If that’s the case it’s OK, He will correct that in time. God looks at the heart.
I believe that to say one way is the way of Satan is a considerably larger mistake in my eyes. I would imagine that should Satan exist, he would use every means at his disposal to decieve, including the words of apparent believers. Since God explicitly created the world, and not necessarily the Bible, I suggest that it is more likely Satan use the latter to decieve, rather than the former. Though of course, both would be suspect.
Unless it is not part of his plan that you understand. Don’t be presumptuous. 
You don’t at all get what we’re saying, do you?
Indeed. Couldn’t what the OP says about religion be equally said about science? Or art, ethics, language, or philosophy?
I would argue, though, that the case is slightly different with science, and at least the parts of philosophy that are independent of human cognition, since those do not invent, but discover things; i.e. if there were no humans around, matter would still be made out of atoms following the rules that we can at least approximately describe by now, but nobody would think anything in particular about the tenets of the Bahá’i faith or the aesthetics of cubism.
Going on logic again how would such a God reveal Himself, by study and science, which only a small percent of the people could do, or simply by faith which everyone could do?
I understand what you are peddling, I’m just not buying.
But not everyone can have faith, or at least faith in the manner you’re talking about. Faith of that kind is an inclination, just as interest in study and science is. Everyone could do both those things to the same extent.
The problem with deciding the way God would reveal himself if there is also a Satan is that he’s not supposed to be an easy foe. He’s a tricky bugger. Going on logic again, wouldn’t Satan use the same methods and tools God does, in order to confuse potential believers, and to co-opt the helping hands of the true believers? Since he’s supposed to be such a dedicated deciever, shouldn’t we be careful of his influence in all things, especially those things which would appear to be beyond his touch?
kanicbird’s position makes perfect sense if God is like unto my old alter-ego Fabulous Creature: in possession of vast technology that make him seem omnipotent, but, frankly kinda dim, and additionally obsessed with inflicting his will upon others but easily distracted by boobies and cheese.
Everyone can have faith, but some are distracted by the ways of man and/or the ways of this world. one can trade faith for the other to some degree. But even with advanced degrees of the study of this world God was still able to reach down and give me the faith to begin again and seek Him.
God is so far above Satan that He can let Satan run a-muck and still save His children. And yes Satan does duplicate God’s powers and the like. The answer again is by faith, seek and you will find, that trip may take you through Satan worship along the way, but if you seek you will eventually find.
I believe that religion could have evolved and that it could have been a byproduct of evolution. However, I don’t think that it’s true. My position on evolved religion, and evolutionary psychology generally, is the same as my position on life on Mars: maybe, but probably not.
To say “evolution predicts that either religion evolved or that it is a natural byproduct of some other evolved brain functions” is false. Evolution merely states that living organisms evolved by a process of natural selection, so it can predict the origin of inherited traits. It cannot predict the origin of what human beings think and do, since those are the result of decisions that each individual makes with his or her free will.
I can’t have faith. (Though admittedly, I have not tried mind-altering drugs or recreational brain surgery.)
And it’s probably just as well, because if Satan can duplicate God’s powers, then there’s no reason whatsoever to think that you can ever* avoid finding Satan, regardless of how long you search. (And even if you found God, you’d never know and keep searching until you found Satan again.)
Unless you think that you have some MAGIC ability that lets you discern the truth while simultaneously believing that NO human has the ability to discern the truth. Which is nothing more than spectacular ego letting you think that you cannot be wrong, while everyone else (especially those who disagree with you) can.
- not counting when you die, at which point you’ll find out the truth (assuming there’s enough of an afterlife for you to have time to notice), but it’ll be too late and you will be judged as a longtime satan worshipper regardless.
By the same token, anyone can study the world. Some do not have the inclination, just as some do not have the inclination for religious faith.
Not so; as you’ve said in the past, it may well be that it is not part of God’s plan that someone find God. Success is not guaranteed. It may well be that it is part of God’s plan to let some people die having worshipped Satan during their lives. This is not the answer.
Yes, it can. For example, I tend not to think about walking around with my fifteen legs, mainly because I don’t have fifteen legs. I tend not to choose to fly around, again mainly because that’s an ability I lack. You may make the case that evolution does not affect the mind (though I would still disagree) but you cannot say, full stop, that evolution does not affect what we think and do, because our thoughts and choices are limited by our physical bodies.
Here your stumble onto the big problems with evolutionary psychology. First, if you assert that certain genes have “proliferated in the gene pool”, show us the genes. Tell us where they are, at which location on which chromosome. Where is the gene that is specifically for organized religion? Where is the gene that tends to make humans teach what they have learned to their children? Finding them should not be difficult. All you have to do is take blood samples from a thousand atheists and a thousand religious believers, find the gene present in all of the later group and none of the former, and there you go. Considerable research has been done attempting to connect genes to their functions, yet none of the genes you’ve described have been found.
Second, we can ask whether what you predict is even possible. A gene is a sequence of DNA that contains the code for a protein. Genes cannot magically perform any imaginable task. How would any gene perform the tasks that you’re describing? There’s not even a hypothetical explanation for how such things could happen.
Third, we can ask whether humans actually do the things that you claim their genes dispose them toward doing. Do humans “tend to teach what they have learned to their children”? Some do, some don’t. Human attitudes towards education have varied widely from place to place and from time to time. Why would this be the case if those attitudes derived from genes inherited from our caveman ancestors?
The bottom line is that there is no reason to believe that any of our attitudes, preferences, or behaviors are determined genetically, in whole or in part.
Think for a moment. You seriously think that atheist parents teach nothing to their children? Not the reasons they are atheists, not science, not manners, not how to use the toilet?
This post of yours is based in nonsense. Please try again.
Hey, pillars of fire worked during the Exodus, why not now? And remember God punished Moses for striking the rock, which made God providing the water a matter of faith not evidence. You ignore the parts of the Bible that don’t fit into your worldview, don’t you?
BTW, speaking of evidence, your little statement about animals evolving into one another is ample evidence of your ignorance of what evolution actually says.
I don’t understand.
This is a truly naive statement. Would you like me to school you, or should I spare you the embarrassment and let Google Scholar do it?
God states in His Word that man’s wisdom is really foolishness (paraphrased), what we can discover (though science) is not the truth, it misleads us to a false understanding of the world. God states in His Word that He did this (or allowed this) on purpose.
When I wanted to really know about the world, I picked a discipline and really took to science and the like, learning about the material world. Then I sought out God, he had showed me that was not the way to find Him, but just simply believe, start over as a child would and have Him teach me His ways. All my learning of the material world is totally useless in finding Him and actually stands in the way of it. Our reasoning, when combined with what we assume are facts create blocks that are very difficult to get past.
For instant science can prove that the earth is much older then 6000 years, this is very hard to get past if you look at the evidence that man produces, but if you are able to put it aside and come to God and let Him teach you I believe you will find that the earth is exactly as old as stated in scriptures and the proof that man is capable of is a function of the fallen world which distances man from God, which just doesn’t happen spatially, but temporally also, which serves to remove us further from the unfallen world.
You have missed the point of my argument entirely. That’s ok because it explains why you have the perspective you do.