Yeah, there may be some other things people seek, but I think happiness is the biggest.
I believe in happiness, but I just have problems believing in all those other attributes God is supposed to have. I’ve heard from a couple people who feel that God is love or that God is joy. I wish I could know firsthand what believing in God is like, but I just can’t make myself believe in something I don’t believe in.
On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence for it and no credible evidence against it. Lets refer to Christianity or any religion that bases itself on the gospel including very loosely Mormonism. Every Bible regardless of the version of the Christian faith that refers to it originated from one source. The original Holy Bible, which consisted of the original compilation of all the books joined to make up the Bible, is known as the Latin Vulgate, which included the Old Testament “Septuagint”. To shorten the story, it was compiled and translated from Greek and Hebrew into Latin by Saint Jerome over a period of years at the commission of Pope Damasus around 382 ad, this is the Catholic Church.
To a degree selectivity is a good thing but more so in recognizing priorities than elimination of possibilities. Because something is of a supernatural nature is in no way a sign of impossibility and is in fact only improbable by human standards. As intelligent as we may be it is always in comparison to other forms of life, as we believe we know them. At the same time we already know we are vastly limited by our nature. To be careful is good but should equally take into consideration the possible ramifications to ignoring an eternal life with our Creator. There is no loss in gaining knowledge but definite risks in discounting without knowing.
What is a reasonable assumption but an assumption based on our own limited experience. It verifies nothing yet we accept the assumable. You see, this is wrong and I will give you an example; we have in the past made determinations that certain species of prehistoric life were carnivorous and others herbivores. Since we have developed additional methods of testing, we have proven ourselves wrong in some instances. Some forms of testing we can do today we thought science fiction many years ago and even “supernatural” or “impossible”. One of the criteria we base a prehistoric animal’s relationship to the carnivore family was the size and form of its teeth for instance. Yet man with his comparably small mouth and unsubstantial teeth are and have been the deadliest carnivore alive.
The following is simple but true. Asking a question does not support the subject’s lack of substance but it does prove a lack of knowledge of the subject. If I say to you as we walk through the woods, “run” and you instead of running you respond, “why”, you have opened yourself up to an instantaneous learning experience that you had no idea until that point could or would occur. On the other hand, If sometime in your life you witness a 1200 lb. Tree limb fall in front of you, you now realize it is good to be cautious in the woods regardless of whether you know of what to predict. Think about your statement for a second; “…some of our assumptions are so well established and have been so consistent with later results that it would be almost inconceivable for them to be false”. If we assumed them, they would have to be conceivable. I refer you to the following links for you to check out. I might have mentioned Hawkings before but bare with me on that.
I appriciate your offer. Very good.
The finding of the Tomb of Mary or Jesus,
I believe you. If you believe in the people and places as you said it is a start. Now, how much do you know about human nature?
You said that “It is easy to learn through History the origin of the Bible and the fact that some men took and altered it to form other belief systems.” I agree. But how do you know that these men were not divinely inspired? Jews might say that it was Christians who altered the word of God. Of course you believe that the New Testament is a divinely inspired work, but Mormons believe the same thing about the Book of Mormon.
I pretty much agree with you here. One slight disagreement is that I wouldn’t say that there is no loss associated with gaining knowledge. For example, if I spent my entire life trying to learn as many digits of pi as I could, I would be losing enormously. I would be wasting away the only life that I think I will ever have.
Lets look at your previously mentioned principle of “cause and affect" with human nature and the behaviors of Christ and His followers. Cause in this case referring to the driving force that causes man to do or not do something based on the results that will be incurred, not might be incurred in these cases, but will be.
Yup.In what way did I distort the facts?
Also, what do you think is the best documented example of a healing at Lourdes? I can’t thoroughly investigate every single claimed healing, but I’d be happy to research one of them in greater depth.
“Some cynics would say these independent doctors and scientists are merely collaborating in an exercise in maintaining the powerful image or “brand” of Lourdes. Yet this committee, which has since grown in size and sophistication, will now spend years checking individual cases, with up to 250 different doctors interviewing and testing a patient, before a claimed cure will be accepted as not explainable by science.
Even at the end of this exhaustive process, the case is then turned over to an independent international medical committee, where another set of doctors and scientists re-examine the case and conduct further tests. Then the phenomenon is finally submitted to a vote among the investigating scientists - as to whether any other explanation other than a miracle is plausible. For example, was the condition accurately diagnosed in the first place?
The final part of the process occurs when the Church is invited to decide whether it wants to pronounce that, since the cure is inexplicable scientifically, it is therefore a sign of God’s intervention.”
See links…
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/news/Jan2002/MoreOnLourdesMiracleMSCure.html
Jean-Pierre Bely, who was then 51 years old, married, the father of two children, who was suffering from a severe form of multiple sclerosis. He was cured instantly, completely, and lastingly during a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/ZLOURDES.HTM
Two additional;
http://www.olrl.org/stories/lourdes.shtml
And, I’d be willing to go further as well, though not quite as far as you might be willing to go.
I am skeptical of the media in the sense that I don’t automatically assume that every story must be true. But whenever I have had firsthand knowledge of a story that the media is reporting on, they have done so accurately. So while I recognize that they are often wrong, I think that in general their stories are accurate. However, I have no reason to think that what the Catholic Church says is generally reliable. I realize that they are typically careful not endorse miracles that can be easily disproven, but this doesn’t mean that miracles actually occurred.
The only way you can find assurance of this is to look into who the people are that do the investigatons. You would have a hard time convincing anyone including yourelf how so many people specialized in so many fields, believers and non-believers in God and anyone welcome to take part in any investigation provided they have the credentials to prove they can offer credible opinion could all be bias or deceitful.
I didn’t really understand what you were saying here, but I do know that the Church does not require people to believe in any given miracle.
Sometimes it is good to consider several avenues of thought to come to a reasonable point of probabilities.
But you didn’t answer my second question,
Well I’m not sure I’d agree that all people naturally seek happiness in principle. I’m unsure exactly what you mean by “naturally seek happiness in principle”. I think that there are some people, such as those born with anencephaly, who do not seek happiness.
I was trying to say that “it’s all I have” in order to figure out whether God exists. Even if I had an innate yearning to know God, which I don’t think I do, I would ultimately have to use whatever intelligence I had to decide whether this meant God exists. I don’t just automatically follow all my innate yearnings without thinking about it. For example, I think humans have an innate yearning to have sex with a lot of different people, but I don’t just follow this yearning without thinking about it.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll give meditation a try.
I agree with you, but I don’t see how this contradicts any of the points I was making.
The point is for you to see it worthy to give as much open mindedness to what you are going to be offered as you do for your faith in man’s theories and assumptions. I am giving you a lot of links to go over that may help you with your doubts and to narrow things a bit. It is actually going to be “information crossover” seeing as how I sent you so many responses at one time but sort through them and consider the information in the order you find most reasonable.
Here is a thought you can contemplate on; People in general seek to satisfy what they perceive to be success through monetary or materialistic gain. But no matter what a person earns and no matter what a person buys it will never satisfy. Industry feeds on this principle. This is the first principle in manufacturing of goods such as automobiles and the reason styles change so frequently. When the merchandise lasts longer than is economically reasonable for the manufacturer to generate desired profits, it is easy to raise interest and purchases by tickling people’s pride and ego. If they didn’t there would be no instilled drive (pardon the pun) of the purchasing public to compete with “John next door”. It is extremely ratre for a person to be satisfied with a current state of finances or ownership. Yet those who have the most appreciation for family and God over materialism are the one’s most often satisfied with their lives.
