Let's talk about god

[abcdef]

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
If I may offer this,

Rom 8:24, Paul said,"For we are saved by hope (faith): but hope that is seen is not hope:for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
We give up looking for things, hoping to find them, when we do finally find them.

We give up faith and hope when Jesus appears and takes us with Him.

Until then it will always be a matter of faith and hope.


People will never "prove" that God is real, they will never "prove" that there is no God,......through science.


Can you prove to someone that God is real? Can you positively prove that God exists?

Let's put it another way.

Can you prove to someone that love is real?

Should it be that hard? Think of all the love songs that people sing. I lost love or I found it. What about all the time spent in their lives searching for love and sharing it.

And what about guilt over broken love, you did somebody wrong, isn't forgiveness better? Isn't your heart (love) lifted up after working it out ?

You see, love is real, LOVE IS GOD, God is real. We worship love.

When you talk to people, you will never convince them that God is real, because they have a worldly view of Him.
But, can we convince many that love is real.

Can we convince them, that doing the most loving thing that you can do, is the always right thing to do?

Can we prove to them by word and examples, that love is better than no love?

Can we show that to share, is more loving than stealing.

Can we prove, that to "worship love as God," is the right thing to do?


We will never prove to people that "God" exists, but we will convince some that love exists.

Love is God, He loves all

 

[TheAristocat]

because i think that the default position is to not believe(do new borns believe in jesus? seems not)

Hello Karaka. Welcome to the forums. I would like to respond to your questions. While I think it would be important to answer your question of whether or not there is a God, I think it might be best to cut to the chase and talk about the Judeo-Christian God more as I believe details are important and specific evidence is more elucidating than philosophical arguments. But both are valuable.

First off, regarding your sentence above, humans do have an instinctual inclination to believe in a God. So actually the default position for humans is belief in God. And I know this is a cliche example for support, but Helen Keller admitted that she held a belief in a Creator before she ever had the opportunity to communicate with and understand human cultures. The atheist could take this to mean that religion undoubtedly then was invented to fill this need for a God. And theists could take this to mean that God implanted this belief in our being as evidence of his existence.

Both points are moot, but I've learned in my own studies of religion and magic that belief in a God and his divine favor in order to strengthen our ancestors' resolve and confidence for the tasks they needed to accomplish was not a necessity. Some anthropologists argue that magic developed first and religion developed second. Magic is man's attempt, using the law of commonality (read: superstitious belief that because things have common aspects they can influence each other), to influence cosmic forces that he cannot understand. And what does the religious person try to do to his God today? He tries to plead with God through prayer, and - if his problem is severe enough - tries to blackmail or manipulate God into acting in his favor. This desire to drive the cosmic forces to fulfill our needs is what gave rise to magic, and this same desire exists today in every human being. And throwing a God with autonomous thought into the machinery only manages to complicate our efforts toward our goals.

So magic, for many early cultures, was entirely adequate to fill that void of self-confidence and lack of resolve without the need for a God. And from a psychological point of view, it would have been preferable. Humans much more often than not like to be in control of their fate - not relegate it to a deity who has his own autonomous desires. So the next question the atheist must ask himself is: why then from a purely naturalistic and humanist perspective was a God invented? It seems like Occam's Razor would eliminate the need for belief in God.

 

[Miri]

Hi Karaka,

Here is one of those miracles I was talking about.
Medically speaking my aunt should not be alive but she is. The hospital
staff told me they had never seen potassium levels so high in a living
person.

http://christianchat.com/testimonies/126117-miraculous-healing-80-year-old.html


Here is another, this demonstrates the provision of God. There is very little
chance in the natural that £20 million could have been raised. God knew and
via His perfect timing He provided.

http://christianchat.com/testimonies/111548-god-has-provided-20-million-church.html



I myself have experienced God's healing 10 years ago I developed an overactive
thyroid. Graves' disease. The normal thyroid range is about 11ish to 16ish.
The scale used to measure thyroid levels generally goes up to 100, when they tested
me they just put 100 plus as it was off the scale.

For just over 2 years I went to the hosp every 6 weeks for blood work, the thyroid
levels effected various other things in the body throwing everything out of sink.
At times they over treated the condition with drugs and I went under active. They could
never get the balance right.

