well, Chocobo, your argument still has a gaping flaw in it. So okay, Eve was not imperfect when she took the fruit because the evil was external to her, namely in the person of Satan. but Satan was an angel who had been created perfectly, a creation of a perfectly divine god, who went renegade with no outside influence. So you’re right back to square one.
and on a different note, but still on-topic, would you mind taking a look here?
FoG - I’m very impressed with your dedication - you’re putting a lot of time and effort into this!
You got the idea behind “placebo prayer”. I wasn’t suggesting it as a serious experiment, partly for the reasons you describe. My point was that there is no way to demonstrate the healing power of prayer - I can’t conceive of an experiment that doesn’t have problems. Despite this, many people believe in it absolutely.
(You could pray for something less ambiguous, e.g. for God to fix car transmissions, but I wouldn’t take the resulting 100% failure rate as evidence of anything. Of course, if mechanical wear spontaneously reversed itself, I’d have to think again!)
As to our sins “cursing the Earth as a whole” - this is an important point for me. You want to learn how atheists think - well THIS atheist finds such a concept unacceptable. It is a very human trait to punish the innocent along with the guilty - that’s why e.g. the terrorist groups in Northern Ireland avenge one atrocity against innocents with another. But it is utterly unworthy of the supreme being in the universe to behave in this way.
(Actually, I find the whole idea of the Creator being petty, vengeful, desiring obedience and worship, to be incredible. I COULD believe that the universe has a guiding intelligence and creator - it’s no worse or better than believing the universe has no guiding intelligence or creator. But the Christian God as described in the Bible just doesn’t fit the bill. He’s too small.)
I look forward to your “word” from God. I’m afraid your last bit of information was wrong- I don’t HAVE a job. (I do have a thesis to write, but I’m doing the literature review at the moment. Which is slightly less fun than having teeth extracted, but not in the least confusing. The word of encouragement, however, is appreciated!)
I usually only lurk on GD, I’m more of a GQ person but I’ve been finding this thread interesting. Thanks for all the work you’re doing!
Apparently, it is, as your God didn’t even realize that matt doesn’t have a job. Oopsie.
Maybe you ought to spend a little time in the real world, then. There’s nothing more offensive than a carnival huckster pretending he has divine inspiration. You are a walking, talking insult to reasonable people.
I really, honestly don’t care, to tell you the truth, who or what you think you wrestled with, or for how long. Considering you were wrong, I think my remarks turned out to be pretty much on target, frankly.
The same place you get off being so cocky and sure that you feel you can pretend that your bullshit carnival-sideshow cold-reading is “the Word of God.”
It was worse than that. He doesn’t even HAVE a job. Funny, isn’t it?
When did I ask for anything? I didn’t ask for shit, FoG. I told you way earlier in the thread that absent an Old-Testmant-firmament-shaking Act of God, I was pretty decided on this topic.
Are you talking to me or to matt? Either way, you’re wrong here.
If this was not a public forum, this might have some merit.
You are not the Lord. And your message obviously was created in the crannies of your own brain, a hopeful guess at best. And you struck out. Be a man, own up to it, and move on.
The Lord should pay more careful attention to who is and isn’t employed, eh? I have never in 30 years encountered in person anyone so arrogant as to believe that his own Psychic Friends cold-reading baloney was “a word from the Lord.”
Wow, you need to get out of this habit of counting your chickens before they hatch. Your “lucky guess” was wrong.
Might be one of the curses of YOUR hell, but not the one I was raised with. My understanding of hell was that it was separation from GOD, not from others. Not that it matters, really…I don’t believe in hell anyway. I also don’t believe in the End Times. shrugs
And thanks for the invite, but spending eternity in a place where I’d be hated for being the pro-choice, tolerant, funloving Witch that I am doesn’t sound like much of a party. I’ll stick with Phil, John, GL, and the rest of the atheists, thanks. (Speaking of which…check your freaking email, Phil!!!)
Quote:
Out of curiosity, you said your wife was a Christian. Does she ever check out these discussions or this board??
