What do you believe and why do you believe it?

  • 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.

Spectrox

Active member
Jul 25, 2019
363
38
28
You have several premises wrong here.

First, joy is NOT the same thing as happiness. What you describe is happiness by the very fact that it comes and goes. It is fleeting and momentary. JOY, is a permanent underlying wellness, that never leaves a Christian. Yes, Christians can be saddened, and even depressed, because we still inhabit a dead, and decaying body, in a dead and decaying world, but through the knowledge of the Lord, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, OUR spirits have a constant joy in anticipation of our resurrected King and new, sin free bodies.


Secondly, God did not create, nor endorse slavery. The Biblical "slavery" that God endures is far different than the type of slavery we think of today. It is far closer to call it indentured servitude, which in that economy benefited the servant, in a similar way that an employee benefits from an employer today.

God's greatest work is the redemption of mankind from his fall. That is why servitude, even forced servitude, and other human activities YOU deem immoral, can be used to bring others to Christ. Leading people to Him is THE Single, MOST IMPORTANT act a human being can do.

It's what EVERYONE here has been attempting to do with you.

WE, deem your blasphemy immoral, yet we endure it in the hopes that you too will be born again from above.
I suppose if I believed I would survive death and have a great eternal life I would feel very secure and joyful, But it may be an illusion. You consider yourself a true believer in Christ? Have you ever done the following? If not why not?

Mark 16:17-19 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
 

notuptome

Senior Member
May 17, 2013
15,050
2,538
113
Of course you make threats. And you hide behind the words of the Bible to do it. Now I understand why you feel the need to do that - I did when I was a Christian. Explain your rationale behind your assertion that "you know you are opposed to what God has declared." Knowledge is "demonstrable true belief". For me to have knowledge of that, I would need to be able to demonstrate it to others or you would have to demonstrate it to me.
You can demonstrate no threats that I have made against you. What can be demonstrated is that God has declared that the soul that sinneth it shall die. This is an indictment of every man that come into the world which includes you and me. Now God has provided a remedy for the problem and it is available to every man equally.

God has demonstrated Himself in creation. Science attempts to devalue God with evolution. To believe man evolved is like believing that a tornado passing through a junkyard can create the space shuttle. All of nature devolves not evolves. The complex breaks down into simpler not the simple becoming more complex.

The eyes of God are upon all the activities of men for there is nothing hidden from Him.

For the cause of Christ
Roger
 

Spectrox

Active member
Jul 25, 2019
363
38
28
So you were drinking heavily when you became a Christian? That just further brings me doubt that you were ever a Christian. Much less that you know what Joy is. Just by your definiton of it. Drinking has never once brought me joy! It has made me happy, had plenty of good times, but JOY? NEVER.
I was speaking figuratively not literally about being drunk. I thought that was obvious?

Slavery. The scripture you point out. Is God the one beating the slave or is it the Jew who was beating the slave? And was the rules made to reduce this behavior? And did the Jews suffer for this atroocities along with many others? Jews were themselves slaves correct? Not to mention the modern day holocaust.
God supports the slavery and created the rules. So Jews being punished in the holocaust is justice for them beating slaves in the OT? This is outrageous and morally bankrupt.

God sees everything and His judgement is true. The born again believer who walks with Jesus does not need to have fear of Gods judgement.
So you consider yourself a true believer? Have you ever done any of the following? If not, why not?

Mark 16:17-19 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So to answer your question as to why should you believe in God, well the contrary awaits you judgement and severe punishment. Because you have no excuse for rejecting God.
You really are coming across as a thoroughly nasty individual in this post. I just hope that wherever you are, you are supervised. Closely.
 

Spectrox

Active member
Jul 25, 2019
363
38
28
Furthermore your first technique was just simply making an emotional statement with no substance - "starting to go down the rabbit hole of presuppositional apologetics - You really don't want to go down . . ."
It was not an emotional statement. It's an experiential one, having had meaningless debates with presuppositional Christians who basically exploit Munchausen's Trilemma to shut down meaningful discussion so it's impossible for them to be perceived as having lost the debate.
 

Spectrox

Active member
Jul 25, 2019
363
38
28
You can demonstrate no threats that I have made against you. What can be demonstrated is that God has declared that the soul that sinneth it shall die. This is an indictment of every man that come into the world which includes you and me. Now God has provided a remedy for the problem and it is available to every man equally.

God has demonstrated Himself in creation. Science attempts to devalue God with evolution. To believe man evolved is like believing that a tornado passing through a junkyard can create the space shuttle. All of nature devolves not evolves. The complex breaks down into simpler not the simple becoming more complex.

The eyes of God are upon all the activities of men for there is nothing hidden from Him.