Several times the hosp consultant urged me to have radio iodine treatment where you
swallow a dose of radioactive iodine to destroy the thyroid gland. It wasn't a cure it
would just have meant I would have a non functioning under active thyroid for the
rest of my life. Plus it is so poisonous that you can't be in the same room as
another person for a week, can't prepare food for another person, have to
flush the toilet twice. Then after that you can be in the same room but have to keep
at least a metre away from everyone else for a month. That's in case you irradiate
other people and unintentionally damage their thyroid gland! I refused that treatment
as I felt it was not God's plan for me that He would heal me, I just didn't know when.


One night I had a dream that I was standing in a field/pasture land. An unknown man
stood in front of me and just said it is coming to an end, then I woke up.
I had no idea what this end was, what was coming to an end was it good or bad?

That week when I went to the hospital they told me my blood work was the best
it had ever been and they were happy with it. After that I continued to go
to the hospital as they wanted to monitor me but it was every 3 month instead of
every 6 weeks. Just over a year later they discharged me with no further
treatment necessary. They also told me that in over 80% of cases so high the
problem returns within 5 years. But if never did. Praise God.


I have also experienced healings for other minor things along the way.

Incidentally I agree with what others have said on here, you can't base your
faith on physical evidence, God is spirit and we worship Him in spirit and in truth.
We have a spiritual side which reaches out to God and vice versa. But as you
want physical examples I have given them to you.

A word of caution though. Even when Jesus walked the earth and performed
miracle after miracle, lots of people still refused to believe, they saw things
with their own eyes but refused to believe as they also had an unconscious bias!

It is possible to be biased against God no matter what people tell you.

 

[Miri]

Oh Karaka,

just one other point, sorry I'm just on way to work so it might have
been covered already. You sort of suggest Christians may be delusional
etc. But Christians are from all walks of life. The proportionate number of
Christians among medical staff is very high in the UK, more so than the
general population. I'm talking about high ranking doctors, nurses, surgeons
etc. I know as I've met many both at my church and know many as friends
and at hospital.

I also know of at least 4 scientists personally who are Christians and many scientists
are Christians generally. These are people who know all about weighing up the evidence.

I know loads of teachers who are Christians and many many intelligent business
people. etc. Not to suggest that us mere workers are unintelligent in some way. Lol
But to show that Christians are from all aspects of the community and from different
levels of social and economic status. So you can't write all Christians off as just
being uneducated easily influenced etc. That's just a get out clause. Lol

 

[bikerchaz]

i think it very odd that people who believe in different religion claim to reach the certainty that THEIR God exists based on the same concept of faith and personal experience. If they are saying contradictory things it is evident to me that some have to be in error. None of you respond to that, you are just saying to me that i'll find out when Jesus talks to me, but i'm asking how do you make sure it is Jesus you are talking to, not Allah or Vishnu ? It seems to me you don't. You just take it for granted out of a cultural bias. And it seems that where you are born is very important in the matter since the guy from pakistan believes in Allah and not Jesus, and vice versa. I find it disturbing that what you believe in should be related to where you are born and in what family you grew up in or what tract was given to you at a vulnerable moment.

magenta wrote

Surrender is not easy.

abcdef wrote

You see, love is real, LOVE IS GOD, God is real. We worship love.

B1davanda wrote

He died for my sins, rose from the grave, and is coming again.
There is absolutely no question in my mind that He is alive forevermore,
that He saved me, and millions of others, by His sacrificial, substitutionary, atoning death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.

There is no other way to be saved except by Him, for he IS the way, there is no other truth of God apart from Him, for He IS the truth, and there is no other life outside of Him, for He IS the life.

All things were made by Him, and without Him there isn't anything made that was made, and by Him all things are held together.
Or as one song based on scripture puts it:
He is the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning and the end,
Son of God, King of kings, Lord of lords, He's Everything,
Messiah, Jehovah, Prince of Peace is He,
Son of Man, Seed of Abraham, Second Person in the Trinity.

He's the Name above all names, and there isn't any other name under heaven whereby man must be saved.
The good news is whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,
For God so loved the world, (including Karaoke and Bavanda), that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever will believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him should be saved.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
That's the best news you'll hear today.

Now, that's the truth. How do I know it? Hmmm. Well.....salvation is a gift.
By God's grace, we're saved through faith, and that's not of ourselves, IT's THE GIFT OF GOD. And it's not by anything mankind could do, or we'd have a reason to brag about it, which is kind of silly when you think of it.

I am truly blessed, I also have seen with my own eyes the blessings of God on here with this thread, I can confirm through the Holy Spirit that you have heard the voice of Jesus. It is up to you. I suppose the main question is "Are you really ready to surrender yourself? Do you have what it takes to 'let go and let God'.

Karaka, unless you are prepared to give your all and all you are to find out the truth it will elude you. It does not matter how many tears we shed or how emotional we get, we can not force God to act. He knows us even better than we know ourselves, and He will find a way to speak to your heart so you will know it is Him when you are able to 'give up'.

While participating in this thread (and I am probably not the only one), I have been conscious of the gifts God has given us through His Spirit. Sometimes we receive something that is obscure sometimes not, books, dropped, three times, we are not told before hand what gift it is because it is not for us it is for someone else. You have said you have read the bible so you will know of the gifts I speak of.

I do pray the Lord will open your eyes and the windows of your heart, so you will see Him in all his glory and know His majesty as your own.
God bless

 

[tourist]

I must apologize! I made a mistake! (This happens with C.R.A.F.T. syndrome )

For all the instances I used the term "cogniznt bias", I meant "Confirmation Bias". Sorry!

I think that they mean the same thing.

 

[garee]

magenta

i am not sure i understand what you mean by:

a spiritual aspect of life. could you define it please?

Hi Karaka

The spiritual aspect boils down to a matter of “one faith” in respect to that which is not seen. And that exclusive faith is not inspect to one’s own belief generated by their own imagination of their own heart . Ultimately it is the work of God's faith as he reveals it to us by which we can believe Him.

His Spirit witnesses to our spirit through His word, though His sealed or circular reasoning.We believe God because he gives us His faith to believe Him and therefore we believe Him because he gives us His faith to make it possible to please Him.

Without His faith working in us no man could believe God who has no form.

New revelations are no longer needed or possible. We have the whole living will of God in his perfect book of prophecy. The last book before he sealed up the possibility of adding to prophecy is the book of Revelation. The warning to not add any more new revelations closes the final chapter..


We reason by His faith that he uses quicken our soul. This freely gives us what he calls simply ones His understanding so that we can seek after Him to know him who has no form.. . it informs us not to lean on our own understanding.

Whose faith do you religiously trust in if it does not come from the imagination of your own heart?

Is it of the things of God as His perfect law of faith or that of men after their philosophies through the oral traditions?

 

[JosephsDreams]

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

– John 5:39-40 (NIV)​

Jesus was speaking to the religious leaders of His day when He said this. The implications are startling: you can be a Bible expert and still not know Jesus! So the goal in reading the Bible is not to read the Bible. The goal of reading the Bible is to get to know and interact with the God of the Bible. To lose sight of this can cause us to miss the very life and peace that God offers through His word.

 

[Magenta]

Hi Karaka,
Here is one of those miracles I was talking about.
Medically speaking my aunt should not be alive but she is. The hospital
staff told me they had never seen potassium levels so high in a living
person.
http://christianchat.com/testimonies/126117-miraculous-healing-80-year-old.html

Amazing testimonies, Miri! Praise be to God, and thank you so much for sharing

 

[Karaka]

Okay guys,



I meant to come back to check on your responses but somehow my internet connection was down and I couldn't get online... now there are a lot to answers, lots of questions asked, I'll do my best but first, after reading all your responses, I think I understood something important.



Please bear with me, let's have a little poll if you don't mind, tell me which of the next propositions you would recomend to me if I wanted to find out if something (anything) is true:



1 – assess the evidence available, test hypothesis and then form theories based on the sum of those evidence



2 – accept a concept as true through faith and then gather evidence to support that concept



3 – evidence are completely irrelevant to truth, you can just know something is true using faith



4 – look around you and pick what the majority of people think is true



5 - none of the above, this way instead : ................................................................................





I would also like to ask what you think is a critical thinker and what you think of them, and if you think you and I should try to be good at critical thinking or not.



It seems to me you and I disagree about how to find out if something is true or not and that it is the reason any believer disagree with non believers about anything.This appears to me to be the foundation of our disagreement. So if you can convince me of the superiority of your position on that matter, then maybe I'll be able to understand and accept the rest of what your are saying better. Let's please leave aside all the other subjects for now and focus on this for a while.

 

[Magenta]

5 - none of the above, this way instead

The best way to know something exists is to experience it.
I think, therefore I am. How would I know, otherwise?
God calls Himself the I AM. Jesus repeated such.
In Him we live and move and have our being.
You have expended a lot of energy seeking answers.
Please don't take this the wrong way.
Sometimes our mind is our worst enemy.
Jesus knocks at the door to your heart.
Not the organ that pumps blood through your body.
Your heart is your innermost self. Where you know things
you may never be able to adequately explain to others.
Where you experience the profundity of life.
Finding God within you is one of the most
profound things you will ever experience.
Your mind will want to refuse and turn away
from such knowledge. Let your heart win when
the time comes to surrender your all to Him.

 

[Karaka]

Okay, a bit for everybody, so this is a long post. my appologies if i forgot anybody, there is a lot to process. And thanks again for taking the time to talk to me. please try to answer my previous post also.





Miri, about your miracles, I have to respond with a story on my own:

I had an accident while spearfishing a few years back, a barracuda almost ripped my left arm off, he ate a big chunk including nerves, tendons, muscle and artery. The bone was apparent and I had to rip the fish off my arm because he was gnawing at my bones. I was spouting blood for hours. after much delay and a very incomfortable trip in a fishing boat, i made it to a small clinic. the doctor attending me gave me for dead. Needless to say I am not resurected, I survived. You would probably think it was a miracle. I never prayed for it though, I am un unbeliever. I was not in a position to think much about it anyway, I was in incredible pain. Nobody at the time understood how I could have survived such a wound. The pilot of the boat was a cuban veteran who fought in many wars, he told at the time to my girlfriend that in his experience, people do not survive wounds so severe. And apparently he had seen a few.



According to your way of thinking, this was a miracle. If I was a believer, I would have taken it as a miracle, like you do. Only I don't beleive, so what did I do ? I asked around, I tried to understand, I used my brain. Turns out that people who are born in high altitude areas, such as myself, have a higher red cell count than people living at sea level. A higher red cell count means you can lose more blood and still have enough to carry oxygen around and keep your vital functions. Sure enough, my blood tests at the time and to this day reveal a higher than normal red cell count. The doctor agreed with me that no miracle occured, there was a very simple and natural explanation for my seemingly miraculous survival which included such factors as my red cell count, the effectiveness of the friend who perform first aid on me, my strength of will, the efficiency of the various doctors taking care of me, sheer luck, etc etc. The local sea level people had no experience with people like me who could bleed a lot before dying, so they called it a miracle.



So maybe miracles happen, but after my experience I must wonder if at least some of the miracles reported, by you and others, are not of the same vein(sorry for the pun) as mine? I must wonder if I hadn't looked deeper into the matter, whether my story could be repeated by people like you as proof that a miracle occured. Maybe that cuban skipper , to this day, uses my story as proof he saw a miracle. I think it is very possible it reinforced his faith. You will probably think, like one of you did earlier, that Jesus used me to reinforce the faith of this man. Allelluiah ! If he did, well, let me say I'm not grateful and I think the guy is a cruel sadist and it will take a lot for me to believe he actually loves me. But I don't think it was a miracle so I don't need to think that.



That personal experience of mine makes me skeptical of miracles in general, I think each should be fully investigated before being accepted as miracles. Your few examples do not strike me as fully investigated, I can imagine plenty of natural explanation for them. It doesn't mean they were not miracles but it is a possibility. At the very least I can not just take your word for it that they were miracles. Given the lack of critical thinking skills demonstrated by the crowd on this forum, I would think most of you accept those were miracles without checking too much into it. A mere anecdote is not proof enough for something as world chattering as the veracity of a miracle. an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence.



