Not to mention that if the sun came closer to the earth we would have all been burned up!! Hypnosis can do a lot, self hypnosis,or mass hypnosis can make a person see and hear things too if they want it bad enough!
Speaking as a complete skeptic, I have to say that the whole argument made by Diogenese about the sun actually moving and so forth is pretty spurious.
If a man appeared and said “I can do miracles”, and people said “prove it”, and he said “OK, look at the Sun”, and everyone within half a mile saw the sun moving around the sky in a distinct and unnatural fashion, and one which their indpendent descriptions agreed on; and if he was able to repeat this feat at other times in other places for other groups; then that would clearly be at least potentially supernatural/miraculous (I mean, obviously we’d first check for all kinds of optical trickery, etc.) even if the actual location of the sun, as observed and measured by scientific instruments outside the affected area, did not change.
I’ll have to consider de-electrifying the welcome mat.
Does Jesus get the same 15% tip as the pizza delivery guy?
Yes, if that is how He chooses to come to you, 15% would be fine.
15% of what?
I suppose I shouldn’t harp on this - I just found the imagery astounding.
I would suggest 15% of the total bill, but some people only tip on the pre-tax total.
Jesus lives in His servants, that is why His body was broken, why we take it in, why we give our life to Him. Jesus can come to you in anyone who has given his life to Him, including the pizza delivery guy. He can also come in spirit, in which case no tipping is expected.
Enjoy your dinner 
To answer the question posed by the thread title: yes.
Not that I’m going to share, but there’s my answer.
I don’t think you’re lying or making things up; i’m perfectly happy to accept you believe what you say you do, as i’d hope you believe me when I disagree. The problem is that it’s possible to both be convinced and wrong; when I doubt what you say, I don’t doubt your belief in it, but rather whether you’re right or not.
But there are many things to explore. It’s not a simple matter of one type of atheism vs. your type of belief. There are many kinds of atheism, many kinds of belief. And without using some kind of measure, without, to an extent, ranking their believability or lack of contradictions, we wouldn’t have enough time to explore all the options open.
Also, if I remember correctly, you believe in demons and other gods who might try to make us stray from the path. Surely we should attempt to avoid such creatures and their works?
If you go with the Holy Spirit and are always correct, or God performs miracles to make it correct, then you would also have to be correct in your selection of the most effective argument. When thinking about how to go about responding to me, you would be influenced to the most effective choice. If, on the other hand, this granted ability to be correct does not aid you in making the most effective choices, then it really doesn’t seem all that useful, or correct. For one thing, you’d not be able to use it as a basis for what you understand of God.
Ah, but while this certainly explains how you might not take the correct action, it also means you personally aren’t taking the correct action - you, acting as part of a whole, are taking the correct action. You yourself are making the wrong one; it would be only as a whole that you add to a correct solution.
But I have a question based on this. If God works through his followers - and this means that, in some cases, just as some must do the right, effective things, some must do the wrong, ineffective things, so that overall there is success - and that your actions are at least in part affected by your beliefs, that God has deliberately allowed you (or some other followers) to believe incorrect things in order that others can be correct and so, overall, be right? That is to say, if your role in providing the message to others is not to be convincing in and of yourself, is it possible that God might have deliberately misled you in order to ensure you are able to not provide the message?
As I always say to you at times like this:
Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
If I may add to your response…Isn’t Jesus quoted as saying, if the Blind lead the blind they both fall into the pit? That could back up your statement.
What comes to mind is a infant. A infant is exposed to many people, and at first may be confused as to which one to ‘accept’. The infants motivation, if that be for comfort, food or Love, will determine who that infant will latch on to. The infants brain will form around who they accepted and what the motivation was.
If your search is sincere you will find God, though you may make mistakes, you will sense the Love that you desire and even if you go though other paths Love will guide you, just as the infant learns who really loves him. As you learn to sense that Love of God, your mind, just like the infants, will grow, new neural pathways will form and your mind will learn to see things differently. This is a process, just like a infant for most people (though God can do anything). Till your mind is formed enough in the ways of God to overcome what you have learned about the world there will be stubbornness to stay in what you know, then confusion over conflicting thoughts, eventually a decision that will have you following the new path to at least see where it leads.
I am of the opinion that exploring who you are is more important, don’t let such creatures stop one from growth.
Jesus was correct, yet put to death, Paul the same. Many times it’s not a slam dunk, actually that is rare, it goes back to the infant, God growing you up a bit at a time. You wouldn’t expect a infant to understand calculus just because you are a master teacher?
Again it is not me, but God acting through many. Yes some of us make errors, that does not matter as God is above all that and will correct all errors. That is part of the deal, and needed because we are imperfect. God does not want us to worry, so we just do His work as well as we can, and leave the rest to Him to perfect.
I believe that God allows some of us to remain in some misleading for His purpose, which is usually to reach others in a similar situation. You may have enough correct that God can use you to correct others, sometimes getting together both people together may realizes their error. In short God can use anything and anyone, even a person that just knows a single part.
Quite so! For example, God allowed my mother, who served and honored him with all her heart for all her life, to die a lingering and agonizing death from metatastized breast cancer so my little sisters would get yearly mammograms, participate in yearly Breast Cancer Awareness walks, and so forth. The bone-crushing pain my mother underwent in the last year of her life was a small price to pay for God’s inability to send an email.
Leviticus 27:30-32 – He’s ok with 10-12%. You only need to go up to 15% if the service was particularly good.
If your party is bigger than 8, its an automatic 20 percent though.
I do not know the circumstances, but it sounds horrible, sorry to hear that.
:smack:
And I’m sorry the god you worship, if he exists, finds it necessary to kill innocents to get a message out. I mean, it makes AOL email crashing my system seem like heaven in comparison.
Actually if you give anything less then 100% you will die (Acts 5:1-10). Tithing is the old testament, the written code which leads to death. Jesus shows the way to life, giving everything you have to God, and God will give everything He has to you. God personally will instruct where and who to give money to.
Anything that can be written down as a hard rule, such as tithing, or any OT law, telling you how much and where to donate, is what Jesus came to set us free from, we no longer go with the written code, and Jesus has nailed it to the tree.
The heart of Jesus living in us is what we follow, if you are following any code that can be written down in hard terms you are not under the grace of God, and will fall under the penalties of that hard code if you violate it.
So it’s back to the issue of your heart, what does your heart want to donate for this pizza delivery boy, 10%, 15%, 20%. I don’t know, that’s ultimately for you and God to work out.
And no single checks.
With regard to the OP.
First some background.
God is an idea, Jesus is an idea and, I will add, each of us is an idea. The Bible is a collection of ideas. Raised as a stout Episcopalian (K-8 Sunday School, boy’s choir until my voiced cracked) I was mostly shielded from the idea of the OT Nobodaddy asshole. The idea of a loving Father, etc was an unquestioned belief.
Nonetheless, when I was 17, I was literally down on my knees in my occasional bedtime ritual of rote prayers when I realized that the only times I prayed was when I was facing one of my teenage crises.
TMI[spoiler]]The most memorable of these involved my first car, a '51 Chevy. I was driving on a learner’s permit and while waiting while a friend (my required licensed copilot) got a haircut, I decided to tool solo around the block.
Parked diagonally across the street from the local Ford dealer, I tweeked (left rubber, hot stuff) in reverse into and crumpled the left front fender of the dealership’s owner’s new '57 Galaxy which he had inconveniently parked at the curb behind me. Suddenly, I’m surrounded by onlookers, including some woman shrieking, “He came out of that parking space at 30 mph.”
The owner comes out, surveys the scene and suggests I pull away. Totally rattled, I press the starter button on the dash and, still in reverse with clutch out, slightly increase the damage.
Short story: really nice guy. Unlicensed driver pays $47 dollars in cash (it was the dealership body shop) and the cops, my parents and insurance co. never hear about it. Times have changed.[/spoiler][/TMI] That’s a miracle in itself but where was I?
As I’m on my knees on the night in question, I epiphanize that I’m a hypocrite and that my idea of God is that He is a mere foul weather friend, an emotional crutch. I say to myself, God and the world, fuck this shit, I’ll do it on my own and if God sends me to Hell for not praying, He’s not worth worshiping anyway. Still believe it.
… much happens here … ideas of God, Jesus, Bible, prayer, religion and self develop … details available …
Anyhow, two minor miracles. [disclaimer] Life is THE miracle. [/disclaimer]
- I’m sitting at a campfire with my SO at the time and our adopted runt puppy is doing his puppy thing to our amusement. Suddenly, he stops, looks at us and very distinctly says, “Meow”, in perfectly feline accented English. Mary and I look at each other and raise eyebrows.
2)Tish (my most SO in Vermont [with perhaps one exception]) are cruising home on two lane blacktop doing 50 in near whiteout when Bump Bang Hissss, the right front tire blows. Inexplicably, we roll on without incident. I look at Tish and she looks at me and says, “It healed itself”. i can’t deny it.
Summary:
God is Love and there ain’t no other.