For the cause of Christ
Roger
If I had an atheist Holy Book and it said "All people of faith will be thrown into Darwin's basement and undergo intensive psychotherapy" and i then told you that, it's still relaying the information to you and me believing that you deserve this fate. It's not very nice and could be perceived as a threat. Christian threats of eternal Hellfire are far worse than that.
 

Spectrox

Active member
Jul 25, 2019
363
38
28
OK, if I take your analogy for a minute - what if you are trying to uncover the wrong "beautiful statue"? Prove to me you have the right statue and I have the wrong one? Everything you see of science and logic may be so flawed and wrong that every bit of it will be shown to be skewed in a million years from now! Prove to me that you are right and I am wrong!
As I've said countless times on this thread, science doesn't prove with absolute truth statements. It's a methodology that produces consistently reliable, testable, falsifiable results.
 

Spectrox

Active member
Jul 25, 2019
363
38
28
God has demonstrated Himself in creation. Science attempts to devalue God with evolution. To believe man evolved is like believing that a tornado passing through a junkyard can create the space shuttle. All of nature devolves not evolves. The complex breaks down into simpler not the simple becoming more complex.
Science doesn't attempt to devalue God. The Bible self-devalues when it's claims don't tally with reality. You think complexity arises from a Sky Hook, whereas complexity actually arises from self-elevating Cranes. Evolution has tonnes of self-corroborating evidence, painstakingly put together by experts. If you want to prove evolution wrong, you could do it with a single discovery - if you find the fossil of a T.Rex on the same geological layer as a neanderthal. So if I were you, I'd start digging!
 

Smooth

Well-known member
Jul 22, 2019
460
627
93
Christianity did not invent good morality or the Golden Rule. Christianity is a Hellenic-Jewish hydrid religion.
Christianity is not a religion. It’s an historical account of Jesus Christ and manuscript of His teachings. Religion is dogma; Christianity is Truth.
 

Smooth

Well-known member
Jul 22, 2019
460
627
93
Are Catholics not Christians? Tomas de Torquemada of the Inquisition killed mostly Jewish people as far as I understand.
Most Catholics do not see themselves as Christian; they can see themselves as Catholic. They see Catholicism as the umbrella, not Christianity as the umbrella.
 
Aug 11, 2019
163
65
28
Most Catholics do not see themselves as Christian; they can see themselves as Catholic. They see Catholicism as the umbrella, not Christianity as the umbrella.
That's exactly how I used to see it, when I was such.
 

PennEd

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2013
13,587
9,104
113
I suppose if I believed I would survive death and have a great eternal life I would feel very secure and joyful, But it may be an illusion. You consider yourself a true believer in Christ? Have you ever done the following? If not why not?

Mark 16:17-19 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

I have related this story before, but it may be worth telling again.

As long as I can remember I have believed Jesus is God and that He rose from the dead. Whether at this particular point I was "born again" I do not know. But it is irrelevant from the Lord's viewpoint, as He is outside of time.

It was during my heavy party days as a late teen/early 20s. I was in full, feed my flesh mode. We use to have a brown Ice tea container, that my mom periodically cleaned by letting clorox bleach sit in for a while to disinfect. I'm sure it was diluted, but I found out afterward that it was still a very strong, likely fatal mixture. You couldn't tell what color the liquid was because it all looked brown.

Anyway, after a long night of drinking, I woke up with a terrible thirst. I went into the kitchen and saw the Ice tea container on the counter. Without even thinking, I guzzled a pretty big amount, right out of the container, (I know, what a slob!) before it hit my brain that it wasn't ice tea!

All in a second, I thought, "this is it! I'm going to die". The wind knocked out of my lungs and a couple seconds later I took a huge gasp of breath. After that, it was as if I had never swallowed anything evil. Didn't even throw up, and felt fine.
Does that qualify?

I don't believe Christians should go around putting the Lord to the test by purposefully drinking poison, or handling snakes etc... But if those things DO happen, HE will protect us. The snake bit Paul. He wasn't trying to find a snake to bite him to show everyone that he could get bit by a poisonous snake and survive.


Will you now please believe?
 
L

Locoponydirtman

Guest
Do you at least acknowledge that what you have said goes against the vast amount of scientific understanding? That The Sun was created before the Earth which formed from an acretion disc?
Prove it.
 
L

Locoponydirtman

Guest
My standard of morality comes from an understanding of what it looks like to live in a co-operative society. Maximum wellbeing to myself AND others. This is also means minimum harm. Look Jimbone. Your faith clearly works for you and I'm happy for you. It just didn't work for me.
Give an example.
 