And I'm affraid that notion applies to the resurection of Jesus as well. Was the tomb really empty? we only have the scritpure as evidence for it. there is a raging debate among scholars right now about whether the gospels are adequate evidence for the resurrection. the matter is far from settled and i don't understand how you can claim to know better than all those very smart and very educated people. you praise my reading the bible and i appreciate it, you praise my choice of appologists and i'm glad i picked good ones, but i must ask, which of the atheists have you read with an open mind? Have you considered their arguments or, as many of your comments reflect, have you discounted them out of hand because you just know, in your heart, that they are wrong ? you mention not even wanting to read Ehrman because he is not a "true christian". is that really an open minded attitude? if you only study one side, how can you form an educated opinion about something? Ehrman is a very reknown bible scholar, shouldln't you at least listen to what he says ? What is the harm in challenging your views if you are correct anyway? Beside what i said about the bible is not disputed among even the most devout christian biblical scholars. the gospels were really written long after the events by people who where not there at the time. this is not an atheist notion, this is the conscensus among biblical scholars.



Garee

thanks for sharing but you can not seriously be telling me that circular arguments are valid.

This is an insult to my intelligence.





crossnote on prophecies,

i don't find it a good evidence, since both the prophecies and the fulfillement of those profecies are found in the same document. It is a bit circular. The bible also has been edited and re edited by countless people along the ages, and all of those people had an incentive to make the bible more convincing, by doctoring the text to give the impression prophecies were fulfilled. I have read the appologists on that and i think the arguments are extremely weak. Let me know for example which account of a prophecie is the most potent, the most convincing, and i'll look into it. The ones that i think are the most potent i probably encountered before since i did look into this. I think it is incorrect to think that there is ANY evidence of fulfiled prophecies in the bible. Or the quran for that matter.



magenta

on being delusional and needing meds,

i do not know or advocate that you are all delusional and even less that you need meds. I am simply trying to figure out whether you have considered the option that you are delusional about your pretty bold claims, because it is a possibility, i mean some people are delusional right ? Why not you ? How would i know ? and so i ask how you have acertained that you are not delusional about your belief. Isn't that a legitimate thing to ask ?



And education and inteligence has nothing to do with it. I mean i consider myself inteligent enough and educated enough, yet I accept that i could be delusional about some things. how would i know if i did not take the trouble to check and challenge my views? I knew a guy who was thinking clearly about many thing but still did not believe NASA put people on the moon. He was completely delusional about this. Yet he was a smart educated person. So there is no correlation and no stigma to it. I'm not attacking people, i'm challenging ideas. I think it is a healthy positive thing to do, don't you ? I'm sure you consider the muslims are wrong. Some of them are very smart and educated. You still think they are wrong. Why would christians get a special treatment ? Why would christians have a special status that would make them impervious to delusion ? christians need to be as critical about their beliefs as they are about the beliefs of muslims, don't you think?



On spirituality :

i am a skeptic. I do not take things for granted. You might disagree with that way of looking at things, but i find it works better than any other way to look at things. You are advocating to me to stop thinking critically. For the life of me i can't see how that would help me see the truth. The esoterica you describe have been investigated and shown, conclusively to me anyway, to be the mere effect of cognitive biases and logical falacies. Prophetic dreams ? How many dreams do you have a year ? How many things happen to you ? Put the two together and evaluate how likely it is that sometimes you dream about something that later seem to happen in your life. Add a good helping of confirmation bias and you got a belief in fulfilled dreams. Psychologist who have rigourosly studied this phenomena have shown there is nothing there but delusion. I'm sorry.





josephdreams on personal experiences and bible study



i have not counted the time i have spent on studying the bible. A lot of time though. I estimate i know more about the bible than most people i know. I have also read a lot of apologist literature and counter apologist literature. I read pretty fast so i guess how many hours is irrelevant, suffice to say that I consider i have looked into it in depth. For example, i have also read the skeptic annotated bible and that was enlightening when comparing it to the writing of william lane craig. Have you read the skeptic annotated bible ? If not, what have you read to try to get a balanced view of the subject ? i'll be curious about your bibliography.



