Do Faeries exist?

[seeker777]

Until the atheist is willing to receive, they won’t receive. Seems logical, n’est-ce pas?

Do you not think there are Atheists who lived an entire life of faith, only to fall away in bitter dissapointment at the silence?

You seem to suggest that there are no atheists who were not at one time, exuberant, praising, God happy believers.

I suppose that you could say ’ they didn’t pray hard enough, they didn’t have enough faith or they didn’t like the answers God gave them’.

That would be naive if you said that.

 

[seeker777]

to believe, they would be enabled to.

What of those who believed there entire lives, only to walk away in confusion and unbelief?

Are you suggesting that they " didn’t really believe"? If you are, that’s laughable.

 

[chewchoo]

What of those who believed there entire lives, only to walk away in confusion and unbelief?

Are you suggesting that they " didn’t really believe"? If you are, that’s laughable.

what lead to the confusion?

here you sound like you want to believe but earlier you said belief is just a figment of people’s imaginations. which is it?

 

[seeker777]

Is that close to the way that you see it?

No.

God created Satan, Satan committed a sin. Satan is the most evil creature in the universe. God being omniscient, knew when he created Satan, that Satan would sin and that he ( God) would cast Satan down to earth.

I don’t think you understand what it means to claim God is omnsicient.

You suggest that Satan doesn’t prey on Gods children. What say you about Demonic possessions and the Roman Catholic Church’s need for Exorcists?

God could have sent the most evil being in existence 300 light years away where he wouldn’t bother anyone.

No, God set Satan up on earth.

God set Satan free in the same playground that his children play in.

What kind of parent does that?

 

[tobias]

Everything except for the supernatural ( can’t prove it’s real) can be done by a secular atheist. You have not provided one real ‘thing’ that can only be done by a person of religion.

You said what a religious person has done or does do that a secular person doesn’t or can’t. Look at the list again and at least be honest with yourself. (you can lie to me all you want)

 

[tobias]

God is omniscient.

God created Satan knowing he would rebel

Satan rebelled and God cast him down to earth

Satan preys on Gods children

God accepts this

Christians brush this all off with a wave of ’ free will’.

Yet God, being omniscient, willingly created an angel that he knew would rebel and by his placing Satan on the earth, God also knew that Satan would prey on his kids.

God knew all of this ahead of time, yet went ahead and cast the most evil being in the universe in the same playground as his kids.

For God to have 'unwilled ’ this would have been an unraveling of the economy of mercy, which is neccessary for imperfect beings to share in the life of God.
It would have been an undoing of those (angelic and human) wills that did/do choose the good. Where is the justice in that? I thought you were against unjust punishment.

 

[seeker777]

You said what a religious person has done or does do that a secular person doesn’t or can’t. Look at the list again and at least be honest with yourself. (you can lie to me all you want)

1. Pray for the good of their enemies. - Supernatural, studies prove that prayer from strangers does not heal the sick any better than no prayer. Why would praying for an enemy be any different? In any event, it’s supernatural.
2. Desire humility. - Atheists can desire humility.
3. Start a ‘human’ institution that has lasted over 2 millenia. - Ancient Egyptian society lasted 3000 years.
4. Bring a dead language back to vernacular (Hebrew) - The revival of Hebrew beyond its use in the liturgy is largely an early 20th-century phenomenon, and is closely associated with Zionism. Knock yourself out, the revival is in line with secularist Zionism than anything religious.
5. Have faith. - An atheist can have faith that their favourite football team will win the big game.
6. Remain celibate to serve others. - Although denying natural urges is likely unhealthy, nothing is stopping an Atheist from remaining celibate to help others. ( I cannot see how remaining celibate could help anyone), unless of course the person were a sex offender. Then remaining celibate would be very helpful and for the great good of society.
7. Look forward to Heaven. - **Supernatural. **
8. Engage in spiritual warfare. - Supernatural
9. Exorcize demons. - Supernatural
10. Self infliction of temporal punishment for sin. - Supernatural
11. Unite the Roman Empire. - The military united the Roman Empire by conquering her neighbours. You credit religion for uniting the Roman empire, do you also blame religion for it’s fall?

There’s a reason why this question has never been answered. There are no special attributes that only the religious possess. It is an illution.

 

[seeker777]

duplicate

 

[CHRISTINE77]

An entire lifetime of silence? Yep, silence isn’t that helpful. If there is a God, his silence is most unhelpful.

You’ve never even heard that still small voice?

You need to listen better.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Are the answers you get not what you want to hear?

An entire lifetime of silence? Yep, silence isn’t that helpful. If there is a God, his silence is most unhelpful.

