What makes you think the bible is the word of God?

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Abbadon
I honestly don’t want to persecute anyone. Have no fear, I call no god god so i won’t be killing anyone in thier name.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
Sure you do! You call “materialistic utility” your God, which is the god of “Progress toward utopia on earth”.

How many “annoying and unuseful” people has that god killed?

The other parts of our discussions for me have reached conclusions. And any continuation would soon just loop. But it’s been good…

But this part I’m not sure what your refering to

You stated that you call no god god, and I disagreed with you.

You do have a god that you treat as a god. Your “worship” doesn’t look much like “the mass” but it’s still worship.

And because your “worship” is so nicely disguised as “something other than worship therefore more ‘scientific/rational’” it’s easy to allow the vagueries of “relativistic morality” to see “progress (toward ‘scientific’ utopia”) as more important than “annoying and un-useful” people.

Then comes genocide. As we see today both of those in and out of the womb.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
How many “annoying and unuseful” people has that god killed?

And i’m sorry i don’t actually know what you mean by materialistic utility. Can you please explain?

To not believe in an God given absolute morality is to have to base morality on the “utility” of one’s morality in progressing society toward a “utopia” in “materialistic” terms.

Without God the BEST we can try to create of our society is one of “material utopia” (as “spiritual utopia” is meaningless if there is no God), and since “material utopia” is always a “minority aquisition” (only a small portion of any population can have “utopia” at any one time) it will always produce an enslavement of the majority.

Those too “annoying” (dissenting) to the “powerful utopia possessing minority” are preferably ejected from “utopian territory”.

Those who are un-useful, or actually harmful, are either “encysted” so as to become inert agents, ejected, or destroyed, depending on the “emergency” of the situation of potential harm to the society.

Now, while temporal societies DO have a right to these tactics, if they are untempered by “God based morality” they degenerate into more “evil” forms of those tactics than they would otherwise.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

My percived reality and everything in it is a very intresting place. And i just find all of it intresting and i enjoy the knowledge i can have of it.

It is indeed interesting and wonderous! Never stop in your search for truth. Just realize that there IS a way to know with absolute certainty actual truth qua truth (“as truth itself”), but that you can only know that certainty from within, in abject humility in prayer with God.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
Your last sentence is the key to your thinking.

God doesn’t punish people based on things outside of their control.

I wouldn’t assume to know if and how God thinks, but I agree that would seem unlikely.

Since we are told that God gives us no “task” that we can’t handle, regardless of whether we CHOOSE to handle it, God holds us to only that which we choose not to handle which we could have.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

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A moslem who, after exposure (in a meaningful way) to the Church, chooses to obey his errant-culture instead of actual truth must deal with that choice, both during life and eternally.

Why would a Muslim leave Islam for Christianity?

Ask someone who’s done that. I, personally, converted from “nothing” (quasi-scientism) to Christianity (Catholic) because truth is more important to me than custom (enculturation).

There’s no more evidence one way or the other.

Please back that statement up. It may in fact be TRUE, and I suspect that it IS true FOR YOU, but since that value judgement is always and only personal (individual) YOUR judgement carries no weight for another person that they don’t (gullibly) give it.

He would be putting his trust in another man.

No. The genuine “believer” puts their trust only in what God has given them to experience internally as “proof” of what they believe.

It’s wise to give credence to those who “seem holy”, but you have to know what “holy” means, and you have to TEST what the “holy man” teaches you.

That’s why the Church is important. But ultimately that which is “revealed” by the Church must be tested by internal evidence.

Why would God punish someone for trusting his parents instead of a missionary?

Why are one’s parents preferable to a “missionary” to follow if one sees more truth in the missionary as evidenced by one’s internal experience?

If one’s parents held that 1+1=3, then, in the matter of mathematics, they are probably not good “authorities” to follow.

If God has revealed to you that truth, in the religious realm, is more “findable” in a “thing” that is not what your culture says to follow, and you don’t follow the more truthful, then you condemn yourself.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

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Even islam has some elements of truth, and if those items of truth are followed would lead a truly “searching” moslem to the fullness of the truth, which is the Church.

I completely disagree. I think anyone who is “truly searching” would realize that no revealed religion has the answers.

That’s fine. It’s really rather an axiomatic statement, because it essentially boils down to “God reveals truth through MY source most fully and not yours as has been my experience”, which to the “materialistic” mind, as is yours, is utter nonsense.

But, that “contest of illustration of why I’m right and you’re not” is an endless source of great conversation!

Even if a religion did have the answers, you couldn’t tell so there is no reason to believe it.