This is one subject in which we’ve decided that our marriage is better served by not discussing it. It’s not the greatest system, but it works for us. She went through her period in which she tried to convert me, after listening to my side of things we’ve just agreed it’s not worth the bad feelings. She doesn’t much care for computers btw, and I’ve never seen her use it besides e-mail.
I went through this when I left the church. A lot of people were convinced it was Satan, or the God was testing me. I was convinced of neither. I knew I could no longer teach or support something for which I couldn’t believe any longer.
FoG, I don’t want you to think this is a decision I made lightly. We’re talking about a significant change for me. I’d been raised in the church. My grandfather and his father is/were ministers. I sought (I think I’ve already mentioned that I graduated form Golden Gate Seminary in Marin County) answers and received none. Faith did not work for me, and if not for me, how do I tell others it should be enough for them? That was my quandary. It was a responsibility that I could not take.
In response to FriendofGod’s new OP: “What would it take to bring you to a place where you believed in God?”
I look at the whole question of religion as a kind of pasttime or hobby, along the same line as being a sports fan. Some people are huge sports fans and worship at their particular temple (be it in person at Wrigley Field or on TV), while others are just mildly interested, and some don’t care at all.
If you ask me what I think of the DH rule in baseball, I’ll tell you I don’t like it. And you could conclude I prefer the National League over the American. However, outside of discussing baseball, I don’t even think about the DH. And so, when I am discussing relegion, I will tell you I don’t believe in any gods. You could conclude I am an atheist. But when I’m living my life in the real world, God doesn’t even enter my thoughts.
You can try and convince me that the DH rule is really good for baseball, or that God exists, but in my life it’s not a big enough deal for me to really care. It doesn’t affect me one way or the other.
You might say “But your risking your eternal soul!” which means as much to me as saying “Blub fran on maglor gympies!”
Because I’m getting a lot of good laughs out of this thread, I must keep it alive.
My Question:
It has been stated that Eve was a perfect being who, when given free will, made the wrong choice. It was then stated that the factor mitigating her perfection was the presence of Satan as a bad influence.
My question would be, didn’t God also create Satan? Why? Was Satan’s fall caused by his own free will? If so, doesn’t that imply that Satan wasn’t perfect (because he made the wrong choice without any mitigating factors)? So he wasn’t perfect? And therefore God created an imperfect creature?
All this illustrates to me is how impossible it is, barring direct, unquestionable intervention by the hypothetical god, to prove or disprove its existence. Therefore, we’re left with nothing but opinion.
I was thinking, at lunch, about the stuff with FoG from last night (one can only read the mind-numbing coverage of the Demo convention for so long). His “word from God” about matt turned out not only to be incorrect, but incorrect in a way that FoG could not really have predicted. This leads to three major interpretations, with some minor classes:
The statement was produced solely by FoG’s mind, and
a. He honestly believed it was a revelation from God.
b. He knew it was not from God, but said it anyway, figuring it would look good if he gambled and won.
c. He knew it was not from God, and didn’t care about the consequences of saying it.
God deliberately told FoG something that was incorrect, and
a. wanted FoG to say it to embarrass him.
b. was testing FoG’s “spirit of discernment.”
c. had mysterious reasons for doing it.
God told FoG something that he thought was correct, but turned out not to be.
God told FoG something that was correct, but FoG compeletely misheard it and it came out as something utterly unrelated to what it was supposed to be, like a game of telephone.
I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and guess that what happened was choice 1(a), but the cynical side of me thinks it was 1(b).
1(a) kind of sucks for FoG, though. It establishes that he can’t tell the difference between God talking to him and his own mind fooling him. Seems to me to kind of hurt FoG’s attempt to prove God if God is indistinguishable from random thoughts, too, and leads one to wonder if all of FoG’s experiences with God were just brain farts.
Why on earth did I have the feeling that this thread would be crawling with comments when I got home tonight?
While I am going to go back to where I left off on page 3 and continue in a sec (hopefully catching up totally tonight), let me first deal with the “issue at hand”, as it were.