Apparently, you’re using your “ears” wrong. Or more likely, unconsciously making noise yourself louder than what your supposedly listening to.

This always reminds me of the person covering their ears and mumbling “yah yah yah yah…”, so as not to have to deal with the responsibility of hearing what they don’t want to hear.

But then, perhaps the silence itself is the message? Perhaps the silence is an invitation to give up something before being rewarded with further conversation? What might that “something” be, I wonder?

 

[CHRISTINE77]

No.

God created Satan, Satan committed a sin. Satan is the most evil creature in the universe. God being omniscient, knew when he created Satan, that Satan would sin and that he ( God) would cast Satan down to earth.

I don’t think you understand what it means to claim God is omnsicient.

You suggest that Satan doesn’t prey on Gods children. What say you about Demonic possessions and the Roman Catholic Church’s need for Exorcists?

God could have sent the most evil being in existence 300 light years away where he wouldn’t bother anyone.

No, God set Satan up on earth.

God set Satan free in the same playground that his children play in.

What kind of parent does that?

You confuse me. It sounds like you very much believe in God, but you are angry with God for some reason.

God is good and merciful. Don’t be afraid to come to his mercy.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post

Until the atheist is willing to receive, they won’t receive. Seems logical, n’est-ce pas?

Do you not think there are Atheists who lived an entire life of faith, only to fall away in bitter dissapointment at the silence?

Yup. It’s the old “no atheists in foxholes” scenario. The atheistic faithful, those following their own particular variety of the religion of atheism, very often “fall away” at the end, because the atheistic “end” is simply unbearable.

Now, if you mean are their those who are God-believers who, due to the disappointment of “their perceived silence of God”, fall away from being God-believers, then I’d say there most certainly are!

But they never do that at the END of life, unless they are in such despair that they commit the proverbial “sin against the Holy Spirit”, which is the sin of utter despair where they literally accept that they deserve to be in hell.

You seem to suggest that there are no atheists who were not at one time, exuberant, praising, God happy believers.

Not at all. Their are no children who are atheists, though. Atheism is a learned behavior. Being non-atheistic does not necessarily mean one is even aware, much less a member of, some established “belief system”.

I was an excellent example of that. Raised utterly secular, though not atheistically, my “religion” (belief system) was that the universe was both orderly and beautiful. “God” was the “orderer” who allowed me to experience as a pleasurable thing the beauty of that order.

It wasn’t until two years ago November that I discovered I was Catholic, and started the initiation process to become fully what I’d always been.

I suppose that you could say ’ they didn’t pray hard enough, they didn’t have enough faith or they didn’t like the answers God gave them’.

Once again, our “disconnect” is a definitional one. One doesn’t “pray hard”, one prays well. If one doesn’t know what prayer is, one can’t do it well, and doing what you don’t know how to do HARDER simply reinforces the negative consequences of not doing what one should be doing.

Faith [verb] is believing (a belief) in hope (of what the belief promises) through time.

• If one thinks “faith” is not a verb, not something one has to DO (properly, by the way), then it’s not faith.
• If one doesn’t have a firm belief to have faith IN, then one isn’t actually believing.
• If one has no hope that the belief is true (CAN provide what it says it will), then one is hopeless.
• And if one can’t persist until the hope hoped for is given, or partially given as God’s wisdom provides, then the whole exercise is moot.

That would be naive if you said that.

What I would say is what I’ve said above. Is what I’ve said above naive?

 

[tobias]

1. Pray for the good of their enemies. - **Supernatural, studies prove that prayer from strangers does not heal the sick any better than no prayer. Why would praying for an enemy be any different? In any event, it’s supernatural. **

The definition you offered for supernatural is what can’t be proven. I’ve listened to hundreds of christians pray for their enimies. Just go listen to some christians pray, proof.
** Are you saying that christians are supernatural? They do claim to have a supernatural relationship, is that what you mean.**
Additionally, how does effectiveness validate or invalidate? Wheather effective or not we still do it. secularists do not.

1. Desire humility. - **Atheists can desire humility. **

**On what basis could that happen? **

1. Start a ‘human’ institution that has lasted over 2 millenia. - **Ancient Egyptian society lasted 3000 years. **

A society is cumulative beings. I said institution. And besides the Egyptians were subject to the ever changing will of eacfh pharao.

1. Bring a dead language back to vernacular (Hebrew) - The revival of Hebrew beyond its use in the liturgy is largely an early 20th-century phenomenon, and is closely associated with Zionism. Knock yourself out, the revival is in line with secularist Zionism than anything religious.