And that is the basic error of relativism. Since you can’t know anything, you can’t state anything as a value judgement except as a relative probability, and in the area of “faith and morals”, which translates to “acceptable human behavior”, which is the SOLE realm of religion, then ANY BEHAVIOR can be justified, which leaves us, as a species, in the endless “round” of competion for comfort.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

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Do you believe that their IS (exists) an actual “truth”, such as that which the Church professes to teach?

Of course there IS a truth. The universe got here somehow. It seems unlikely that we could ever know for certain this truth, but we can definitely rule out beliefs that are wrong.

That which is not tested for truth is not seen as truth but custom.

The God-hater can not test truth, other than unconsciously in accord with God’s ways (ie testing mathematical truth), and therefore rules out, logically and correctly, any possibility of his belief in truth.

And YES, we can definitely rule our some beliefs, such as that 1+1=3, because they violate what has been revealed to us AS truth.

The only question is whether one trusts the source of true revelation as valid.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
You have therefore ruled out ALL actual religions which profess ANY mysteries (materialistically unsolvable situations).

Not necessarily. Obviously there is a lot we do not understand about the universe. The creation of our universe is a “materialistically unsolvable situation”, but based on everything I’ve learned I believe the Big Bang was the most likely cause.

God creating the universe ex nihilo (from nothing) is the definition of “the big bang”, and I also believe in it.

My saying that you “rule out all ‘mystery religions’” is actually rather sarcastic, because I DON’T believe that you REALLY believe that, because no human can actually believe that, because it violates what it means to be human.

To be human is to believe in mystery, because without the ability to not consider ALL PHENOMENA as special-cases we’d be in “autistic overload” at every moment of our lives.

The biggest distinction between a “religious person” and a “materialistic person” is not that they distinct in their respective “religiousness”, as they are PRECISELY as religious as the other, but that the object of their respective “religion” is different.

The “materialistic person” is religiously unconcerned with “human behavior” (faith and morals) because people are not treating them particularly badly at the moment (they are comfortable), or at least at the time that they “crystalized” into BEING materialists.

(( The case of “frat boys” becoming “religiously materialist” tyrants immediately comes to mind, such as Lennon, Marx, etc. ))

The “religious person” sees “human behavior” (faith and morals) as supremely important because they’ve seen how bad (evil) behavior obliterates comfort, and that without good faith and morals comforts are not to base any truth on (being “shifting sands” and only anxiety producing in their transitoriness).

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

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Curiously, you must also rule out any “scientism” which uses any axiomatic presumption as a basis for any proposition, as axioms are always irreducible “beliefs” (your “unknowable truths”) which you say explicitly that you “can’t know”.

You can’t know anything for certain.

You simply define, without “appropriate proof”, that nothing can be known with certainty, while my experience is the exact opposite IN THE ONE REALM where certainty IS absolutely knowable!

You could be in the Truman show or the Matrix and all of reality is false. Obviously that’s incredibly unlikely but you get my point.

Yes I do get your point. Your point is that you choose to believe the “incredibly unlikely” in some realms but only choose to believe the “most probable” in other realms!

The reason that you do that is to soothe your discomfort in the realm of “God-stuff”.

Everything I “know” is an educated guess.

Is it an “educated guess” that 1+1=2?

So just because all of science can’t be proven doesn’t mean I can’t believe that it’s pretty close to being the truth based on the evidence presented.

I also believe that science is mostly on the right track, when it comforms to the scientific method. THERE IS NO WAR BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION!!!

Science is part of religion, when it is honest and doesn’t overstate it’s case, as a tool of truth-finding about God’s creation!

Most (all?) materialists would consider religion to be utterly separated, and inferior in value (utilitarian), to science, when in reality science is merely a tool OF religion.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

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As long as you hold that truth cannot be known you are doomed to wander toward your sincerely heartfelt desire for “truth” by a random walk in the infinite fog and ever changing “sign” of your want.

I would phrase it as “Since nothing can be known with certainty, I will have the pleasure of always searching and moving closer to the unreachable truth”

And I would say that **certainty **that truth exists in the realm of faith and morals does not explain the truth(s) of the diversity and wholesomeness of God’s creation.

God’s creation will allow us infinite opportunity to search for how things work in areas that are not faith and morals, but the absolute certainty of revealed truth (as regards faith and morals) (though not absolute consequential understanding OF that truth), does not preclude our infinite search within God’s creation.

To simply deny that certainty exists is a logical self-contradiction. One can’t have certainty in the certainty of uncertainty.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
“And i unfortunately do not have an unshakable faith in man that would allow me to believe so.”

