-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Yup.
I happen to like dogs. I also happen to know that they can't match your intelligence or mine, but that doesn't mean that we should have any special status after death. I know what you believe, I just don't see any evidence for it.
No, the other way around. Kerry, one of the reasons you reject evolution may be that you have such a poor understanding of it.
You've got that much right.
Biologically we are indistinguishable from the apes. We are at the top of the food chain and we are animals. There is no getting around that simple truth.
I am not refusing anything. God is simply invisible and undetectable by any physical test you can imagine. I am willing to believe in him if only you will show him to me.
It is past 1 AM my time – time to pack it in, but I want to point out one last thing: the field of Comparative Religion. The variety of religious experiences around the world, and through time, are as unbounded as the human imagination. If the nature of God was truly obvious belief in him would dominate every culture around the world, today and in the past. The absence of a universal faith should give every believer pause.
I happen to like dogs. I also happen to know that they can't match your intelligence or mine, but that doesn't mean that we should have any special status after death. I know what you believe, I just don't see any evidence for it.
No, the other way around. Kerry, one of the reasons you reject evolution may be that you have such a poor understanding of it.
You've got that much right.
Biologically we are indistinguishable from the apes. We are at the top of the food chain and we are animals. There is no getting around that simple truth.
I am not refusing anything. God is simply invisible and undetectable by any physical test you can imagine. I am willing to believe in him if only you will show him to me.
It is past 1 AM my time – time to pack it in, but I want to point out one last thing: the field of Comparative Religion. The variety of religious experiences around the world, and through time, are as unbounded as the human imagination. If the nature of God was truly obvious belief in him would dominate every culture around the world, today and in the past. The absence of a universal faith should give every believer pause.
A
We're caught in a loop Cycel. I explained to you how it can work for people with your makeup:
Jesus says, "If a man chooses to do God's will, he will found out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" -John 7:17.
Will -->Faith-->Knowledge/Experience-->Belief. It's not for no reason that faith is always a verb in the Gospel of John (e.g. a direction of life that God begins validating).
Many smart people have exercised their will toward faith on the corroborative evidence that exists for God subsequently gaining the requisite knowledge and experience from God resulting in absolute belief.
This why the Bible paints a picture of faith as an instrument. The imagery is that of saving faith appropriating Jesus Christ and everything he has to offer (Jn 11:25–26; 14:1; Acts 16:31; 1 Jn 3:23), the means by which a person is justified (Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16; 3:8, 24), sanctified (Acts 15:9; 26:18), adopted (Gal 3:26), and the action through which a person receives the righteousness of Christ (Rom 3:22; Phil 3:9).
Peter Hitchens was just like you; an atheist like his late brother Christopher Hitchens. He would state he had no sense of God whatsoever and argue much in the same way you do.
The time came; however, that Peter decided to live out the Christian worldview as a Christian despite having no internal confirmation whatsoever in his person exactly as you feel.
What he discovered, and you would too, is that in time God showed up and honored the faith Peter sincerely displayed by exercising his will to be a Christian despite his complete initial void of substantiating feelings with His presence (e.g. God's presence).
Peter no longer is devoid of a sense of God because he has an internal witness today of God Himself.
Though Peter's certainly not the best or smartest Christian apologist in the world; he is very genuine, of above average intelligence, and well read... a good combination taken together. If you ever have a chance to hear Peter give his testimony, go.
Jesus says, "If a man chooses to do God's will, he will found out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" -John 7:17.
Will -->Faith-->Knowledge/Experience-->Belief. It's not for no reason that faith is always a verb in the Gospel of John (e.g. a direction of life that God begins validating).
Many smart people have exercised their will toward faith on the corroborative evidence that exists for God subsequently gaining the requisite knowledge and experience from God resulting in absolute belief.
This why the Bible paints a picture of faith as an instrument. The imagery is that of saving faith appropriating Jesus Christ and everything he has to offer (Jn 11:25–26; 14:1; Acts 16:31; 1 Jn 3:23), the means by which a person is justified (Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16; 3:8, 24), sanctified (Acts 15:9; 26:18), adopted (Gal 3:26), and the action through which a person receives the righteousness of Christ (Rom 3:22; Phil 3:9).
Peter Hitchens was just like you; an atheist like his late brother Christopher Hitchens. He would state he had no sense of God whatsoever and argue much in the same way you do.