First of all, pldennison: I must confess to getting confused when I read your response last night. Somehow, some way I was thinking that since you were responding so forcefully that you were the one who had asked me about it. When I saw Matt’s response just a while ago, I realized that he was the one who had asked and not you. Somehow I got things confused. So anyway, consider this as a partial apology, for mistakenly thinking that you had asked for this and then you were complaining about it.
I still will stand by my statement that your attitude toward someone getting a word from the Lord seems pretty contemptuous, whether it turned out to be correct or not (you didn’t know I had ‘missed it’ last night). It’s ironic isn’t it? I turned out to be wrong, which consequently proves that you were wrong in your blanket assertion that this was an “easy prophesy” that could just about apply to anybody. I stand by my statement from last night: this isn’t a cutesy game. You were out of line for your harsh attack and wild assumptions about my motives. Why are you so certain God wouldn’t want to encourage someone about their job? Anyway, I somehow don’t think my saying this will change your mind, so I’ll drop it.
Matt, sorry you got caught in the middle of all this! Now I’ve got to say this … your attitude is absolutely fabulous. Here you’re acknowledging that I “missed it” in my “word” for you, heck you don’t even say you believe in God at all, but you still have a desire and at least a willingness to hear an encouraging word from the Lord. That is awesome. 'Course you might want to get it from a more accurate source ;).
As for how and why I missed it with Matt … well, that’s the good ole’ risk you take with prophesy. Sometimes you just flat out miss it and fall on your face. Truthfully, I’m surprisingly glad I took the risk anyway. Sometimes you’ve just gotta jump out there and do it. I’ve never attempted to prophesy to someone that wasn’t a believer before and I struck out the first time! But honestly, I feel kind of glad to have at least tried.
As for “what happened”, all I can do is tell you my own perspective. From where I sit, I made several mistakes. First, I shouldn’t have jumped into giving prophesies without giving teaching on Biblical NT prophesy and it’s parameters. Second, I should really not have even attempted to get a word from the Lord last night. It’s true confession time. I’ve been out of prayer for days. When I’m out of prayer, I have a hard enough time hearing God for my own life let along for someone else! (‘Out of prayer’, by the way, is Christian lingo for ‘not spending daily time in prayer like you should’).
To use PlDennison’s possibilities, the two most likely possibilities are 1(a) and #4. To be honest, of the two, I tend to think #4 is the more likely of the two. That’s not to say that I’m so consistent in hearing God, but it’s more that God is always speaking, and if I hear it wrong, guess who’s out of tune? Me! I believe God wanted to speak a word and I just wasn’t listening carefully.
There’s a classic prophesy story that I absolutely love that illustrates this. In 1984 there was a prophet at our church in Birmingham. I was not there for this meeting, but I personally know the two people that were prophesied over in the story in question.
Anyway, this prophet gave dozens upon dozens of accurate, dead-on prophesies. Then he came to these two ladies, who were sisters. He didn’t know either of them. He began to prophesy over one and gave a very, very precise and accurately detailed picture … of her sister’s personality! Then he moved on to the other sister and gave a very precise and detailed picture … of HER sister’s personality! Both were followed by very specific encouragements for each of them.
So anyway it’s pretty obvious what happened to the guy. His wires got crossed! Sometimes things get “lost in the transmission” as they say.
Now having said that … don’t get me wrong. A person in full time prophetic ministry (which I’m not, obviously) will be accurate the vast majority of the time. But the main point is this … no one should ever take a prophesy and elevate it too high – it can be dangerous. It’s usually best to put them on the shelf, and if it’s God, it’ll come to pass. Prophesy should primarily be more of a confirmation of something God is already doing in your life and an encouragment of what He will do in the future.
I find it ironic that several of you have mentioned Psychic Friends Network. Are you ready for this? I think that some of what takes place on those networks is very real. I think there are some cases where people are genuinely operating in supernatural demonic power. Satan is a counterfeiter and in some ways you called it just right … Psychics are Satan’s answer for Prophets. Not to say that all are legit, but I believe some are.
But there’s a big difference. Have you noticed the Psychic ads are all focused on exposing people or catching people. It’s all gossip! Prophesy is always about building the person up (New Testement prophesy that is). It’s always about the person leaving feeling encouraged and lifted up by the Lord.
So anyway that was a VERY roundabout way of commenting on prophesy as a whole. I apologize to Matt for not being as in-tune with the Lord as I should have been … it is totally my fault that I didn’t get an accurate word for you. Tell ya what … give me a few days of getting my own time with the Lord back together, and I’ll ask God for an encouraging word for you. Deal ;)?
Okay that’s enough for this post for now. I’m going to do some other things, and then when I come back on later I will try to answer the myriad of posts from the middle of page 3 through now. We’ll see how far I get!
Friend of God, you’ve said that the fact that there are millions of people who have become born-again is proof that there is a God, because they must have experienced him/her in their life. How can you say that when there are also millions of people who have decided that there isn’t a God. They must’ve had a reason as well.
I’m agnostic. I believe in something, I just don’t know what. I don’t believe in any man made religion. Regardless of what anyone says, I tend to follow the conceit that 1.Man is fallable, 2. The Church is run by Men, 3. The church is fallable. Seems logical. While I’m unsure of earth-bound religions, I’m not so sure that there isn’t something out there. Everything is just a little too neatly packaged together for that, although, I don’t rule out that that is the case.
I think that if you believe in God, that’s good for you, but when you try to get people to convert when they are unwilling, aren’t you subverting their free will? By trying to prove God to a group of athiests, aren’t you negating the thing that you claim is so very precious to your religion?
This, Friend of God, is what you offered. A lot of folks have told you what it would take, and you haven’t even come close to offering any proof at all. All you’ve done, in your many lengthy replies, is preach (witness).
Most here have been very gentle and respectful of your beliefs in their responses. And patient, IMO.
So, I think it’s time for you to “Put Up Or Shut Up”.
Remember, you offered proof.
G’nite, my friend. (BTW, I am not god)
Peace,
mangeorge
Somehow, FoG, I think you will find this will often be the case. For prophesy to appear accurate, some credulity is required on the part of the one be prophesied about. This will likely be found in a higher precentage among believers.
I would like to know how this is supposed to work. Prophesy of this sort, I mean. If it actually works you could be in for some big money (more below).
I shouldn’t ask, because I likely won’t like the answer (meaning it won’t satisfy me), but why does this make any difference whatsoever. I mean before you came to Christ you had been ‘out of pray’ for a long, long time. If this affects how well you hear the lord, how can you be sure you heard his intial call-up correctly?
I don’t want to offend you, but I would say that 1(a) is the most likely explanation everytime you ‘hear God’. But that is just an atheist’s perspective.
The old friend of a friend routine. Sorry if I sound skeptical, but this story real doesn’t offer much in the way of evidence. There are millions of ways prophesies of this sort can be faked.
Emphasis mine. If this is really a supportable claim, FoG, I suggest you check out http://www.randi.org . Your prophetic minister friends could be in for a million dollars plus a lot of esteem and aclaim from other BA xtians across the world. The James Randi Educational Foundation has a standing offer that if any claims of paranormal acivity of any kind (prophesy of this sort fits the bill) are proven beyond a standard of evidence the person who makes the claim is award one million dollars american. Not to mention unbelieveable media coverage, just in case monetary awards are insulting to these prophets. Think of the converts!
Please, FoG, you can’t seriously believe this, can you?Those commercials are dramatizations of supposedly actual calls. You might be more skeptical if you heard the real reading then read how those readings work. James Randi and others have dubunked these claims time and time again. These cold readings are done by making educated guesses. The hits are magnified and the misses are swept under the rug. Not that tough, anyone can do it, and no divine or demonic intervention required.
Actually man, I don’t think that the OP actually offered proof, he just wanted to know what atheists would accept as proof. In later posts FoG did give some examples of what he personally considers convincing evidence of God’s existence, but I don’t think he really expected it to be convincing to anybody who hadn’t had the same personal experience (and personal opinion) of it.
But I can sympathize with the frustration that inspires this “show me the deity!” reaction. It can be difficult to know where you’re going with someone who’s simultaneously so positive and so vague.
(By the way, since I can tell we’re about to go off in full cry after the prophecy hare, can we pause at the subject line above for a brief spelling refresher? Thanks sweeties, it’s nice of you to humor me. :))
I’m starting with Satan’s post about 1/3’d of the way down page 3. I would like to catch up tonight but I don’t think I will. I’ll make an attempt anyway …
Satan seemed to say I needed to be institutionalized (I know you didn’t really say that but I couldn’t resist :)). Here’s one choice quote of you attempt to prove to me that my experiences with God aren’t real:
Now I’m sure this was basically tongue-in-cheek (dang the Internet, they need to make a way for us to “hear” tones of voice somehow) … but to respond at least partly … an imaginary person would not have an actual impact on my life the way God has had on mine.
GLWasteful, thanks for the kudos on trying to answer all these posts. That’s what I get for posting controversial topics! You said you were impressed by those who lived out their faith, and then said this:
Again, dang the Internet, I’m not sure exactly what you imply here so I’ll assume two possibilities. If you think I mean they aren’t “good” because of being born with these defects, certainly not. Those defects don’t make them one iota less human in the eyes of God.
If you’re saying that they, along with the rest of society, is not inherently ‘good’, let me give you this food for thought. Any child, whether born with the above defects or not, has to be taught to do good. Why would they need to be taught if they were somehow inherently good? If we were born inherently good, wouldn’t we want to clean up our rooms and speak respectfully and never gripe or complain about anything?
John, you said:
If I understand correctly, you are saying Jesus has good things to say but He isn’t God. Or perhaps you’re saying that He is God, but if He weren’t, His teachings would not change. I’m sorry if I’m not totally following you here. Something to consider: if my 2nd choice is correct, here’s one line that I bet would change if He weren’t God:
APB9999 said:
Again, to clarify my earlier statement, it’s God’s ability to take weak areas and change them that is distinctive.
OgreKitty, hi by the way! I see this is your first post. You said:
I have good news for you. He’s going to do something at least akin to what you are saying some day, perhaps soon. But He won’t stop there. He will do it to any person who has sinned against God, which means all of us (yikes!). The only hope we all have is to turn to Christ because otherwise we will all bear the punishment we deserve.
Ben said:
Having only met a Muslim (actually a group of them) only once in my life several years ago, and for only about 30 minutes at that, I cannot fully say. All I know is I’ve heard at least one tremendous testimony of a Muslim who came to Christ. Here are some quotes from the article (written by the Muslim who came to Christ) …
To keep it from going on forever I just gave you the essence of it. It actually goes on for several more pages and is quite fascinating.
Trisk said:
I have not once said that I was attempting to offer any proof. None of what I am saying is intended to be proof. It is nothing more than learning where other people are coming from, and hopefully giving them an interesting thought or two to chew on. The rest is up to God.
Well, I don’t disagree with your last comment there. I don’t want it to turn into endless and meaningless debate. My biggest dilemma is this – I don’t want to presume where anyone’s hearts are at. For all I know, each and every person here is open to the possibility of God. I realize that’s probably unrealistic and untrue, but who knows? On the flip side I don’t want to be naiive and debate with someone who just wants to debate and isn’t really seeking the truth. I confess it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. I’m still wrestling through what I think I need to be doing (or not doing).
Ben said:
1 I already said isn’t true, and I never said # 2. My main point, again, is that God is able to change a believer in the areas he or she is weak.
VarlosZ, hi there! You had several interesting thoughts, among them:
Well, as they say, all I can do is all I know to do! #1 of your two options is something I could do, but it does not seem like the heart of God. On the other hand, the Bible does warn against wasting your time trying to convince people who don’t want to change anyway. While I realize many on this board fit in that category, I can’t help but think there are some who are more open than that. Some have shown up on this thread.
#2 … well I gave it a shot in “Christianity and Love”, a three part thread. Search for it and feel free to spend about 2 weeks reading through it all. I pointed out the logic of Christianity but most everyone here was determined to punch holes in it that they were certain were there. So I determined that this bunch, for the most part, will not accept the logical aspects of Christianity.
Polycarp said:
Good stuff! I like it.
I’m going to skip posts that were basically directed at Polycarp’s comments and move on to …
Needs2Know. You said:
I think, since everyone seems to think I’m trying to prove God, that I must obviously have given off that impression quite strongly. Let me correct it once again. That is not my intent. My intent is to give, as I’ve said several times, “food for thought”. Something to think about and consider.
I think this is the ‘motive’ question that I answered a little earlier already, but I will reiterate here: I am motivated for one reason only: EVERYONE deserves to have a fair shot at hearing the gospel, atheists included! Yeah this is THE most challenging bunch I’ve ever shared the gospel with, but believe me I’m not doing it because of the challenge. It’s more because I realized, “You know, God loves them just as much as anyone else. Does anyone else really go into their world, find out what makes them tick, and try to nudge those who are open toward God?”
To be honest, most of my believer-friend peers are timid about reaching into the more difficult segments of society which is unfortunate. I can’t say I’m not timid about it myself, but it seems God has put me here for a season. Why, I’m not sure totally. If it’s God, time will tell.
stuffinb said:
I AGREE up to a point. To me, the ultimate point of rationality, and faith, is to realize that God is the ultimate logical being and if something doesnt appear logical to me but it does to Him, I am the one who is missing something. In other words, it’s just like a child has to trust a parent even when they don’t understand. They trust the parent to be smarter than they are about the things of the world. Same with God. It makes sense. Someone smart enough to create the earth with all it’s incredible intricacies is smart enough in all other areas.
This is one reason why the Bible says you have to come to Christ like a little child.
Here’s what I personally do … I believe God wants me to understand what He says. I am on a lifelong journey of understanding, and it will never end. Some things I do understand. Those I don’t, I trust Him in those areas.
Classic example of a sincere believer getting a little too “super-spiritual”. She was depending on God to do everything for her. That’s not what the Bible teaches! The Bible teaches many money principles, including the ones you just mentioned. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Prayer IS a rational PART of the equation. It just isn’t rational to make it the only part when there are Godly principles you could be following to solve the problem. Prayer can provide you with new creative aspects of the solution that you might not have otherwise considered.
slythe said:
Oh slythe I do “accept you the way you are”. God created each of you with unique and incredible giftings. As I said before, I am trying to give you something to think about. I will say this however. The longer I’m here, the more I realize that there are some who just don’t want to change, period, and they are not even open to the idea. For those individuals, which I’ll admit are sometimes hard to distinguish from others, I do need to stop. The Bible even warns against wasting time with those who dont want to change. My problem is I dont want to leave out anyone who might be open.
Well I just reached my marathon posts of Saturday night, I’m closing the gap slowly but surely!
I’m reminded of a line from my card routine, after the spectator picks a card at random: “Hmmm…Five of clubs? No? Oh well, it’s really impressive one time out of 52.”
FoG, not only are your marathon postings tedious to read, they are off topic of your OP! This leads me to believe that you merely used the the OP to gather up a bunch of “heathens” in one place to provide an audience for your great teachings. This has been done too many times before. As I have previously said, we must now suspect that anything you post on any subject is done with the ulterior motive of converting us to your religion. We have told you what it would take to convince us. We have told you why your reasons to believe aren’t good enough. Either show us the proof that we asked for(YOUR OP, remember?), or back down and admit that you cannot.
I have no problem with anyone getting an actual word from the actual Lord. I’m still waiting to see one, though. What I saw was matt getting a cold-reading guess from you, which is a horse not only of a different color, but from a different spectrum entirely.
No, that was simply a delightful, utterly engaging surprise.
I maintain that it could just apply to anyone who has a job, and I’m willing to test that theory and be proven wrong. matt, on the other hand, doesn’t have a job, so of course your “prophesy” didn’t apply to him. Why you would choose to use that fact as supportive of your “prophesy” eludes me. (It dosn’t surprise me, though; it falls under the “remember the hits, forget the misses” paradigm that cold readers use to fool not only the audience, but themselves.)
Hey, I once prophesied that the Florida Marlins would win the 1997 World Series. Of course, I did so with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. Context is everything.
I don’t think so. SD folks don’t take well to hucksterism.