I am talking about current usage. by the by, you conterdict yourself when you say it was for liturgy by secularists.

1. Have faith. - An atheist can have faith that their favourite football team will win the big game.

**Hope and faith are 2 different things. **

1. Remain celibate to serve others. - Although denying natural urges is likely unhealthy, nothing is stopping an Atheist from remaining celibate to help others. ( I cannot see how remaining celibate could help anyone), unless of course the person were a sex offender. Then remaining celibate would be very helpful and for the great good of society.

Lack of faith is stopping athiests from doing so.

1. Look forward to Heaven. - **Supernatural. **

You said such things were of the imagination. Is the mind supernatural?

1. Engage in spiritual warfare. - Supernatural
2. Exorcize demons. - **Supernatural **

Conceded. but also done by physcal means.

1. Self infliction of temporal punishment for sin. - Supernatural

No, it is practiced in the temporal. SELF INFLICTED.

12. Unite the Roman Empire. - **The military united the Roman Empire by conquering her neighbours. You credit religion for uniting the Roman empire, do you also blame religion for it’s fall? **

The ‘Pax Romana’ was forced. The Roman empire was only united when it became the Holy Roman empire.

There’s a reason why this question has never been answered. There are no special attributes that only the religious possess. It is an illution.

Eyes, mind and ears must be open to recieve answers.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Is that close to the way that you see it?

No.

God created Satan, Satan committed a sin. Satan is the most evil creature in the universe. God being omniscient, knew when he created Satan, that Satan would sin and that he ( God) would cast Satan down to earth.

I’ve explained how “omnipotence” (which “contains” omniscience) does not prohibit free will or mean that to KNOW something is to CREATE something.

God, in His eternity eventually saw that satan did sin, but it was not determined that satan would sin when (in God’s eternity) God created satan (or rather the angel later called satan).

Your simplistic understanding of “God’s eternity” is your problem.

God did NOT know when He created satan that satan would sin. He only knew that satan COULD sin. When satan DID sin, God acted within eternity so that satan’s sin would bring about the most good possible.

I don’t think you understand what it means to claim God is omnsicient.

You don’t know what God’s eternity is, as you’ve shown quite well.

You suggest that Satan doesn’t prey on Gods children. What say you about Demonic possessions and the Roman Catholic Church’s need for Exorcists?

Demons infest people because those people are susceptible to demonic “possession” due to their (the infested) concupiscence (attraction [lust] toward evil).

What Exorcists do is to assist people to accept that God’s gift of grace makes their infesting demons utterly powerless.

The “purpose” of demons is to make it explicit what the consequences of sin are. They (demons) assist in bringing about situations where either the greater good of “driving out demons” happens, or the greater good of showing the tragic consequences of letting demons get out of control.

God could have sent the most evil being in existence 300 light years away where he wouldn’t bother anyone.

300 Million lightyears is no distance at all to angelic/demonic persons!

Why would God not use one of His “educational tools” after creating it for exactly that purpose?

No, God set Satan up on earth.

God set Satan free in the same playground that his children play in.

The creation is not our PLAYGROUND! It is our classroom!

We chose to have to “do to school” to learn the consequences of sin, and God is obliging by teaching in the wisest way which is most good for us.

What kind of parent does that?

You see God as a sadistic fiend for allowing poisonous snakes to mingle with His babies in their crib.

Catholics see God as using what created specifically to use to teach us supremely important things in ways which are not ultimately any more than moderate irritations.

The ONLY sin that one chooses to do which means hell for one is to hold onto a desire for sin more than a desire for good.

Our suffering in this life is for US to relieve, and specifically NOT for God to relieve (though He does often relieve it gratuitously).

If one thinks that this earthly life is all there is, then God MUST be an evil being or a nonexistent being. Since you SEEM to believe that this earthly life is it, it’s perfectly logical that you have no use for God.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

1. Pray for the good of their enemies. - Supernatural, studies prove that prayer from strangers does not heal the sick any better than no prayer. Why would praying for an enemy be any different? In any event, it’s supernatural.

Prayer is not primarily a request for “physical healing”. It is a plea to God to allow the pray-ers to help (somehow) in doing what God will do anyway, which is the most wise, just and merciful thing possible.

1. Desire humility. - Atheists can desire humility.

Why would an atheist desire humility?

1. Start a ‘human’ institution that has lasted over 2 millenia. - Ancient Egyptian society lasted 3000 years.

“African society” has lasted for several millions of years. We’re not talking about “societies”. We’re talking about coherent and codified institutions whose goal is for humans to become more human over time.

Show me one older than the Church?