The time came; however, that Peter decided to live out the Christian worldview as a Christian despite having no internal confirmation whatsoever in his person exactly as you feel.
What he discovered, and you would too, is that in time God showed up and honored the faith Peter sincerely displayed by exercising his will to be a Christian despite his complete initial void of substantiating feelings with His presence (e.g. God's presence).
Peter no longer is devoid of a sense of God because he has an internal witness today of God Himself.
Though Peter's certainly not the best or smartest Christian apologist in the world; he is very genuine, of above average intelligence, and well read... a good combination taken together. If you ever have a chance to hear Peter give his testimony, go.
K
GoD has shown Himself to you yet you deny it, The Heavens and the stars and the fact that you are here. It shows how much God Loves you, by bringing you here and you thought that you would show the world the reason why there is no God, but in fact, you are seeing why there is a God. Call me a liar, you know in your heart I tell the truth. If I am a liar then why are you here?
K
A
I think Cycel put me on ignore after I dismantled each of his atheist arguments. Now I see him repeating his previously refuted arguments with others here.
Which means that he's caught in a deception loop that is being fueled by his own will and it's preventing him from coming to his senses and escaping from the snare of the devil.
Which means that he's caught in a deception loop that is being fueled by his own will and it's preventing him from coming to his senses and escaping from the snare of the devil.
No. I don't believe there is any deeper meaning to life. Those who belong to the non-Hebraic religions come to very different conclusions than do Jews, Christians, or Muslims (who can’t agree among themselves). This tells me that religious beliefs have their origin in the development and evolution of cultural practices and not in any deeper universal truth. The complete absence of a unified world religion means there is no evidence of a deeper over arching truth. My own view is that the diversity within Christianity, despite the presence of sacred texts, has arisen because of the diversity of views within those texts. The New Testament authors were not as unified in their outlook as most people would assume, hence the rich variety of interpretation believers have derived from a so-called single authority.
LOL. AOK, you presented your rebuttal sometime after 1 AM my time. You are not on ignore. I have never placed anyone on ignore. I made quick responses to those with very short posts, but your post was more lengthy and required a longer, more carefully thought out reply.
I don't see that you have successfully refuted anything I have written. It would be helpful, perhaps, if you were to give me my quote and then immediately follow it with your rebuttal. Then quote another remark of mine followed by its rebuttal, and so on. Take my sentences apart and refute each one in succession so I can more easily follow your argument. You and Kerry often write one long post with no particular reference to my individual remarks, often making it difficult for me to know what you are refuting. I repeat myself because you sometimes make statements that disregard what I have previously written.
I don't see that you have successfully refuted anything I have written. It would be helpful, perhaps, if you were to give me my quote and then immediately follow it with your rebuttal. Then quote another remark of mine followed by its rebuttal, and so on. Take my sentences apart and refute each one in succession so I can more easily follow your argument. You and Kerry often write one long post with no particular reference to my individual remarks, often making it difficult for me to know what you are refuting. I repeat myself because you sometimes make statements that disregard what I have previously written.
The lack of visible unity is evidence that the way that leads to an eternal inheritance in the presence of Almighty God indeed a narrow way through a narrow gate. As I read it, even many professing Christians who profess the Lordship of Jesus Christ will not inherit eternal life. The truth is difficult to obtain. From my life experience, there is a large volume of deceit, self-seeking, hidden agendas and other distortions and distractions that hide the truth.
The heart is deceitful and difficult to know (Jeremiah 17:9). Since our hearts and motives can be difficult to understand, how well can we truly claim to know what motivates others?
If Genesis 1-3 is correct and that view is best, then in the beginning there was one God, one man, one woman, one law and one religion. All of the other religious messages were added later and many were distortions rather than illuminations of the truth. A single monotheism came first. Later, there came polytheism and pantheism. Atheism was not well represented in ancient times but has become more common in modern times when dependence upon technology has increased and apparent dependence upon God has decreased.
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:14)
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
The heart is deceitful and difficult to know (Jeremiah 17:9). Since our hearts and motives can be difficult to understand, how well can we truly claim to know what motivates others?
If Genesis 1-3 is correct and that view is best, then in the beginning there was one God, one man, one woman, one law and one religion. All of the other religious messages were added later and many were distortions rather than illuminations of the truth. A single monotheism came first. Later, there came polytheism and pantheism. Atheism was not well represented in ancient times but has become more common in modern times when dependence upon technology has increased and apparent dependence upon God has decreased.
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:14)
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
Peter Hitchen was an atheist, but he wasn't just like me. He was quite different in a number of ways and below I will talk about one way in which he differed.
The world view he returned to was the one of his youth – the Church of England, only one small step removed from Catholicism.
This is where you go terribly astray when you try to paint all atheists with the same brush. Hitchens, when he converted back to Anglicanism, did not feel exactly as I feel. In fact he felt quite different.
Do you know why Peter Hitchens converted back to Christianity? What you need to understand is that he was one of those atheists who never quite got over their fear of hell. Are you familiar with the Blood, Sweat & Tears song, And When I Die? One of the lyrics runs like this: “I can swear there ain’t no heaven, but I pray there ain’t no hell.” Some atheists actually feel that way. I know I did; that is until I was sixteen. When I was sixteen I somehow lost that pervasive fear, but Peter Hitchens never did, and as an adult it brought him back to God. On a holiday he viewed Rogier van der Weyden’s 15th-century painting, Last Judgment. In his book, The Rage Against God he wrote:
“I had scoffed at its mention in the guidebook, but now I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open, at the naked figures fleeing towards the pit of hell. I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. My large catalogue of misdeeds replayed themselves rapidly in my head. I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned. Van der Weyden was still earning his fee, nearly 500 years after his death.”
So there you have it. A 15th century painting of the pit of hell rekindled his fear and set him on a quick path back to God. That would not have been possible without this latent fear. Susan Sontag, an American philosopher once wrote that no atheist can rest content until the last dragon is slain, and the dragon she spoke of was the fear of hell. Some years ago on an atheist forum I chatted with a fellow atheist about this very subject. The fear I’ve been speaking of he was still in the grip of, and he was very interested to know how it left me. I didn’t know. I couldn’t really give him a good answer at the time, but I think it comes down to losing all sense that God is real (how that happened is another story). If God is not real then neither is Satan because supposedly it was the former who created the latter.
Another thing you need to know, in connection with this, is that this latent fear – in my experience – is confined to those atheists who were raised within Christianity. Those individuals raised as atheists (like my own children) never acquired this fear in the first place. It is not anything they can relate to and in their minds having this kind of fear sounds very peculiar.
So you have at least three kinds of atheists. Those born to Christianity who i) still possess a latent fear of hell, ii) those who’ve lost this fear, and iii) those who have never possessed it in the first place. I submit that it is most likely only those from the first group who return to belief in God. That at least is my hypothesis, and it is up for debate, but if I am right, it becomes very important for Christians, who wish to convert atheists, to understand which group they are dealing with.
The world view he returned to was the one of his youth – the Church of England, only one small step removed from Catholicism.
This is where you go terribly astray when you try to paint all atheists with the same brush. Hitchens, when he converted back to Anglicanism, did not feel exactly as I feel. In fact he felt quite different.
Do you know why Peter Hitchens converted back to Christianity? What you need to understand is that he was one of those atheists who never quite got over their fear of hell. Are you familiar with the Blood, Sweat & Tears song, And When I Die? One of the lyrics runs like this: “I can swear there ain’t no heaven, but I pray there ain’t no hell.” Some atheists actually feel that way. I know I did; that is until I was sixteen. When I was sixteen I somehow lost that pervasive fear, but Peter Hitchens never did, and as an adult it brought him back to God. On a holiday he viewed Rogier van der Weyden’s 15th-century painting, Last Judgment. In his book, The Rage Against God he wrote:
“I had scoffed at its mention in the guidebook, but now I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open, at the naked figures fleeing towards the pit of hell. I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. My large catalogue of misdeeds replayed themselves rapidly in my head. I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned. Van der Weyden was still earning his fee, nearly 500 years after his death.”
So there you have it. A 15th century painting of the pit of hell rekindled his fear and set him on a quick path back to God. That would not have been possible without this latent fear. Susan Sontag, an American philosopher once wrote that no atheist can rest content until the last dragon is slain, and the dragon she spoke of was the fear of hell. Some years ago on an atheist forum I chatted with a fellow atheist about this very subject. The fear I’ve been speaking of he was still in the grip of, and he was very interested to know how it left me. I didn’t know. I couldn’t really give him a good answer at the time, but I think it comes down to losing all sense that God is real (how that happened is another story). If God is not real then neither is Satan because supposedly it was the former who created the latter.
Another thing you need to know, in connection with this, is that this latent fear – in my experience – is confined to those atheists who were raised within Christianity. Those individuals raised as atheists (like my own children) never acquired this fear in the first place. It is not anything they can relate to and in their minds having this kind of fear sounds very peculiar.
So you have at least three kinds of atheists. Those born to Christianity who i) still possess a latent fear of hell, ii) those who’ve lost this fear, and iii) those who have never possessed it in the first place. I submit that it is most likely only those from the first group who return to belief in God. That at least is my hypothesis, and it is up for debate, but if I am right, it becomes very important for Christians, who wish to convert atheists, to understand which group they are dealing with.
A
This is statement is ignorant. An uncaused effect or beginning-less anything or anyone may contradict your personal experiential knowledge of reality in a single linear time dimension; however, it does not contradict reality itself which is extra-dimensional as any good astrophysicist will be happy to explain to you.
Just how many of extra-dimensional time dimensions (or their equivalent) God accesses we do not know, but we do have theoretical, observational, and theological proofs for them.
And just one more offers the possibility of an infinite number of time lines running in an infinite number of directions. God has the capacity, thus, to move and operate backwards and forwards along an infinitely long time line, or along as many time lines, infinite or otherwise, as He chooses.
He can operate, if He desires, on a time line parallel to our time line or on one intersecting our time line, but He is not compelled to do either. Thus, God has the capacity to cause effects for infinite time on innumerable time lines that never intersect or touch our time line.
As such, we could point to no beginning and no end for Him. Since beginnings only make sense where time in some way is
linear, God is a beginning-less Being. He has always existed and will always remain. He never had a creation event nor needed one like you have and do Cycel.
A number of Phd astronomers and astrophysicists have published everything from scholarly research papers to popular books on this single subject. You should take the time to read them. Here's one to get you started:
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Cosmos-Recent-Discoveries-Astrophysics/dp/0984061487
Just how many of extra-dimensional time dimensions (or their equivalent) God accesses we do not know, but we do have theoretical, observational, and theological proofs for them.
And just one more offers the possibility of an infinite number of time lines running in an infinite number of directions. God has the capacity, thus, to move and operate backwards and forwards along an infinitely long time line, or along as many time lines, infinite or otherwise, as He chooses.
He can operate, if He desires, on a time line parallel to our time line or on one intersecting our time line, but He is not compelled to do either. Thus, God has the capacity to cause effects for infinite time on innumerable time lines that never intersect or touch our time line.
As such, we could point to no beginning and no end for Him. Since beginnings only make sense where time in some way is
linear, God is a beginning-less Being. He has always existed and will always remain. He never had a creation event nor needed one like you have and do Cycel.
A number of Phd astronomers and astrophysicists have published everything from scholarly research papers to popular books on this single subject. You should take the time to read them. Here's one to get you started:
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Cosmos-Recent-Discoveries-Astrophysics/dp/0984061487
A
What I meant is that he had the same problem you do. Of course, he was his own person with his own unique set of characteristics and environmental upbringing.
But Peter became a Christian because he recognized his need to... something every person has in reality, including yourself, irrespective of whether or not they acknowledge or are even aware of it.
Peter found that God honored His own Word and forgave him after Peter exercised his will toward faith acquiring the knowledge and ultimately the actual experience of God imbuing Peter with His own presence an event that removed doubt and left him with genuine belief rooted in both knowledge and experience.
But Peter became a Christian because he recognized his need to... something every person has in reality, including yourself, irrespective of whether or not they acknowledge or are even aware of it.
Peter found that God honored His own Word and forgave him after Peter exercised his will toward faith acquiring the knowledge and ultimately the actual experience of God imbuing Peter with His own presence an event that removed doubt and left him with genuine belief rooted in both knowledge and experience.
A
I also recommended "Who Made God? Searching for a Theory of Everything" by Edgar Andrews with special attention to chapter eight 'Steam engine to the stars: time and the hypothesis of God.'
Who Made God?: Edgar Andrews: 9780852347638: Amazon.com: Books
Who Made God?: Edgar Andrews: 9780852347638: Amazon.com: Books