That’s why we don’t have faith in men, but only in God.

You can’t. Men told you God existed.

I knew God existed before the question of God’s existence was a question.

Did men tell you that 1+1=2 is truth such that 1+1!=2 was true before you were told that it was true?

You therefore have faith that they are right, and that God exists. That’s faith in man, not God.

For unless God reveals to each of us individually that a particular religion is truly His disclosure to us of Himself, then, by believing that religion, we are not taking His word for it, but we are instead putting our belief in the person or institution telling us it is so

That is absolutely true! AND God DOES individually reveal to each of us His existence, and the truthfulness of the “thing” (person, Church, church, whatever) which has revealed His truth to us.

That some people choose not to explore, or listen well enough, to God’s “promptings” is to be expected, as there are “other forces” (contrary to God’s desires) which see the (evil) value of human “bad behavior”.

The longer we cycle around on the “round of learning the consequences of sin”, the longer “he” gets to not be shut up in hell.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
The error of literalistic-ism (being “it’s actually physically raining cats and dogs”), as opposed to literalism (where what the writer MEANT is understood, “it’s raining really hard!”) is your error, and is not refutable until your education improves in the area of religion.

It’s obvious if you read Genesis 1:8 and Gen 7:11-12 that the writers of the bible literally believed rain came from a sphere of water suspended above the atmosphere. It’s not a bad explanation for people who couldn’t understand condensation, but I would have to think God would know the water cycle.

In some regards, since water vapor (which is water) IS suspended in a sphere around the planet, as all other the atmosphere has some water (vapor) content, it IS literally true that there is water suspended in a sphere above “the proximal (near) atmosphere”, which IS where rain comes from.

The purpose of scripture is not scientific. To “complain” about scripture because it doesn’t use language YOU would choose for purposes OTHER THAN what your purposes are is to complain about dogs not being cats because yike cats and dislike dogs.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Please do some more homework, and/or take a course or two. Thanks for your interest in subjects WAY over your head, and your illustrating the not particularly unique perspective of the interloper.

No problem, lol. But this IS the apologetics section so I would think y’all would enjoy having someone to debate.

Oh, I do enjoy your conversation!

But we are here to “apologize” (ie “defend”) our beliefs regarding a subject area, and if you aren’t aquainted with the subject area well enough to be meaningful in “defense” of your beliefs of it, it’s rather like having a discussion about nuclear physics with a four year old.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
Originally Posted by agangbern
Such withholding would not make Him “anything”,because as I have repeatedly said, His generosity is without measure to those He foreknew would, in the full story of their free lives, choose Him instead of Satan. Clearly, He withholds His generosity from those He foreknew would, in the full story of their free lives, use their free will to favor Satan instead of God.

That makes no sense. Why put people on earth who are automatically going to hell? That sounds pretty evil.

They are not automatically going to hell. They choose hell in not choosing God because they’d rather hang on to “their ways” than give up that “comfort”.

No one is NOT offered God’s grace, but some choose, freely, to NOT take God up on the offer because it’s “uncomfortable”, and since God exists in eternity He “realizes” that those who wouldn’t choose Him wouldn’t, our “perception” of His not “forcing” us to accept His grace looks “cruel”.

The “balance” (consequence) of “free will” is “willing badly”, which in the case of the choice of God means “hell”.

With “free will” comes our un-educated perception of “God’s cruelty”, while with “no free will” would be our utter lack of perception of non-robot-like perception.

In other words, life is dangerous (potentially “cruel”) WITH free will, but utterly meaningless WITHOUT it.

So he knows ahead of time who’s going to choose him over satan, but people can only choose him if he’s been generous enough to provide a personal experience, and he only provides a personal experience to those who he foreknew would chose him…

He doesn’t know “ahead of time”! He knows OUTSIDE of time!

If you choose Him, then you WERE TO HAVE chosen Him, which is proved out in your having chosen Him, but if you don’t choose Him, you WERE NOT TO HAVE chosen Him, which would be proved out in your not having chosen Him.

You are a “paragraph” in a book. You may choose to end as “good” or “bad”, but the Reader of the book sees your entire “sentence” at once, and is happy if you end well, and is sad if you end badly, but the Reader is, in eternity, never in question as to His being happy or sad about you. He doesn’t “wait” to be either one or the other based on your actions. He is eternally either happy about your choice or sad about your choice.

This is a mystery because HOW God “experiences” this scenario is utterly unknowable.

 

[scapularkid8]

Didn’t read the other posts. Sorry if this gums up the works or mentions something someone else already said

BUT, Couldn’t I pose this question right back at a Muslim?? It’s not very logically sound and a bit loaded.

I’ll answer it though, and I’ll say that I don’t have to think it is the Word of God. Nobody does. But the Bible is a special dimension to God’s Creation and it would still be His Word even if there was nobody to hear it. That’s Christ. He Is Eternally begotten of the Father as His Word, before and after all created life (i.e. humanity). All I can do is pray that my very weak human senses can even begin to comprehend the awesome glory of the Bible.

 

[tigers08]

Way back in post # 29 I gave you a specific reason why Christianity must of had divine inspiration. I can’t believe that, nearly 300 posts later, you make a claim as quoted above.

And I answered that on post #35. Here’s more on the virgin birth “prophecy”
Again, lots of books appear to make prophecies. Even the koran tries to.

I don’t think you are putting much effort to believe. I think you are trying harder to disbelieve.

Nope, I’m just going where ever the evidence and thinking takes me.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

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I don’t think you are putting much effort to believe. I think you are trying harder to disbelieve.

Nope, I’m just going where ever the evidence and thinking takes me.

Sounds like, “CSI: Miasma”, to me!

 

[tigers08]

Please back that statement up. It may in fact be TRUE, and I suspect that it IS true FOR YOU, but since that value judgement is always and only personal (individual) YOUR judgement carries no weight for another person that they don’t (gullibly) give it.

In my research I have found no evidence that leads me to believe either religion was inspired by God. Apparently there is no incredibly obvious and undeniable evidence either way, otherwise the whole world would believe one.

No. The genuine “believer” puts their trust only in what God has given them to experience internally as “proof” of what they believe.

So people who haven’t experienced this internal proof shouldn’t trust the church?

Why are one’s parents preferable to a “missionary” to follow if one sees more truth in the missionary as evidenced by one’s internal experience?

If one’s parents held that 1+1=3, then, in the matter of mathematics, they are probably not good “authorities” to follow.

If God has revealed to you that truth, in the religious realm, is more “findable” in a “thing” that is not what your culture says to follow, and you don’t follow the more truthful, then you condemn yourself.

They aren’t preferable, but they do influence us more. It seems like every reason you say to believe the bible revolves around an internal experience of some kind. Now I’ve never had one so it’s hard for me to comment on it, but I would think I would require some kind of external check to make sure my “experience” wasn’t just a dream or a trick of the mind.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote Tiger08:
There’s no more evidence (for God) one way or the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CalmDownWisWins
Please back that statement up. It may in fact be TRUE, and I suspect that it IS true FOR YOU, but since that value judgement is always and only personal (individual) YOUR judgement carries no weight for another person that they don’t (gullibly) give it.​

In my research I have found no evidence that leads me to believe either religion was inspired by God. Apparently there is no incredibly obvious and undeniable evidence either way, otherwise the whole world would believe one.

My research into the answer to “12345+959595959595” hasn’t lead me to the truth or untruth of whether that expression is equivalent to “959595971939”, either.

My laziness, and/or incompetence in doing research in some area of study, says nothing of the truth of some answer to a question posed in that area of study by someone else who has done their research in that area of study.

You made a categorical claim, that there was no evidence one way or the other as to the existence of God, and yet you dismiss the possibility that MY evidence, which is of the only kind appropriate (being internal experiential evidence), is valid because it is impossible TO GET the type of evidence you require (being external “materialistic” evidence).

I agree with you that you haven’t gotten the evidence you need to “prove” God exists, and in fact I agree that God is not provable to you in terms you’ll accept as proof, but for you to claim without support that MY evidence which DOES prove God to me is invalid because YOU are the only one who can rightfully determine what “appropriate evidence” looks like is the height of hubris!

But then, an “unbeliever” without massive hubris is a very very rare thing.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Quote:
No. The genuine “believer” puts their trust only in what God has given them to experience internally as “proof” of what they believe.

So people who haven’t experienced this internal proof shouldn’t trust the church?

Now THIS is an interesting question! Very good indeed! I’m most impressed.

No. They should NOT trust the Church, but they SHOULD do the requisite experiments necessary to test the Church for it’s potential wisdom.

If their experience proves that the Church is wise in this matter, then they should continue testing the Church, by further experiment, until they run out of time or they find that the Church is limited in it’s wisdom.

This “experiment” is called “prayer”, and the prep-period for these experiments are called “study”.

This “continuing experiment process” is called ongoing conversion.

Conversion is not an occurence, but an attitude and an interminable JOB.