1. Bring a dead language back to vernacular (Hebrew) - The revival of Hebrew beyond its use in the liturgy is largely an early 20th-century phenomenon, and is closely associated with Zionism. Knock yourself out, the revival is in line with secularist Zionism than anything religious.

I think you’re basically right here, except that without the continuity created by Jewish belief (their religion) was a prerequisite of bringing back Hebrew as a living language.

1. Have faith. - An atheist can have faith that their favourite football team will win the big game.

Which is a simple proof that atheism is actually a religion. Since it is a (very loose and relatively small) set of standardized beliefs it is a religion practiced by it’s adherents.

1. Remain celibate to serve others. - Although denying natural urges is likely unhealthy, nothing is stopping an Atheist from remaining celibate to help others. ( I cannot see how remaining celibate could help anyone), unless of course the person were a sex offender. Then remaining celibate would be very helpful and for the great good of society.

Why would it not be helpful, for instance, within a very small society for someone whose job is to help everyone (in that society) with “interpersonal and psychological matters” to isolate themselves from being “romantically” involved with his “clients”?

1. Look forward to Heaven. - **Supernatural. **

1. Engage in spiritual warfare. - Supernatural

1. Exorcize demons. - Supernatural

1. Self infliction of temporal punishment for sin. - Supernatural

What do you think the “supernatural” is?

1. Unite the Roman Empire. - The military united the Roman Empire by conquering her neighbours. You credit religion for uniting the Roman empire, do you also blame religion for it’s fall?

A common religion DID re-unite the Roman Empire, somewhat. Christianity was one element in that reuniting. It could probably have been done with another religion, or something other than religion, though.

There’s a reason why this question has never been answered. There are no special attributes that only the religious possess. It is an illution.

I like “illutions”. They’re T A S T Y !!

There are (and are not) “special attributes” that only the religious possess, mostly because ALL humans are by nature religious so there is no “contrast” between who “the religious” are and who “the not-religious” are.

The only real question is whether one agrees that to have ANY belief system is to have a religion?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by seeker777
…

You confuse me. It sounds like you very much believe in God, but you are angry with God for some reason.

Bingo!

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

Yes, and 30,000 children died from starvation that same day. Where was their miraculous salvation from death?

Unexplanable events or events we do not presently understand do not = miracle.

If someone who lost a leg were to grow back a completely normal, healthy and functioning limb, then I would call that a miracle.

That doesn’t happen, hasn’t happen and will never happen, because medical miracles are not the result of divine intervention.

If they were the result of divine intervention, at least one person would have grown back a complete limb by now.

“Don’t press Him–He’s not a tame lion”–Mr. Tummus, speaking of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

In otherwords, God is not bound by your demands of your standards of proof.

He does provide reasonable evidence–but not at this time, evidence that is so absolute as to override the free will to reject Him. That will come later, in His time, not ours–and certainly not by our command. Sooner or later He will show absolute proof of His existence.

Weather or not we will like it is another matter.

 

[seeker777]

Yup. It’s the old “no atheists in foxholes”

There are also no atheists in prison.

There’s too much pent up anger within the posts replying to my commentary.

This is an unhealthy forum.

The Christians in the fundamentalist forum, where I discuss the same subjects with rigid evangelical Bible Christians, are more tolerant of different opinions and the responses are not near as toxic.

Bye. You’ve succeded, you’ve gotten rid of me.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

There are also no atheists in prison.

There’s too much pent up anger within the posts replying to my commentary.

This is an unhealthy forum.

The Christians in the fundamentalist forum, where I discuss the same subjects with rigid evangelical Bible Christians, are more tolerant of different opinions and the responses are not near as toxic.

Bye. You’ve succeded, you’ve gotten rid of me.

Do you REALLY think I (if not “we”) believe that you’ll leave such warm and stimulating conversation as you get here?

I personally don’t, but that may just be me.

At any rate, best to you, as I know it’s hard to hear the truth, and even harder to hang around near it if you won’t accept it.

 

[sidonius]

Ummmm… everything created is a part of the economy of salvation.

Do you think that there are beings with free will (which the fairies demonstrate they have) that aren’t either God, angels, demons, or men?

“Fairies” must be one of these things. Which fit? What that “fit” is tells you precisely where their place is in the economy of salvation.

I thank you for your post. Perhaps I meant to say that fairies, if they exist, have perhaps a different dispensation than do we. If they exist, God created them for his own purposes as he created us. Augustine put fairies (or faeries) in the category of demons, but whether he meant by demons what we mean by them is something I do not know. If fairies exist, and if they have free will, they may be of a different order than angels, demons or humans. There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio…