Here’s a better link from the website I just mentioned:
http://www.lastdaysministries.org/store/books.html
That’s the link to the specific page for ordering the book.
What causes me to walk away from a religious conversation is the mis-use of common words. People claim to talk with God-what does his voice sound like? They claim to have been visited by God-what does he look like? If I have a conversation in my head and address it to my wife, that is NOT the same thing as conversing with her. If I feel good about the lunch she made me, that is NOT the same thing as her being in front of me.
Unless you can tell us what God sounds like and/or looks like, you have not conversed with or been visited by God. At best, you have talked at God, and convinced yourself that that is as good as it gets.
When you asked us for what it would take for us to believe in your god’s existance, did you have any intention of taking our word on what our standards would be, or did you always intend on presenting your reasons why we should believe the way we do? If you god existed, he would know exactly what it would take to convince me and others, and thus far he hasn’t tried very hard.
That’s okay, I didn’t know a thing about the subject until I got sick. My tumor is not cureable but it is treatable. I’ll never be at 100%, but this thing is unlikely to kill me.
Let me put it this way: if I ever have a religious experience again, I will consult my neurologist. I have no reason to believe that I personally will ever have one that is not caused by my medical problems. I suppose it is possible that the gods might communicate with other people but this seems unlikely to me, especially considering how common minor neurological problems (I’ll call them NPs from here on out) are. I can easily believe that everyone who has ever had a religious experience was suffering from some sort of NP, since this is something that I <i>know</i> can happen. It can be very convincing, even to a skeptic. I do not, however, have any evidence at all that anyone has ever had a religious experience not caused by NPs. I also have a hard time understanding why the gods, if any of them exist and are keen on communicating with humans, would chose a method that looks so much like a symptom of NPs.
I still haven’t heard any word on how to wrestle with this one.
::drumming fingers on desk::
God created beings of free will. These beings have a choice: perfection under God’s grace, or rebellion against God, which would put them in the long path to find the perfection that they once lost. According to the Bible, the great angel Satan and humankind rebelled against their Creator, and now they are stuck searching the way back ever since. Satan, the angels that followed him and many humans will not choose to surrender to God, for it is an indication that the rebellion is lost.
Open note to Slythe: I’ve noted your questions, and printed out your last post. I think that I want to think over and phrase carefully my answer to what you’ve phrased, but I agree it does deserve answering. So this is acknowledgement of the point, and a promise to deal with it when I have time to phrase it accurately and thoroughly.
Yes, because of course, nobody ever makes major changes in their own lives and personalities by the simple force of their own will. Come on, FoG. I know you’re not stupid, but must you be naive, and argue from such easily dismissable premises?
Replace “Him” and “God” with one of the following words: alien visitors, homeopathy, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the secret 300mpg carburetor. Now tell me why your statement here is not a particularly reasonable argument.
Ah, but a perfect being would never choose do rebel against God. They would choose to follow God. Why don’t I have the possibility of choosing to lead a perfect life? For that matter, why did God give us the desire to do evil? I don’t want to jump headfirst into horse manure, and I will never do so, but I don’t feel as though my free will has been crippled by the lack of a strong desire to jump into a pile of crap.
I’m afraid that these kinds of Christian arguments about free will seem pretty shallow to me. Why didn’t God choose only to create those people who would become Christians of their own free will? You can’t infringe on the free will of someone who doesn’t exist, so why create infidels and villains?
-Ben
Could someone (perhaps Gaudere) direct FoG to the old thread about “Why doesn’t God always answer when we knock?” (That’s not the real title.)
-Ben
I probably won’t have time to totally catch up right now, but I will try to squeeze a few more in …
matt:
You explained to me what you meant by “placebo prayer” and then said:
In other words, take 50 sick people, have 25 people actually pray for them and have 25 people pretend to pray for them, and see if they get the same results? Am I following you correctly here? I know you’re being witty, but this doesn’t work exactly the same. The sick person can also choose to pray even if all the other aren’t. Also, in the group that is praying, there might be some who pray with great faith, and others who pray with little faith. So you’d have some from both groups get healed and some from both groups not get healed.
I said there’s no such thing as a good person so bad things happen to only bad people, and you said:
I think my answer to your third point answers this question. See next…
I talked about how our sin curses the earth as a whole.
We pretty much are stuck with this … but the good news is , NOT forever! There will come a day, perhaps soon, that God will forever take away the curse of sin! All those who chose to not serve God will be out of the picture, and God will take the rest of us to be with Him forever. And you can be in on that if you want to be!
Regarding the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you said:
Well! I might just do that. However, I do not want to imply that it’s something I can or would ever do to put on a magic show. It’s always in the context of building the person up and encouraging them and praying for them. What I think I am going to do in the near future is start a post asking for people’s prayer requests. In responding, as I pray, I will ask God for a “word” for different people (I’ll make sure you’re in that bunch :)). I would also want to point out the parameters of NT Prophesy from the Bible to be sure it wasn’t misunderstood. Having said that, be on the lookout.
Wow! Well, forgive me. As I was preparing to move on, I think God gave me something for you. Is there something going on at your job that is causing great confusion, matt? That is what I am sensing. Please correct me if I’m wrong. If what I’m sensing is indeed correct, God has a word of encouragment for you.
Okay, SeatTime, I saw your recent post wondering where my response was. Sorry I haven’t gotten to you yet but I’ve been kinda busy in case you can’t tell! At any rate, I’ve finally reached your post which says in part:
God didn’t create imperfect beings. He created beings, period. Actually, they were perfect, but they had free will to choose to go a different direction. Unfortunately, they did go in another direction.
stuffinb:
I’ve already responded to the notion of Christians being “better” than others (see my marathon posts last night), so I’ll respond to your other comments:
One simple definition is: someone who does whatever pleases God.
As I later said, atheists can do Godly things. My main point is God takes those areas we are WEAK in and can turn them around. There are two extremes:
- I sit around waiting for God to give me power to change, and nothing happens, so I blame God.
- I try really hard all the time to do God’s will, and fail, and so I blame God.
The balance: I come to God and ask for grace and strength to change, receive that grace, and make choices based on the new strength He gave me.
Out of curiosity, you said your wife was a Christian. Does she ever check out these discussions or this board??
John, you said:
I can’t tell if you meant that last line in humor or in sober seriousness. If you’re serious I would say – you just said what you would require to believe in God, yet you already believe in hell. How does that work?
All I can offer you is a suggestion to read the book I recommended earlier in this thread. It shows the life of a man who went through religion after religion, crossing them off his list one at a time. At the end of the line there was only one left … Christianity.
Falcon said, in jest,
I know you’re being cute but I couldn’t resist commenting. I don’t know about this for sure, but many believe that one of the curses of hell is that you will have no communication whatsoever with other individuals, ever again. You will be totally isolated.
My point? You wanna come to a REAL party, come to the wedding supper of the Lamb that will take place at the end of time! THAT will be one rockin party! I really would love for you to be there Falcon :).
Nekochan reponded to my description of God being good by saying:
And then you listed two stories you called Biblical atrocities. Here’s something interesting for you to consider. EVERY Christian I know reads passages like these in the Old Testement and says to themselves (and to each other), “THAT doesn’t sound like something God would do!” In other words, based on our personal experiences with God, some of those OT stories just don’t sound like Him.
Now over time, as we study the OT we begin to at least partly understand some of those things in the context, but my point is … God did appear to change the way He deals with humanity from Old to New Testement. And He’s going to change AGAIN at some point in the future at the end of time. This is a season of grace that began with the book of Acts and continues to today. Don’t wait for this season to end to get right with God!
That’s all I have time for right now but I will try to do more later this week. Hope all goes well this week everyone! G’night.
Ok, I know I shouldn’t jump in here, but I’m gonna anyway.
Ah, yes. As stated so eloquently by that great, christain philosopher, Sun Tsu.
You know, this is by FAR the most annoying thing that prothesisers do. MANY MANY philosophies and religion, contain this element, INCLUDING modern psycology. The examples you gave are neither perticularly “christian,” nor are they paradoxes. Please refrain from claiming major issues of philosophy as your own, and THEN implying that you’re the only people who ever “figured it out.” It’s spectaularly insulting, and seems to be deceptive as well.
Sorry if that was a bit harsh, but that REALLY irritates me.
So, this should be very easy to verify, shouldn’t it? If God is willing to give you supernatural knowlage on computer repair, maybe you should try this with something that you have no previous training with, and thus couldn’t be pulling out of your subconcious. Maybe advanced molecular biologly? If you get the teachers edition of a textbook, you could try a bunch of problems at the end, without reading the earlier chapters. If your answers match up with the correct ones, you’d have a much better arguement.
Have you really considered the claim you’re making here? God is dropping predigested solutions to technical problems directly into you’re brain? Not that he’s motivating you to better yourself at your profession, or that he’s nudging you along to help you with your day to day life, or that he’s helping you to rember things, but that he’s acctually downloading specific information into your brain?
If this is common, shouldn’t “true” christain students have perfect test scores? I’m sorry, I’m not trying to mock your belifs or your faith, but this sounds like something out of Oh My Goddess.
I have no problem beliving that a deity would be concerned with trivial things, though . . .
Heh. I imagine it’s not. Remeber this next time some SOCS issue comes up in your school district. And imagine how much worse it would be if, instead of being an adult volentrily exposing yourself to this for a couple of hours a day of occasionaly rude arguement, you were a young, unpopular child, being forced to endure this for six hours a day from both your peers and teachers. And juvinile arguments often go beyond a little net-heckling.
Sorry. Don’t mean to hijack, OR start ranting, but being part of an unpopular minority is something that everyone should experience, just to know what it’s like.
Really? Why don’t we hear about them? Aside from the not perticularly impressive “Mary’s face appearing on a muffin” kind of miricles, I can’t reacal any reports of this kind of thing. A few examples, maybe?
Interesting. Basically, this would mean that those born into christian areas in general, and those born into christain religion specifically, are far less open to God than those who arn’t. After all, the pigmies and the ainu had no need of an organized religion to bring them to God, but one of my friends needed to be born not just in a largly christain region, but also to have both his parents churchgoers as well, to get an equal shot at heaven. Kinda makes him look bad by comparison.
I don’t think you can get around that, without admiting that he had the deck stacked in his favor . . .
Than any of us realize? Even suicidily depressed nilhists? If it’s that much worse than ANY of us realize, how come you know about it? Why do you assume that christains have a harsher view on “human nature” than everyone else?
That being said, I’m not wild about the word “sinful” either, which always seemed to me to be inherently judgemental. But that’s a different arguement alltogether.
So God is exothermic? If that’s so, shouldn’t it be heaven that’s hot, and hell that’s cold? (Sorry. Couldn’t resist)
If this is so, it should be in her medical records, no? A broken bone healing in a couple of days is proably worthy of a post it note or something.
I’m sorry, but this is classic “frend of a friend” type of evidence. The most honest of people tend to exagerate five year old stories that have great signifigance to them.
And even if it went EXACTLY as your friend described, there are other possible, (though fairly unlikly) explanations. Maybe her bone wasn’t really broken.
And if her leg WAS healed by a miricle, how do you know it was God, and not, say, a demon?
Yeah, but non christans do make these kind of choices as well. And christians do not ALWAYS do this. So what is you’re point here? Are you saying that christains are more LIKELY to do this? If so, that should be statistally displayable.
Or are you just using “true christian” as a synonym for “good?” Or to be more exact, “good and members of a christain religion.” You seem to be denying the existance of “good” actions outside of christianty, which is kinda insulting. There are many many examples of people denying thier desires, even extremely strong desires, who are nonchristain.
Point being, a wide cross section of cultures, races, backgrounds, etc etc contain people who belive in gods other than yours, or no god at all. But the fact that people belive something dosn’t make it true. And if we DID accept this arguemnt, why dosen’t it work for the buhdists and the muslims as well?
This seems to be the crux of the debate. Frankly, this statement IS pretty arrogant, no doubt about it. Restated, it is “All muslems, jews, buhddists, etc. (include every other religion and philosophy, now or in the past, as well as presumibly several other variants of christianity) have no spiritual factor in thier lives at all. Any claim to spirituality or faith on their part is either a deliberate lie, or a pathetic deception.”
You have offered your own personal experience in your faith as evidence. You have NOT explained why we should accept this, while dening the exact same claim made by a muslim or a hindu. This has been brought up before, but I’m bringing it up again, because it’s really the core of this debate.
And I’d like to point out that a real christain, or an ethical humanist, wouldn’t criticize either my spelling, or my grammer. 
“This opens so many questions! does vapor action work on souls? Can I enjoy butter as a soul?”
**
In other words, testing the efficacy of prayer is scientifically impossible. But what kind of screwy entity do you worship, if it lets friendless people die because they have no one to pray for them?
**
Your deity must dread that day- once sin is gone, free will is gone, and so the love which it so desires will be impossible, because humans will all be obedient little sinless puppets.
**
You make it sound like once people are sent to ETERNAL TORMENT IN HELL they’re conveniently swept under the rug, so you can forget about them.
Tell me, FoG- how much will you enjoy heaven if you spend eternity watching people being tortured? It seems to me that it would be like sitting around with your deity, having some beers and watching that channel from “Videodrome.”
**
Was it a mistake for Eve to eat the apple?
If it was a mistake, then how can you call her perfect? Perfect beings by definition don’t make mistakes.
And if it wasn’t a mistake, then why did your deity have to go to so much trouble to fix things? If it ain’t broke…
**
Yes, but as you will soon find out (as soon as someone is good enough to provide a link to the right thread,) I asked for that grace, and got a deafening silence. Very frequently during that time I prayed, “Thy will be done, and not mine.” So what happened? I got no answer at all.
**
Are you serious? Of all the thousands of religions in the world, past and present, this man spent enough time on all of them to properly evaluate them?
-Ben
FriendofGod said:
Oh, wow, now there’s some earth-shattering, nailed-it, mind-bogglingly-specific prophecy! :rolleyes:
OK, how many in the room right now can say, in all honesty, that there is not “something going on at your job that is causing great confusion”? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
That’s condescending crap, FoG, the kind of overly-broad nonsense that is published every day in newspaper horoscopes around the world. Please, please, do not treat people with such intellectual contempt, as if they just full off of a turnip truck. It does absolutely nothing to legitimize your position. Nothing whatsoever. You sound like a lounge-act cold-reading huckster. “OK, I’m getting a picture . . . it’s a woman . . . is there someone here who has a woman in their life who is sick? You, sir, you have a woman in your life who is sick? A mother, or a sister . . .? A mother, OK . . . I’m getting a name, maybe beginning with an ‘m’ or an ‘s’ . . .”
Are you guys still in here, argueing?
My goodness. :rolleyes:
Peace,
mangeorge (Any converts yet?)
FoG, how about this:
you tell me what book I read while I ate supper today, and I will give serious consideration to whether Jesus was really resurrected.
Ok? I mean, you talk to this entity you call “God” everyday, you claim that it is omniscient, you’ve even claimed that it’s telling you things about people on this list which you would have no way of knowing otherwise. So let’s elevate this above the level of the Psychic Friends Network. You’re Elijah, the PSN are the priests of Baal. Sock it to us. Give us a simple, unequivocal demonstration of the power of your god.
Personally, I think you’re a false prophet, and I find it very arrogant of you to presume to be receiving messages from God when you’re clearly just making the same sort of vague mumblings that TV psychics do. But maybe I’m wrong. So tell me: what book was I reading?
-Ben
Hi. I’d just like to add some new data points.
I think the demonstration of some sort of extra-material component to human consciousness would be something I’d have to think about a lot. I’m pretty sure that the human mind is constructed in a human brain, and a human brain is completely composed of ordinary matter…atoms and electrons and such. If you could show me that there was something else…say that an exact duplicate of a human brain–atrom for atom–was not conscious, then we’d have something.
I thought I would check the board one more time before hitting the sack. While I am trying to go chronologically in my responses, I can’t let pldennison comments earlier tonight slide.
pldennison, you said in response to the word God gave me:
pl, please read this sentence very carefully: THIS IS NOT A CHILDISH LITTLE GAME.
Of all the responses I imagined you might give, this one takes the cake. To be honest, this reaction wasn’t even in my list of possibilities. Pardon me for asking, but what are you smoking?
Do you realize I wrestled with God for over an hour before hitting “Submit Reply”? Do you realize I argued against my putting that in my message? I said to God, “It’s one thing when Christians are prophesying over each other and have a lot of mercy if you ‘miss it’ partly. God, this bunch will brutalize me if I ‘miss it’ even one inch. Are you sure you want me to do this?”
And WHERE do you get off being so cocky and sure that everyone is going through a confusing issue at work?? I can say for certain that I am not. You don’t know how many times during that hour I said to God, “You realize he might say ‘Hey, work is going just fine. Looks like you blew it.’”
I was even going to wimp out and water it down to just ‘confusion’, but I felt that I needed to put ‘great’ confusion to be more specific.
And where do you get off being so certain that I was just straining so hard to try to “legitimize my position”? Look, you asked for something, I didn’t want to do it because of the context in which it was asked (aka it seemed like you were asking for a ‘magic show’), and as I started to move on to the next topic, God seemed to intervene and give me something for you. I typed it.
Since you obviously don’t like it, GET OVER IT. If you really don’t want to be encouraged by the Lord, you could not have given Him a more forceful and passionate slap in the face. Now I know why this exchange took place between Jesus and the Pharisees in the Bible:
[Quote]
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.’ He answered, ‘A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah …’" (Mt 12:38-39a)
And you wonder why God doesn’t do more to prove Himself to you. I have never in 34 years heard someone react so contemptuously to a word from the Lord.
If you want to believe that what I said was a “lucky guess” or something, fine, that’s your right. But don’t presume that you know so certainly what was happening on this end of the keyboard.
So you give a VERY vague guess about his work, then get upset when he questions what you say is a divine revelation from God? I’ve seen fourth-rate stage magicians give better cold readings after their third martini! This is the demonstration that is supposed to convince us?!?
I don’t remeber that part of the bible, FOG, but was Jesus responding to the answer that he got after asking “What Would It Take to Prove God’s Existence to You?” Please don’t ask a question that you don’t want to hear the answer to.
Pointing out that your relivation could easily apply to just about anyone is HARDLY “slapping God in the face.” At the VERY most, it could be interpreted as questioning your character. Which might be rude, but its an insult to you, not God. And it’s not necisarily an insult towards you. Calling you on overstepping good judgement isn’t necisarily an attack.
You’ve complemented people for having a certain skepticism in regards to mircles in this thread. So why do you respond with so much hostility when someone actually does so? Telephone psycics DO make predictions like “You are having some kind of problem at work.” Haven’t you seen thier commercials? (If not, then you are truely blessed)
I don’t want to be pedantic, but have you considered the possiblity that God led you to this little fracas with us for your benifit, not ours? Maybe He wants you to reconsider some of your own belifs?
–
“Are pumas really know for their flying”
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ben *
I haven’t been keeping up with this thread, but I’ll respond this really quickly.
I’ve asked that same question myself. Eve was perfect with free will. But you have to remember that there was another force at work. Satan, who was in the Garden with Eve tried to tempt her to take a bite of the fruit. Unfortunately, he succeeded.
An example comes to mind: You’ve just built one of those ships in a bottle. You’ve just finished, and it’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. But then your little brother comes in, knocks it off the table, and parts of it break, but it’s (more or less) still intact. You do your best to try and repair it, and you know that one day you’ll succeed, but it takes time. (It’s not the greatest example, but it’ll do…I hope)
We all face similar challenges everyday; we’re tempted to do something that’s not right, and we have a choice whether to do it or not. Sometimes we do it, and sometimes we don’t. Anyways, that’s my two cents.