As for personal experiences, that there are billions of them doesn't change the fact that they are personal experiences. I do not deny them, i try to assess them critically.

One thing seem evident to me, it is that billions of people can be wrong. Don't you agree ?

I think you do since you consider that every single muslim on earth is mistaken. Yet there are about 1.6 billions of them.



Angela about the solenoid miracle

funny you mention that, i have the same symptoms on my generator right now. I am a diesel mechanic. What you are describing to me is a common thing, a faulty alternator, and probaly an old and worn starter motor. Probably the mechanic didn't fix your car by praying, i would think he re charged your battery and changed your alternator, probably cleaned the bushings on the starter and maybe also cleaned the contact points on the solenoid. When the points get oxyded, you hit the solenoid with anything you have handy, and it comes unstuck and you can restart your car. Sounds to me you are not very good on car maintenance... Anyway, all this to say, is that really what you guys count as miracles ? What about non mundane things like people regrowing limbs or things like that ?



JimmiD on the invisible



please take that sentence in its context. Let's not play with words.



Abcdef on love

i had this talk before and it baffled me the same as what you say.

My simple question is : if God is love, why do we have a word for God and a word for love ?

Is love part of God or is love the exact same thing as God. I find this concept extremely confusing.



The aristocract on the need for god



i agree most humans have what we could call a need for god. I also have read some very convincing analysis on that by psychologists and neurologists, and i think there is a natural evolutionary explanation for this sense of god. So i'm not denying it, on the opposite. But i'm also saying it is not in itself a proof of God, just another quirk of how we humans are complex and amazing.

As an aside, i didn't want to get into this but it seems some people here deny evolution. I can see how some of what i say would be hard to grasp without the concept of evolution as background. I can only urge people to educate themselves about this.
So why was god invented then ? Well, good question my friend .
I think the answer would take a long debate and a lot of background check and here might not be the most appropriate venue for that, but thank you for a very challenging question.
A few hints as to which way i would investigate : the meme concept, how ideas evolve and propagate depending on which is most grabbing of attention. I would think that some ideas are able to evolve in such a way that they in a sense , free themselves of the hosts evolutionary needs and go on an adventure of their own. If you see my meaning. So the god concept, as i see it, could have evolved on its own in the mind of early humans as the most potent explanation for what they were seeing arond them. To an uneducated early human, the argument from design must have been very powerful indeed. I think daniel dennett make a fairly good case in this direction. Have you read his book « breaking the spell » ?Anyway, if you want to hang on to that thought, maybe we can have a private talk about it sometime, what do you say ?



and there you go, you dragged me into debating my views... please go back to my previous post about my little poll and let stick to that for now...

 

[garee]

Hi Karaka

Ultimately it is how we "can" hear God according to his multiple instructions so that we can understand him and therefore seek after him to know him, more intimately, as he increases and we decrease. . I will offer a few....knowing the god of the world has blinded the mind from hearing the gospel of those who are perishing.

2Corinthians 4:18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Matthew 13:34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:

Mark 4:11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:

I would say first things of God first knowing that the interpretation of God, as God’s revelation to us is after no man’s private interpretation, as a personal commentary of what they think according to their own imagination of God is and how we can know Him on a personal level. This is so that we do not seek the approval of men according to the spirit of the antichrist, the father of lies.

2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
2Pe 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The commandment to each individual in order for anyone to seek the approval of God that comes by hearing God as the things of God, so that we do not have our faith in respect to each other’s approval as the things of men, which offends God.

2Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

1 – assess the evidence available, test hypothesis and then form theories based on the sum of those evidence

1 – assess the evidence available, (the book of the law the scriptures) We reason by a perfect or complete faith not of our own selves . Compare it as it is written to it . test hypothesis and then form your own private interpretation based on the sum of the evidence of faith available .

2 – accept a concept as true through faith and then gather evidence to support that concept

2 – accept a concept as true through the faith of Christ the anointing Holy Spirit of God and then keep that evidence to support that concept. Faith to faith, as face to face.

3 – evidence are completely irrelevant to truth, you can just know something is true using faith

3 –The evidence of the author of faith are completely relevant to truth, you can just know something is true using His faith or false

4 – look around you and pick what the majority of people think is true

4 – if you look around you and pick what the majority of people think is true. You will be following the spirt of error, the spirit of the antichrist, Satan, as he leads the antichrists, his followers.

5 - none of the above, this way instead : .................................................. ..............................

5 - All of the above, his way: he is the gate by which we can hear God.................................................. ..............................

 

[pottersclay]

And yet again God has taken the foolish things to confound the wise......his thoughts and his ways are higher than your ways karaka.
Not to be offensive but you live in a box my friend...if it doesn't make sense or logic ...or if the theory does not equate to relevance you seem to discard.
To know the true meaning and exsistance of the Lord one must know the definition of God.
The title of God is not a title of gods or a a superior being over man.
The God of the bible has no beginning and no end, he has no limitations, he is all powerful, and has created everything for his good pleasure. There are no gods but him. He is spirit, truth, love, light, he is the great I am.
There is no logic, theory, formula, or thought, that could process his existence.
His footprint is all over history, his handy work can be seen in the night sky. His love is shown at every sunrise. His strength is shown in his mercy and meekness. He is a living breathing all knowing all seeing spirit that one day you and all the rest of the world will meet. My question to you is on what terms.
My friend you are warming your hands at the enemies fire you ask questions but you ask amiss. Can the Lord save you....yes he can. Do you need to be saved,...yes you do..Can he open your eyes to the truth..... yes he can. Does he love you ....yes he does.
Did his son die for you.....yes he did. Man did not create God, God created man.

 

[Karaka]

pottersclay,

I do not see the box. I am under the impression I am asking legitimate questions.
for me the only way to figure out if something is true is by following proposition 1.

it is the only way that has a build in error avoidance mechanism. i can not conceive accepting something as true without first having made sure i was not in error.

you say : "His footprint is all over history, his handy work can be seen in the night sky. His love is shown at every sunrise. His strength is shown in his mercy and meekness. He is a living breathing all knowing all seeing spirit that one day you and all the rest of the world will meet. My question to you is on what terms.
My friend you are warming your hands at the enemies fire you ask questions but you ask amiss. Can the Lord save you....yes he can. Do you need to be saved,...yes you do..Can he open your eyes to the truth..... yes he can. Does he love you ....yes he does.
Did his son die for you.....yes he did. Man did not create God, God created man."

You are giving me the impression you do not want your view challenged, you do not want to consider that you could be wrong. Do any of you think it is possible that you are mistaken about Jesus ? That is it possible that what you believe about jesus is not true ? If you do not consider this a possiblity then i can't accept what you say because it means that you are close minded and have probably not investigated the other side, you have not double checked your beliefs, you have not tried to understand how cognitive biases can affect you, you have not done anything but accepting Jesus on faith. I am sorry but you have failed so far to convince me, not because i want a logical debate, which i repeatedly said i don't want to get into, but because you have shown me over and over that you do not think. You strike me as intelligent and well meaning people, but i cannot but see that you have sacrificed tought and reason and critical thinking for the benefit of blind faith. You have shown me you are not willing to challenge your views. You have shown me you do not understand or value the power of thinking things through. You have shown me you are prey to countless cognitive biases and logical fallacies. Please, i'm begging you, show me what you believe in is based on more than wishfull thinking. I'm going out of my way to give you the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Karaka]

I guess I'm running out steam, i feel we are not talking the same language...
I'd like to throw a few more things your way before I go get on with my day.

I have a lot of other random questions I have been saving up, here they are. They are the kind of questions I ask myself, they are not meant to be offending, please get into them, I truly would like to hear your honest answers to those. As you try to answer them you might start to understand better where I'm coming from and that might move the dialogue forward:



Do you value integrity and reason ?



Is science any good at telling us what is objectively true?



How could your belief in (X) be wrong ? (asked in a non rethorical way, and X could be anything)



Is it okay to apply critical thinking to your most cherished beliefs ?



Are science and skepticism the enemies of religion?



Can you disprove Zeus, Ganesha and Thor ?



Why aren't you a muslim ?



Have you given Mohamed a fair chance, have you tried to seek Allah with faith ?



Why is Jesus not making himself available to all and stop the doubting, why the hide and seek ?



Why does the place you are born matters so much to what you believe ?



If Jesus saves, why don't all people have equal access to Jesus (because they are born in a culture where everybody around them believes and teaches them something else than christianity from childhood on) ?



Can you morally accept that if christianity is correct then billions of people are in hell just because they did not heard about the word of God ? What is good about that ?



On the same token, can you morally accept that Hitler is presumably in heaven since he was a christian and thus presumably repented before his death, while Ann Franck is in hell because she was a jew and was thus never saved ?



If it is so convincing, why has the bible failed to convince the majority of the people alive today ?



If the bible's aim is to convey the word of God and save souls, why isn't the bible simpler and clearer so that the message is clear and easily understood by everybody regardless of epoch, culture and geographical location?



If a just, good and all knowing God really wanted us to seek him, why aren't the bible's chapters organised thus :

Chapter 1 : I am God, I created you and here is the proof

Chapter 2 : Practical advice on how to live a pleasant and good life

Chapter 3 : Practical advice on how to make life pleasant to the people around you

Chapter 4 : How to ensure eternal life in heaven and avoid suffering in hell

Chapter 5 : More proofs with scientific evidence for the pesky doubters who want to use the brains I gave them to check for themselves

It could be about 50 pages long and everybody would accept it. And top it all, it could also be writen in every single strand of DNA on Earth. Why is the bible instead so complex and obscure that there are today about 30 000 different christian denominations, all disagreeing with each other while all claiming to be true to the bible ? Could it be a sign that the bible was written by men, not by God ?

 

[B1Davanda]

Interesting how you skipped B1Davanda.
I guess that post was pretty convincing, but you seem determined to not be convinced. Do you have an answer for the empty tomb?
You resort to scholars arguing. That proves alot, lol.

The scriptures you so readily toss aside contain the words of Jesus.
Do you deny He even existed?
Okay, if you agree He existed, then He made some pretty bold claims, didn't He?

One thing He claimed was that He is the Son of God.
Another thing He claimed is that He would be killed for making Himself out to be God.
Well, He was killed, and that was the charge.
Another claim He made was that after He died, He would rise again to life.
The tomb is empty. If they wanted to stop this 'charade', all they had to do was produce the body.
No one ever did.
Where did He go?

And how do you explain people who were one day rather sheepish and laying low for fear of the authorities, and the next boldly proclaiming the Lord had risen from the grave, knowing this act could get them killed? And in most cases, did.

They could have spared their own lives by producing the body if they had it, or they could have denied their claims and stopped the belief in fairy tales, gone back to their businesses as fishermen and shepherds and tax-collectors, and the whole story would have died out in the first century.

But they didn't. How do you explain that?
Why would they surrender their lives for something they KNEW to be a lie? And, How do you explain people making the same claims, often meeting the same fate of murder, for the last 2000 years?

How do you explain people building hospitals, schools, orphanages, nurseries, nursing homes, homeless shelters, food kitchens, recovery houses, charities, missions and ministries of all kinds, all in the name of this Jesus who was either a liar or didn't exist at all?

And how do you explain that after 2000years, there are many people from different parts of the world, different races, cultures, etc., who don't know each other, and all they know they have in common is their belief in Jesus, talking to and praying for YOU?

And they don't want anything from you except to see you come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved and go to heaven when you die. How do you explain that, except the truth and love of God?

...God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. ~Rom.5:8-10.

Because He lives. The tomb is empty.
He is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah!

 

[Karaka]

B1Davanda, my friend, sorry for skipping you, i guess i felt i had answered the main message you gave which was The tomb was empty.

I would like you to stop for a second and think about what you are telling me.
How do you know the tomb was empty? you don't. you don't know it, you believe it. you are entitled to that belief, but you have no way to actually know this positively. why would the scholar argue about it otherwise, can you answer me that?

 

[Karaka]

your argument as so thin and weak and old that honnestly i wish you could spare me.i don't want to talk about specifics, i would like to get to the bottom of things about faith and reason.

 

[Karaka]

i wish you could realize that you need to believe in the bible before you accept it as evidence, which is circular thinking. instead of talking about how you think circularly, i would like to talk about why you think that circular argument are valid, i would like to show you why they are not... can we do that?