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

[Abbadon]

So it’s, “Workers of the world, UNITE!”?

No, probably more like, “Slaves should NOT get uppity!”.

Pretty much what I was implying. Thanks for the confirmation.

Actually its more to do with this principle i read a while back, any carnivore needs to be something like 4% of an overall population or animals in the cycle. Something like that.

But i thought about it and it’s wrong. It has more to do with values I think, the eastern world as a percentage have more intelligent and driven people than the western world.

But either way there is a smaller population of people that are in power.

It;s more of a rash observatioon coming from where i live, suburbian Australia. And the complete waste of genetic space that surrounds us. That said my ex manager and freind, is not very smart but she is very good of qualities.

Anyway the statement i made before on more thought about it is rather wrong and is more of a stereotype like black people eat watermelon and chicken. (I gotta say i do love them both though, but i also wear a sarong =.=)

Roughly what i was trying to say is you need less chiefs and more Indians, I just said it really badly.

But yea i still do despise many parts of the human species. But I’m not sure if it’s a majority as i haven’t been introduced to them all.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

… b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof …

That is how i use the word faith. And no actually your wrong for I think that what I understand to be true could be “simply hallucinatory delusion”.

If you “think” what you “know/understand” could be “simple delusion”, while you say that you can’t really “know” anything for sure, then you’ve compounded uncertainty upon uncertainty upon uncertainty to the point where reality is one huge bundle of “whatever-ness”, where you’re free to do as you like because it’s just as likely to be right as wrong!

Some choose to live this way. Others don’t.

Unless SOME things SEEM to be more likely than others, which they DO! But why is this! Because God intrudes on your little game of abject chaos and TELLS you that which is more in accord with “the way stuff works well always”, which is his will.

Of course, some things that SEEM more likely, or more likable, which AREN’T from God, those things that are “the way stuff works well FOR ME NOW”, which are hard to distinguish from God’s will UNLESS one has God’s “yardstick” to measure them against!

Thats the think shall never “know” anything. I can be sure that it is highly possible and highly supported. Something that was told to me (for which on science expirements i lost 5% for untill i learned my lesson). “Nothing is ever proven only supported”. And i really agree with that, but there is one thing i do know however and that is that you just never know.

Then you’ll be presented with the lessons appropriate to those who need to invent their own “yardstick”.

It’s true that in all areas of human concern EXCEPT religion to assume the existence of absolute knowledge of truth is not only impossible, but also unnecesary, and definitely harmful.

In all areas but religion (true religion) any hint of “absoluteness” is evil and leads to human slavery.

But to assume that no absolute certainty exists whatsoever is to deny that reality is real, and to continue on the “circular path” of never learning one’s lessons and forever repeating them.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

Actually i don’t think i said people who have faith are deluded i just said i don’t have it.

But you do have “it”! You just have a different object OF “it”.

Your faith is materialism. It will lead you to God via breaking frustration, or it will lead you to hell via unbroken frustration.

I’m praying for you that you break, but, hey, the decision is yours when the time comes.

And if i implied it i didn’t mean to. I simply find it hard to put 100% trust in something for which there is hardly any real support. I can understand people who put 100% trust that using pi will get them the correct answer. Or using e. Or even evolution. There is alot to support that.

What you don’t see as “real support”, either because you’re not looking or because you actively reject it via your definitions of things, is not seen that way by folks such as myself.

Once again, the area where religion has effect is in how we act, and believe it or not your (mostly unconscious) belief in God as He’s presented Himself to you as well as your faith in “materialism” form how you behave, and while we can help you to understand why God’s rules are as they are, only you can choose to stay within them.

If you don’t, you’ll create “lessons” for both yourself and all of mankind to have to deal with, and hopefully learn from.

…and other lessons if you DO stay within them, of course. The darned learnin’ just NEVER stops, does it!?

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

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.

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?

I like to question people about their beliefs as i have done my own, and i like to understand peoples beliefs and where they get them from.

Why would you be interested in where they get them from?

What makes you think you understand other people’s beliefs?

 

[Abbadon]

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

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?

Why would you be interested in where they get them from?

What makes you think you understand other people’s beliefs?

It’s something i find intresting, i love learning about relegions and bliefs. Where these belifs, where myths came from. I love hearing stories of Ragnarok and of how Isis made a penis out of wood becuase she couldn’t find Orisis’ real one. Bast having a thing for the incarnation of Baladar. Odin trying to take over the world of gods.

It’s just all so intresting and facisnating, from novelic fiction to historical mythology.

Well i don’t think i could ever really completely comprehend other peoples beliefs. I my self was once catholic so i can understand where catholic people come from, that i can comprehend. But i can attempt to understand how and why people believe what they do.Why they do what they do, and why they are what they are. Without sounding to arrogant in the next sentence, I’m actually rather good at being empathetic towards others.I think it’s important (or at least it is for me) to understand why a tamil tiger suicide bomber does what he does, and what can be going through his mind.

It’s not just understanding peoples relegious beliefs. It’s about understanding what make us who we are. From serial killers to religious extremists to vindictive school teachers to amazing mothers.

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.

From these debates i’m gaining so much. Like on this other forum i had no idea that determinism and freewill could exist together, like i didn’t even know that was a conceptual idea or that any conciousnesss could be atemporial. But i’m begenning to understand how.

