jesus Christ. No other religion/belief can offer faith since there is no possibility of a person relationship deeper than a cultural bond. No other religion allows a god or goddess to die for the sins of worshipers.

Over a period of struggling over mere belief about Jesus, when I heard it preached about those possibly most intelligent people on earth believing on Christ, following Paul, my own intellectual barriers began to dissolve. The day finally came when I suddenly accepted that Jesus is alive and God was inviting me to follow him, beginning a life of following him instead of avoiding further knowledge of Jesus.

Once I passed through that encounter with Jesus (not at all as wonderful as Paul's), I didn't have to live by hope about Jesus, for then I knew Jesus. I knew him because of the word of God I heard, by faith believing since faith came by hearing it. From then faith rewarded me in many ways, at first seeing people I knew healed by miracles, setting me up for my own personal amazing miracle healing events which came by prayer and standing firm on the promises of the word. It wasn't easy, for I had become and was very active as a Southern Baptist member, among people that cautioned never to presume upon God for anything.

12 of Jesus' earliest disciples joined up with the Lord, followed him by the faith from his words, and even though they all abandoned him during his crucifixion week, that faith instilled in them brought them back, except Judas Iscariot. None of us can physically walk dusty trails with Jesus like they did, but every day of my life is geared about listening to his voice deep inside my being, then doing what he says. it's been a great life in Jesus Christ.

I don't rely upon faith to "find" God. Hope helped me find him, faith introduced me. Today that faith in Jesus, and knowing him personally is what keeps me following with eagerness, together with all that comes from building a godly personal relationship. Lack of spending time to develop that relationship makes it impossible to follow. That's what happened to Judas, who left the presence of the Lord, seeking his own desires apart from Jesus.

I hope like many here you will begin with hope, then find Jesus through the words of his good news (gospel) while enjoying the benefits of his faith.

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

word swordsman, thank you for this deep response, i need to digest it...

i notice you separate hope and faith, which i understand, but is faith about believing or about knowing?
if it is about believing then how does it lead to certainty? or am I missing something?

about atheism being a minority, yes i agree, according to wikipedia only 9.6% of the world population is atheist. but i would have to say that doesn't count all the believers who do not believe in others gods than their God. an hindoo would definitely call you an atheist about all his gods, and at this stage i merely disbelieve in one more god than you do, isn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Demographics

Zmouth · Apr 12, 2016

Magenta said:

Actually that is the Catholics who claim God made the Universe from nothing, or rather St. Thomas Aquinas holds a special place of honor in Roman Catholicism.
In his Summa Theologica, Thomas argues that God directly created every human soul and directly made the original body of Adam. He insists: "The rational soul can be made only by creation" (I:90:2). To be clear, he means that each human soul, which is the formal principle of the body, is created directly from nothing: "t cannot be produced, save immediately by God" (I.90.3).
Thomas considers creation ex nihilo to be the pre-eminent meaning of the word "create." As he puts it: "To create [in the unique sense attributable to God] is, properly speaking, to cause or produce the being of things." (I:45:6). In other words, God doesn't just take pre-existing stuff and fashion it, as does the Demiurge in Plato's Timaeus.1 Nor does he use some something called "nothing" and create the universe out of that. Rather, God calls the universe into existence without using pre-existing space, matter, or anything else. So when he creates the universe from nothing, God's creative act is an act in eternity that does not involve changing one thing into another.
Source

slave · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

God Himself, by way of a relationship with Him, thru faith, and the Holy Spirit, living life longingly forward and upward while dead to my right to myself by the grace of God who sent His Son to conquer Sin on the Cross for me, as my New Life, or New Creation. And proof is seen as I obey God and His glory is platformed and He does His supernatural normal stuff around my life and in my life, transforming me and others unto Himself.

Word_Swordsman · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

Hope looks toward something to happen or to posses. Faith is having it already even though you can't show it to someone, can't prove to them you have it. Faith is for an individual to realize inwardly, one by one convinced in the "inner man" of the spirit, then joining with the mind to the renewing of one's mind. Here's the Bible definition of faith: Heb 11:2 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2For by it the elders obtained a good report.

Hope is fulfilled by possessing faith, what God requires for us to know him. You can't arrive there by the mind of man. So it is a person can spend an entire lifetime hoping for something, never possessing. The possessing ends the need for hope for the thing hoped for.

I learned a valuable lesson about hope and faith even before being a Christian. I went through high school too poor to expect to attend college, but hoped I would someday be able through saving up for it. I wanted to be a geologist. Upon graduating HS, I got a letter from a college informing me of the day and time to report for registering, what sort of possessions to bring, but not mentioning the cost. My parents didn't have a clue what was happening. I struggled with that, almost thinking it was a cruel joke. I regretted even telling my parents about it, as when they told it, that caused people to laugh it off, that their boy would be embarrassed to show up then be sent away. I certainly hoped someday I could afford to attend, but doubted the time was about to come so early.

The night before I was due there I finally decided to go there. When I got to the end of the line that included my last name letter, I was told everything was arranged, paid for in advance, so I could move in to my dormitory. That ended my hope to attend some day. I was attending. I kept attending solely on the faith that whoever was doing that for me would continue doing that. Faith in that mysterious benefactor kept me from going after solid job offers. My dream happened, so in a sense my hope had accumulated possession of that which I had hoped for for several years. The provision stopped when I was drafted for Vietnam, the college telling my mother's aunt I would not be finishing. She sent me a letter to encourage me, that way letting me know it was her who provided 2 years of college funding. I had never met her according to my mother, but she was very real to me by her provision. She had also done the same for my mother's favorite cousin, who became a cardiologist, excused from military duty. I quickly joined the Navy, which wanted people with some college, then leaning about the GI Bill, so had more possession of what I had hoped for, faith that I would end up with a professional career.

At the time of all that I didn't know about "hope" or "faith", but when confronted with the gospel of Christ, began to realize the differences.

Word_Swordsman · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

A for instance is Hindus won't say a non-Hindu is an atheist. They would simply think you are on the wrong track by choosing a god that isn't on their list of millions of gods and goddesses. The idea is that if a person understands what "atheism" means, then if a person is worshiping a volcano vent, that person is not an atheist. So the statistics say about 9.6% of humans worship nothing having to do with any deity someone of a religion might regard as a true or false idol, though may in fact practice "humanism", which can be considered a religion of worship of humanity if identifying as a "humanist", not an idolater of an external deity. I hope that makes sense.

JesusLives · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

If you re-read the story you will see that I prayed the prayer the car never came to a complete stop so I did not hold up traffic and no one but God knew I was in trouble... How did this man know to push my car when it was still moving? It had to be God in my opinion as that is the only explanation I can come up with - I prayed He immediately answered I the form of this mans help.

I prayed for a husband and the answer was wait and at times I thought the answer was no, but 35 years later the answer was yes....after I'd given up.... God always answers prayers and those answers are yes, no and wait... God knows what is best for us and He does things in His timing not ours... if it were my timing I'd want everything yesterday....lol

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

thanks for the clarifications swordman
i think we agree that faith and hope are different things...

I'm analyzing what you are all saying about faith

One of you said:

"faith is believing without seeing"
the bible quote you provided sounds similar in essence...

there is a famous quote from Mark Twain in one of his books that goes:

"faith is believing what you know ain't so"

how do you know what you believe in "is so" if is not through the senses, through reason and logic and evidence and anything else? « believing without reason » sounds dangerously close to "pretending to know something you don't know" and i'm affraid the story of your aunt helping you through college reinforce that idea...

I find it odd that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason and intelect would have intended us to forgo their uses. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by believing without reason, then to me it seems like you are conceding that it can't be taken on it's own merit. Any thought on that ?

It seems to me that the concept of faith, as some of you explain it, blends believing with knowing, in effect saying « i know because i believe » but that can't be it because knowing and believing are two very different things so if anybody could try to clarify that for me I would appreciate it.

Besides, how would you react if an atheist were to tell you :

« you have to believe in atheism on faith.you must have faith that there is no god. If you believe in your heart that nothing transcend nature and that humanity is the highest judge of morality, then you will know that atheism is true. »

You would not accept it, would you? So why do you think it is different when you say it to me about Jesus?

Something else disturbs me :

Some people have delusions, it is a proven fact of psychology, some disturbed people believe weird and impossible thing contrary to reason, like they are Napoleon, or aliens abducted them or fairies lives in their gardens or what not, and their faith in their delusion is sometimes very strong. You are emphasazing the power of faith to introduce you to God, in effect saying that faith is necessary to know God, but it seems to me it is very important in that case to differenciate faith from a delusion, especially since all around the world religious people of different faiths make faith claims contrary to each other, indicating clearly that at least some of them are in error, they can't all be true at the same time. Why is faith in the existence of Allah or Ganesha more or less valid than faith in the existence of Jesus? From where I stand I can not make the difference.

So the big question is: what do you do to differenciate delusions from valid beliefs?

Being delusional is about refusing to revise your belief when you are shown to be in error, so an important question to start answering the previous one is how could your belief in Jesus be wrong? Have you ever considered what would make you change your mind about Jesus? (I'm not saying you should, just wondering what it would take).

JesusLives · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

The Bible tells us in the end of time that people will say to the Lord we did this or that in Your name we even cast out demons and He will say to them get away from Me I never knew you.... The truth is one must have a relationship with God, and that comes by reading His word the Bible and talking to Him by prayer or as in my short story just talking to Him like a friend and yes, sometimes I get mad at my friends too...lol The point is we have to develop a relationship with Him and that is a love, trust and obey relationship... God has impressed me to do things I would never do or choose to do on my own, but He asked me to do it and I wish I could say I always say yes and do it, but I don't.

Two things that had me asking Him are You sure was He impressed me to ask to sing a solo at a church I don't attend as they were having a weekend series of meetings and a friend asked me to go with her this was not even my idea in the first place and I got this impression and I am asking the Minister of that church if I could sing at the end of the last meeting hoping that he would say no, but he had his music minister listen to me sing a line and the guy said yes please sing... I don't sing solos I love to sing harmony in a group of people and I am shaking in my shoes, hands sweaty and dry mouth....very nervous but I did it because God asked me to.

The second thing was He asked me to preach a sermon....you have to understand that in High School I was suppose to give a speech and I knew it backward and forward and practiced many times. Got up in front of the people looked at them and my mind went totally blank, major stage fright.....burst into tears and ran off the stage never gave the speech... So I say to God remember what happened the last time? But it was a sermon on Salvation and right before I was suppose to preach a guy had gotten really emotional and I'm like Lord please help me get through this because I don't want to cry when I am trying to speak....well went to the ladies room and my bulletin which tells the order of the service falls into the clean water of the toilet bowl. I snatched it out before it got all wet and tore off the wet part and it was a few people who went before me on the dry part I saved from the water...so I told that story to start the sermon showed them the ripped piece of bulletin and we all got a good laugh out of it....and with God's help I preached that sermon on Salvation... I would NEVER choose to do that on my own ever....

We humans take time to develop relationships with each other but how many of us choose to develop a love relationship with God? To listen to Him and do what He impresses or asks us to do?

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

JesusLives said:

just trying to think this through, couldn't the man have noticed that your engine was no running? could it have been evident from the dismay on your face that someting was wrong? could he have merely see you coast by trying to trun the key with no effect, probably looking down and starting to stress? those seem like possibilities, do they not?

as for your husband, glad to hear you found one... but i must ask, were you not looking for one all this time? what were the odds you would NOT find a husband after 35 years of searching?

have you ever heard of the confirmation bias?

JesusLives · Apr 12, 2016

I just wanted to add that God would never ask us to do something that goes contrary to what the Bible teaches.

JesusLives · Apr 12, 2016

Karaka said:

I don't know how anyone would know I was in trouble with the car still moving... as to the husband no I had given up and I was NOT looking and my prayers had even gone to I don't know what to pray for where a mate is concerned... Actually I met my husband here on CC.

I joined thinking oh goodie, other Christians to fellowship with and within two weeks they were calling me names, and one even said I had a demon or was one...I asked God then What am I doing on this site? I was in the Bible Discussion Forum....the answer to that question was they are not fighting against you they are fighting against Me so you need to act like Jesus and respond kindly to show what and how a Christian should respond.... actually I went and hung out with the Atheists that were on the site then many of them have been banned by now but back when I first joined some of them were nicer to me than some of the Christians sad to say...

Anyway I digress....my husband joined the site several months after I did and we kept running into each other in responses on different threads, my cat died and I was upset and created a thread to talk about the cat and that is when we started to correspond, met and ended up married November 27, 2014.... God works in mysterious ways...

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

JesusLives said:

have you read the bible recently?
I'm affraid the bible teaches some things that I wish it was not teaching, such as:

slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 & Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9). If that is permited I don't know what we could come up that would be worse...

that is another one of the problem i have with a belief in God at the moment... but for now I'd like to keep the debate away from the problem of evil and keep to the concept of faith if possible.

Karaka · Apr 12, 2016

but i don't want to be banned so let's keep to the subject of faith... i acknowledge what you say about prayer, thank you for sharing

i repeat the question though, have you heard about the confirmation bias?

Let's talk about god

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