Sipsey

Well-known member
Sep 27, 2018
1,481
695
113
I’ve known 1 person similar to the one posting. A coworker and nice guy. Real smart, or at least he claimed often to be. He ended up being killed by his only son. His philosophy of life tore his family apart, and ended in tragedy.

Some people think intelligence and wisdom are one in the same, they are not.

For Spectrox; here is a quote from a fellow from your neck of the woods.

“Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”
John C. Lennox

Look John up, I think he is at least as smart as you;
John C. Lennox (PhD, Cambridge University; DPhil, Oxford University) is professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Oxford and an associate fellow of Oxford’s Said Business School. Lennox has published more than seventy scholarly papers and coauthored two research-level texts in mathematics. He is author of a number of books on the relations of science, philosophy, and biblical understanding, including Gunning for God and Against the Flow.
 
Aug 11, 2019
163
65
28
They cannot. All they have is imaginary computer models (that they create, tweak and fiddle with to get certain parameters) that beg the question, assume their apriori, break known laws of physics, and add all manner of ad hoc and then pretend it is 'science' (knowledge).

 

notuptome

Senior Member
May 17, 2013
15,050
2,538
113
Science doesn't attempt to devalue God. The Bible self-devalues when it's claims don't tally with reality. You think complexity arises from a Sky Hook, whereas complexity actually arises from self-elevating Cranes. Evolution has tonnes of self-corroborating evidence, painstakingly put together by experts. If you want to prove evolution wrong, you could do it with a single discovery - if you find the fossil of a T.Rex on the same geological layer as a neanderthal. So if I were you, I'd start digging!
Simple google search provides the answer you seek.

https://creation.com/human-and-dinosaur-fossil-footprints

For the cause of Christ
Roger
 
Aug 11, 2019
163
65
28
Simple google search provides the answer you seek.

https://creation.com/human-and-dinosaur-fossil-footprints

For the cause of Christ
Roger
We could show them topsy turvy fossils all day long, it won't matter to the one who refuses to believe.

It's like a God hater who specifically asks, "Show me Potato Salad".

I then proceed to show them "A salad made from potatoes."

They will simply say, "That's not what I specifically asked for."

It's like a Muslim asking the foolish question, "Where in the Bible does Jesus say, 'I am God worship me.'"

You show them where Jesus is claiming to be God, and receives worship. They turn around and say, "No, the specific words."

When its make up the rules as you go for them, and we play by that rule, we lose.





They even have to deny all of the historical quotations that are direct, mention direct and also the indirect witnesses of Noah's ark upon the Mts of Ararat - http://www.nwcreation.net/noahsightings.html

"...
257 BC Berosus, Caldean historian

"But of this ship that grounded in Armenia, some part if it still remains ... and some get pitch from the ship by scraping it off and use it for amulets to ward off evil." (p. 15).


1st C Jewish historian Flavius Josephus mentions the remains of Noah's ark 3 times.

"The Armenians call that spot the Landing-Place, for it was there that the Ark came safe to land, and they show the relics of it to this day. This flood and the Ark are mentioned by all who have written histories of the barbarians. Among these is Berosus the Chaldean, who in his description of the events of the flood writes somewhere as follows: 'It is said, moreover, that a portion of the vessel still survives in Armenia on the mountains of the Gordyaens, and that persons carry off pieces of bitumen, which they use as talismans.' These matters are also mentioned by Hieronymus the Egyptian, author of the ancient history of Phoenicia, by Mnaseas and by many others. Nicholas of Damascus in his ninety-sixth book relates the story as follows: 'There is above the country of the Minyas in Armenia a great mountain called Baris, where, as the story goes, many refugees found safety at the time of the flood, and one man, transported upon an ark, grounded upon the summit: and relics of the timber were for long preserved.'

"... the country called Carrae: it was a soil that bare amomum in great plenty: there are also in it the remains of that ark, wherein it is related that Noah escaped the deluge, and where they are still shown to such as are desirous to see them" (pp. 16-17).

180 AD Theophilus of Antioch

"And of the Ark, the remains are to this day to be seen in the Arabian mountains" (p. 17)

4th C Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis

"Do you seriously suppose that we are unable to prove our point, when even to this day the remains of Noah's Ark are shown in the country of the Kurds? Why, were one to search diligently, doubtless one would also find at the foot of the mountain the remnants of the altar where Noah, on leaving the Ark, tarried to offer clean and fatly animals as a sacrifice to the Lord God" (p.21).

4th C John Chrysostom

Do not the mountains of Armenia testify to it, where the Ark rested? And are not the remains of the Ark preserved there to this very day for our admonition" (p. 21).

610 BC Isidore of Seville

Ararat is a mountain in Armenia, where the historians testify that the Ark came to rest after the Flood. So even to this day wood remains of it are to be seen there" (p. 22)

1245 AD Jehan Haithon, a monk

"Upon the snows of Ararat a black speck is visible at all times: this is Noah's Ark" (p. 21)

1633 AD Adam Olearius

"The Armenians, and the Persians themselves, are of opinion that there are still upon the said mountain some remainders of the Ark, but that Time hath so hardened them, that they seem absolutely petrify'd. At Schamachy in Media Persia, we were shown a Crosse of a black and hard Wood, which the Inhabitants affirmed to have been made of the Wood of the Ark" (p. 22).

1856 AD Haji Yearam

"It was an unusually hot summer, so the snow and glaciers had melted more than usual. The Armenians were very reticent to undertake any expedition to the Ark because they feared God's displeasure, but the father of Haji thought that possibly the time had come when God wanted the world to know the Ark was still there and he wanted to prove to those atheists that the Bible story of the Flood and the Ark is true.

"They went inside the Ark and did considerable exploring. It was divided up into many floors and stages and compartments and had bars like animal cages off today. The whole structure was covered with a varnish or lacquer that was very thick and strong, both outside and inside the ship. The ship was built more like a great and mighty house on the hull of a ship, but without any windows. There was a great doorway of immense size, but the door was missing. The scientists were appalled and dumbfounded and went into a Satanic rage at finding what they hoped to prove nonexistent. They were so angry and mad that they said they would destroy the ship, but the wood was more like stone than any wood we have now. They did not have tools or means to wreck so mighty a ship and had to give up. They did tear out some timbers and tried to burn the wood, but it was so hard it was almost impossible to burn it.

"They held a council, and then took a solemn and fearful death oath. Any man present who would ever breathe a word about what they had found would be tortured and murdered"

(pp. 46-47).

In 1915, just before Haji died at 75 years old, he told his story. In 1918 on his death bed one of the 3 atheists told his story which matched in every detail.

1883 AD Turkish scientists, soldiers, and a British diplomat, Captain Gascoyne, investigated an earthquake on Ararat.

"At last they were rewarded by the sight of a huge dark mass, protruding twenty or thirty feet from the glacier, on the left side of the ravine. ... It was in a good state of preservation, being painted on the outside with a dark brown pigment, and constructed of great strength. ... the explorers found it filled for the greater part with ice, the interior being partitioned off into compartments about twelve or fifteen feet high..." (p. 57).

1908-10 Georgie Hagopian, Armenian immigrant

"The Ark was resting on a huge rock, bluish-green in color, but one side was on the edge of a steep cliff. The mountain was impossible to climb from the side. When he looked over the edge, he could hardly see the bottom of the mist.

"The Ark was very long and rectangular. Parts of the bottom were exposed and he could see that it was flat. The roof was nearly flat, except for a row of windows, 50 or more, estimated size 18 inches x 30 inches, running from front to back covered by an overhanging roof. The front was also flat. The side tipped out a little from the bottom to top.

"The wood appeared to be entirely petrified" (pp. 70-71).

1916-17 Russian and Turkish soldiers entered the Ark.

1943 American Airmen photographed the Ark.

1948 Kurdish Farmer named Resit

"The prow of a ship protruding into a canyon waas seen. The prow was almost entirely revealed, but the rest of the object still was covered." (p.115)



1953 George Green

Helicopter pilot Green described the Ark lying generally in a north-south direction, situated seemingly on a large rock bench or shelf on the side of a vertical rock cliff at the 13,000 to 14,000 ft. level. He photographed it, but his photos disappeared in British Guiana when he was murdered there in 1962 (pp. 135-137)
..."
 
Aug 11, 2019
163
65
28
Occam's Razor simply works against them when such is given. After that, it's 'contamination, conspiracy, denial, ... eventually silence ...'
 

calibob

Sinner saved by grace
May 29, 2018
8,268
5,516
113
Anaheim, Cali.
I think you've hit the nail on the head about Christian motivation. We are mortal and it sucks. I am opposed to death and disease. I think they are horrible. It is our moral duty to extend the quantity of life and improve the quality of life for everyone. We can't individually do it on our own but we can all make a small contribution. Be a good parent. Wake up to what is going on politically.
The point of living is what you make of what you've got. To live in the now moment and try to appreciate life in all it's wonder and majesty. There may be an afterlife but I do not see how the type of afterlife is determined by whether or not I believe in a very old book of myths and folk tales.
Now you have just insulted everything I believe in the most. Some of the stories may seem allegorical in nature. That's because they would be too difficult to explain in a text any one can comprehend or read in one lifetime, besides God never needed to explain himself to us. The garden of Eden was real the fruits of the knowledge of good and evil are real. The idea the knowledge will make us more like God is real and rebellion against the supreme authority is real.