 

[tigers08]

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.

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? There’s no more evidence one way or the other. He would be putting his trust in another man. Why would God punish someone for trusting his parents instead of a missionary?

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

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.

 

[tigers08]

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.

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 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. Everything I “know” is an educated guess. 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.

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”

 

[tigers08]

If God were to, let’s say, inspire an elementary mathematics textbook, He decided to include something like this… they are two different story problems:

*Noah took 4 sheep into the ark. Before the flood, one escaped and was lost. How many sheep remained on the ark during the flood?
ANS: 3

Noah’s ark had 2 sheep and 2 goats on board during the flood. What was the combined number of sheep and goats on the ark during the flood?
ANS: 4*

But wait! Wouldn’t God know how many sheep were REALLY on the ark during the flood? First He says there were 3 sheep on board during the flood, and then there were only 2! Does it really make the math (what the book would be actually trying to communicate) any less true? The only way someone could reach that conclusion is if they started reading the book without first bothering to check what kind of book it was.

People have mentioned it before, but I’m not sure it’s really sinking in… you’re looking at what you WANT the different books of the Bible to say and not what they are actually saying.

Without being able to check the bible for consistency, there is no way to know whether it’s the truth or not. You might as well believe the Koran or the Book of Mormon. The “message” in those books are infallible as well according to the respective religions, my argument is the only way to choose a religion is to check what can be checked.

 

[tigers08]

Personal experience with the risen Christ Himself. Just as you will not believe that St. Paul personally encountered the risen Christ in the road to Damascus, you surely would not believe also if I tell you of my personal experience with the risen Christ. That personal experience is something a gift from God. That personal experience simply confirms that the bible is true.

No I don’t believe that but obviously I can’t argue against a personal experience.

God’s generosity is without measure for those He foreknew would ultimately use their free will to choose Him instead of Satan.

Then you’re saying his inherent evil is also without measure for those He foreknew would not choose him and thus condemned to eternal damnation. How is it generosity if you used free will?

 

[agangbern]

Then you’re saying his inherent evil is also without measure for those He foreknew would not choose him and thus condemned to eternal damnation. How is it generosity if you used free will?

Who said He has inherent evil? You alone said that, not I.

Allowing His presence to be personally experienced by a human being… that is a generosity of God.

 

[tigers08]

“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. 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

 

[tigers08]

belief in the bible is faith in another man

• This assumption
  does not inevitably follow from the assumption that precedes it. At most it is only an opinion whose basis is the limited knowledge that men of this world have. For in this world we usually consider as man someone who in the appearance of man told us that the bible is word of God. But we know that this is not true because not all that appears like man is in reality man. At this point, the first half of the so-called logical path that you presented crumbled.

What? Not all that appears like men is in reality men…what are they then?

 

[tigers08]

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.

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.

 

[tigers08]

Who said He has inherent evil? You alone said that, not I.

Allowing His presence to be personally experienced by a human being… that is a generosity of God.

OK, but if he allows certain people to personally experience him and gives them likely admittance into heaven and that makes him generous, then what does withholding this personal experience from some people and condemnation to hell make him?

 

[agangbern]

OK, but if he allows certain people to personally experience him and gives them likely admittance into heaven and that makes him generous, then what does withholding this personal experience from some people and condemnation to hell make him?

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.

 

[tigers08]

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. 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…

 

[agangbern]

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

There are many things you need to understand here.
First, the coming into existence of “people” who would make themselves slaves of Satan in hell. You think it was God who put them on earth. No, it was not God who put them on earth. It was Satan. He sowed weeds among the wheat.
Second, choosing Him. Who said that people can only choose him if he’s been generous enough to provide a personal experience? Again, only you said that, not I. For not all needs personal experience first before making a decision. Personal experience is not a prerequisite to salvation.In fact, there are many who first makes the decision before gaining personal experience. As I repeatedly said, personal experience with God is a gift, a generosity of God. It is not demandable by anyone.

 

[tigers08]

There are many things you need to understand here.
First, the coming into existence of “people” who would make themselves slaves of Satan in hell. You think it was God who put them on earth. No, it was not God who put them on earth. It was Satan. He sowed weeds among the wheat.
Second, choosing Him. Who said that people can only choose him if he’s been generous enough to provide a personal experience? Again, only you said that, not I. For not all needs personal experience first before making a decision. Personal experience is not a prerequisite to salvation.In fact, there are many who first makes the decision before gaining personal experience. As I repeatedly said, personal experience with God is a gift, a generosity of God. It is not demandable by anyone.

So you think Satan makes the people who were predestined for Hell and God makes the people who were predestined for heaven? Then what’s the point of life on Earth?

 

[agangbern]

So you think Satan makes the people who were predestined for Hell and God makes the people who were predestined for heaven? Then what’s the point of life on Earth?

Love! A struggle to return to the original innocence.

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

… Why would a Muslim leave Islam for Christianity? There’s no more evidence one way or the other. He would be putting his trust in another man. Why would God punish someone for trusting his parents instead of a missionary?..

oh brother…

OK, I can accept that human beings are more likely to trust their parents than to research or trust a missonary.

But to suggest that there is “no more evidence one way or the other” between these two religion is only your personal opinion, and I think your personal opinion is hopelessly unfounded. I doubt you have seriously research the details, foundation and history of either religion.

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.

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