God as a objective being

[seagal]

Because my faith is in living as if all that is true. It is more coherent with perceived reality than any other religion, even if it doesn’t seem to be perfectly intelligible.

In the end though, I don’t really know if it is true or not. I hope it is.

Sounds to me like you’ve taken up Pascal’s wager. Nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. I hope you continue your search though There’s nothing wrong with praying to the God you’re not sure is there, it’s brought lots of people to the faith.

“I do believe; help my unbelief.” Mark 9:24

 

[ChainBreaker]

Jesus did just that. He appeared and declared he is God.

1. Because I believe him, and his Spirit bears witness with my spirit.
2. He knew himself and said, “Before Abraham was, I am”.
3. He is true, therefore all he declared is true.

And, if you were to hold to your other threads that in the “now” nothing is “now” with me, but only apprehensions of the past, then the only conclusion is that anything and everything I “know” is a matter of faith - to recognize that there is objective reality besides myself is a matter of belief for all things, material and spiritual. Since I “believe” that the sun is still burning “right now”, I do not go and put on a warm coat for fear that 8 minutes from now I will be freezing without rays from the sun reaching me.

So, trust, not just in what I see, but also in That Person in whom there is absolutely No Deceit but Only Truth, Jesus, the Messiah from God who Is God With Us.

Okay, now your logical argument.

 

[ChainBreaker]

If there is no certainty, there is also no certainty that there is no God.

Which certainty does one prefer? That there be a God, or that there be no God?

Surely some would prefer that they was God, or that their being is evolving into God.

 

[ChainBreaker]

Without our Lord, what are we?

Objects. We replicate, consume energy, and produce waste.

 

[ChainBreaker]

Hope is a great virtue

How do i know that?

 

[ChainBreaker]

Sounds to me like you’ve taken up Pascal’s wager. Nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. I hope you continue your search though There’s nothing wrong with praying to the God you’re not sure is there, it’s brought lots of people to the faith.

Pascals wager assumes that if in not knowing for certain of God’s existence one does not have faith then one is destined for ruin or hell.

I simply do not believe that a good God would hinge our entire destiny on faith.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

How do i know that?

Without hope we would have no reason for faith.

Without faith and hope we would have no reason for love.

 

[Bahman]

1. Jesus died too. So his dying is not what makes his claim false. He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. And this was witnessed by Peter, whom I believe also is not lying to me.

How he could die if he was God? He rose or he was resurrected? You can help yourself when you are dead hence someone else might have helped him.

1. No, I would not believe you are God. You have shown who you are in your threads, and when someone shows you who you are, it is good to believe them. So, I will believe what you have shown yourself to be in your posts, and not a claim by you to be God.

Poor me! How about Hors? Or Mithra?.. the list is almost endless.

1. I give higher marks to my intellect’s capacity to understand intelligible objects than to call a person a philosophical zombie (having the appearance of life, without life, and having the appearance of intelligence without a thought in their head but only mechanically generated words, like Siri). I do not have to enter their soul to know they have a soul.

But there exist not a test to distinguish a zombie from a real person.

1. Have you not heard that when you speak God’s name, he in that instant is objectively present to you, so that not only is he an object of your knowing (imagined) but is also objectively present by his own intent. This, of course, happens in your soul’s knowing, and may or may not be presented to your brain for visualization.

Well, that I experience very much, but I don’t believe that it is true.

 

[Bahman]

" Sincerity in mind and heart is the door toward divine thought and love. " And this is the key isn’t it? " Sincerity in mind and heart…, " which implies that we are conscious and that we can know objective truth, which implies that we can know that God is an objective object of knowledge, that we can know he actually exists. But we have to be sincere, otherwise our whole life is nothing but " mumbo jumbo. " So we start with the facts of history. God has revealed himself in three ways. First he reveales himself in the works he has created, in nature. Through them we know that he is an objective reality, a real living being. But this revelation is very obscure and hidden. Secondly, he reaveled himself in the history of the Israelites, through the Fathers, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Isacc, and Joseph, and King David, and the Prophets by speaking to their minds. And lastly he put on flesh and revealed himself in the Person of his Son.

Come on, you didn’t get what I meant. Did you? I mean that we are divine being and we just have to be sincere to realize it. We have the power to create knowledge. I don’t think that we are creatures? It is quite ironic, how a conscious being so called God could create a conscious being? The story of creation is really simple to me and it could not be true. God create man, man failed by doing original sin, then God come to save and clean our sins, then we all go and live a happy life with him. There is no sense of intellectually in such a story.

So we know from nature, from the history of the Israelites, and from his Son that God is an objective reality. So if anyone should appear claiming to be God you would know immediately that he was not, that he was a devil. But God has also appeared to some men and some women since the beginning of his Church. But such appearances are revelations to the mind, and about this you would have no mistake because devils do not have this power. St. Paul had such a revelation. And God has appeared to the minds of many of his saints. And he has sent his Mother to speak to men, and has done so for hundreds of years. So we know God is an objective reality. But if we reject the ways of knowing, being led astray by the mutterings of foolish, vain men, men devoted to the flesh and the world and all its vanities, then we will never " see " him.

The time is short, do not delay.

Linus2nd

When I say that we need a boundary to fill the gap between us and God, you say no no no. Then you talk with me about revelation!

 

[Bahman]

Being a naturally skeptical person, I probably wouldn’t believe it. As someone else noted, Jesus actually did appear to lots of people, and lots of them didn’t believe him. (It’s interesting to think that many millions more people believe Jesus is God having never seen him.) I don’t know what it would take for me to believe, but if it really was God *he *would know and would make sure I was convinced.

Stick to your skepticism my friend. That is the door toward divine justice.

The last question is a different one entirely. Even though I started out life as a believer, there are times (as I’m sure happens with every believer) when I have doubts. I’ve seen and heard lots of articles and debates and talks about whether or not God exists. Usually I find the “pro” side much more convincing than the “con” but now and then I’ll wonder if I’m just being gullible. That’s my skepticism showing. For me, what it comes down to is very simple: “nothing comes from nothing”. This vast universe we live in came from somewhere. It didn’t just pop into being out of nothing. If it did, why don’t things just pop into existence all the time? *Something *had to cause it, and that something *must *be a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, immensely powerful, personal being. In other words, God. Everything else flows from there.

Those proofs are really very linear. It is based on causality which is the basic principal of objective reality as we observe. Do you believe in causality? It could not simply explain consciousness, free will, your true being.

 

[Bahman]

Yes, everybody becomes a victim of death.

But only our LORD came out of it!

ICXC NIKA

First, how he could die if he was God?

Second, are you sure that he was the only one who came out of death?

 

[seagal]

Stick to your skepticism my friend. That is the door toward divine justice.

Those proofs are really very linear. It is based on causality which is the basic principal of objective reality as we observe. Do you believe in causality? It could not simply explain consciousness, free will, your true being.

Causality is simply the relationship between cause and effect, or in other words, every effect has a cause. Yes I believe that. And for me it does explain consciousness, free will and my true being, since that is the way God created me. He is the first cause. I see no contradiction here.

 

[seagal]

First, how he could die if he was God?

Second, are you sure that he was the only one who came out of death?

Jesus was and is the incarnation of the second person of the triune God. He is fully human and fully divine. In his human nature he died. By his divinity he rose from the dead.

 

[seagal]

Pascals wager assumes that if in not knowing for certain of God’s existence one does not have faith then one is destined for ruin or hell.

I simply do not believe that a good God would hinge our entire destiny on faith.

I don’t think you understand the purpose of Pascal’s wager. It is meant for the agnostic, the person who doesn’t believe there is enough evidence for or against the existence of God. It doesn’t determine your eternal destiny, it only helps you to decide how to live.

As for whether or not we need faith to get to heaven, you can check out these bible verses. Also the CCC paragraph 161

Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. “Since “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life ‘But he who endures to the end.’”

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Surely some would prefer that they was God, or that their being is evolving into God.

Yes, that was the Serpent’s strategy for seducing Eve.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

First, how he could die if he was God?

Second, are you sure that he was the only one who came out of death?

The mystery of the Incarnation is that Jesus is both man and God. The man part of him died, but his soul and divinity lived on.

Lazarus was also raised from the dead by Jesus. So in that miracle Jesus prepared the world to believe that he too could rise from the dead.

 

[Bahman]

Causality is simply the relationship between cause and effect, or in other words, every effect has a cause. Yes I believe that. And for me it does explain consciousness, free will and my true being, since that is the way God created me. He is the first cause. I see no contradiction here.

I would encourage you to read this (The Argument from Causal Exclusion).

 

[Bahman]

Jesus was and is the incarnation of the second person of the triune God. He is fully human and fully divine. In his human nature he died. By his divinity he rose from the dead.

I argue that Jesus could not hold two natures in here.

 

[Bahman]

The mystery of the Incarnation is that Jesus is both man and God. The man part of him died, but his soul and divinity lived on.

Lazarus was also raised from the dead by Jesus. So in that miracle Jesus prepared the world to believe that he too could rise from the dead.

A person with two natures, divine and human, is not a mystery but a contradiction. Please read here.

By the way what was the sacrifice if he knew he would raise from death?

 

[ChainBreaker]

I don’t think you understand the purpose of Pascal’s wager. It is meant for the agnostic, the person who doesn’t believe there is enough evidence for or against the existence of God. It doesn’t determine your eternal destiny, it only helps you to decide how to live.

As for whether or not we need faith to get to heaven, you can check out these bible verses. Also the CCC paragraph 161

You sound like a protestant. Pascals wager argument does imply that you will lose everything by not believing. If it was just about living on earth it would not be much of an argument.