If God exists, let him show himself.
If he already has, let him show himself again. That shouldn’t be too hard for him. Lousy lazy God…
Yes: I agree. But I would still like to know how they would respond to the second bit, because, as I suggested, I don’t think that valid logical reasoning is even *necessary *for them. As I tried to demonstrate, beliefs are. They transcend evidence etc.
I am playing devil’s advocate here (figuratively, guys, figuratively!), so I would really like K & L to speak for themselves.
In a way, this is the crux of it. He *has *shown himself to Kanicbird - frequently, if I remember correctly. The fact that you and I haven’t seen him/her/it (why should a deity be a man?) is… This is where I’m at a loss. Why haven’t you and I seen him? Because if you need to see him to believe, and to believe in him, you have to see him, it gets, as it always seems to, rather circular.
Hi RT, it was not a genuine miss, but believe the motive behind the asking was to derail the post spiritually and diminish the glory of God. Some here are seeking, some are open to different views. Your questions, and others, are honest and genuine and I try to answer them as I feel lead, and what you do with them is not up to me, I also feel that many questions of yours and others are prompted by God. If one person (lets say yourself) benefits from my reply we both have to benefit equally, as the glory can not go to me for my reply, but to God, who is the one revealing the truth. As such God has used you to help me with my walk with Him.
ianzin’s question did not seem prompted by God, and a answer could only confuse the issue, and no benefit could come of it. It was pretty much answered IMHO in my previous post and summed up here: The Word of God is the absolute truth, if the Word is used to ascertain the truth only the Word can be used to challenge.
When I state my case, I can if prompted bring it to the scriptural basis of my post, once at that point, unless someone, can come up with a scriptural based objection there is nothing more that can be said, we are already using the absolute truth. Going backwards to the error that man calls ‘facts’ serves no purpose but to confuse the issue, and to diminish the Word (Who came in the flesh), who is exalted for ever and ever.
Funny… I don’t recall telling my life story. Debate what I’m witnessing.
You see, that doesn’t even fit. If Jesus is simply a myth, how come no other mere myth has attained such widespread popularity? If Jesus was a myth, why have there been men and women who have devoted their life to fighting against a myth or dying for a myth? I could understand people thinking the Bible is a fairytale, or the Book of Mormon, but the Qur’an? You do know that the Qur’an is proven to be an original document, right? Since the Qur’an has been written, no one, I repeat, NO ONE has altered or changed or added to or taken from the words of the Qur’an. Word for word it has remained the same over centuries.
If I asked you to prove to me that atoms exist without using “scientific fact”, could you do it? I haven’t deemed “the Word of God”. The Word of God was deemed thousands of years before I was born. If you care so much to know why God sent His only Son to die… read the Bible. God can do anything He desires, but He will not break His own rules. God doesn’t cheat.
History shows us that, huh? I’ve never seen it. Please show me. Why do you resort to insulting people I admire? Do you see me insulting your heroes? Back in Jesus’ day, if you believed in something so much, and you had an idea, you fought for it to the death. Nowadays with so much freedom of speech, we can hardly grasp what that really means. Do you also believe that Socrates was an idiot? Do you believe those persecuted in the name of science were idiots? They obviously had seen or heard of others put to death for suggesting ideas that went against what the Church believed. So maybe, just maybe, Jesus wasn’t ignorant or stupid after all. Maybe Jesus had life changing information that the Churches of His time saw as a threat to society, so they put Him to death.
I’ve found ALL the answers I needed in the Bible. I can even quote non-Christian sources that talk about Jesus, even His crucifixion.
Salvation doesn’t come from a Holy Book.
I have been investigating these sorts of things for over 8 years now, I have gathered evidence, I have made my decision. See, the thing about you non-believers is that you don’t continue investigating, and any proof you DO actually find you throw off as junk because you don’t want it to be true.
If scientific fact proved that God and Jesus existed, people like you would find ways to say it was all a mistake and find ways to deny what your science proved was true. That is why your precious scientific fact will never prove the existence of God… because God is no idiot. He knows the hearts of men.
Kanicbird and Lacunas Quell:
Are my suppositions in posts 157 and 163 correct?
I am genuinely interested in your views, and my purpose in asking is not to denigrate either of you; all I want is to learn more about other people’s viewpoints and beliefs.
Jesus is supposed to have been a demigod who existed some 2000 years ago. Please show proof of his existence.
Mind you, I don’t want religious twaddle. Show definitive proof from non-religious sources of his existence and confirmation of the miracles he is supposed to have performed.
Thank you.
That is not circular logic. That is the same thing ([see God]->[believe]) said twice in slightly different ways. It’s only circular logic if you also stated that you must believe in God in order to be able to see God ([belief]->[see God]).
Sure. And maybe afterward we ask end tables about music.
Prove they didn’t exist. Oh… and where is your missing link? You know… Science still hasn’t discovered the common ancestor between the great apes and human… yet you accept as a fact that we have one? Hypocritical much?
I can use the Bible all I want. I can use whatever information I so choose. The only reason simians say a Christian can’t use the Bible for any debate is because the simian has absolutely NOTHING to refute the Bible with!! Your scientific fact CANNOT prove the words of the Bible false. That is only a matter of personal opinion.
No, I’m not Asian. I can’t tell you how Asians got that fold. How about you tell me EXACTLY how they got that fold and at what point in their evolution. Truth is that you can’t. Nobody knows…
“But why are certain racial features as they are? Oftentimes we simply do not know. Nobody knows, for example, why Orientals have epicanthic eye folds or flatter facial profiles. The thin lips of Caucasoids and most Mongoloids have no known advantages over the full lips of Negroids. Why should middle-aged and older Caucasoid men go bald so much more frequently than the men of other races? Why does the skin of Bushmen wrinkle so heavily in the middle and later years? Or why does the skin of Negroids resist wrinkling so well? These are questions for which we currently possess no answers”. (taken fromhttp://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2007)
My best guess to how they got they fold if descendants of Adam and Eve would be some sort of genetic mutation.
“Adam and Eve could have lived forever had it not been for their corruption by sin, and their consequent expulsion from Eden (Genesis 3:1-6). Hence, no harmful genetic traits had emerged at this point that could have been expressed in the children of closely related partners. However, after many generations, and especially after the Noahic Flood (Genesis 6-9), solar and cosmic radiation, chemical and viral mutagens, and DNA replication errors, led to the multiplication of genetic disorders”.(taken fromhttp://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=12&itemid=2181)((original question was “Where did Cain get his wife”?))
Nope. I’m not a Bible-basher either. However, beside the FACT that not all people who believe in Jesus Christ are white southern Bible bashers, and beside the FACT that some normal looking whities have Native American blood, it doesn’t matter what color I am.
Prove they didn’t exist. Oh… and where is your missing link? You know… Science still hasn’t discovered the common ancestor between the great apes and human… yet you accept as a fact that we have one? Hypocritical much?
Here is something that might help explain how all the races spawned from Adam and Eve…
Most people, when they speak of a “race,” refer to the racial characteristic of skin coloration. For the purpose of the present discussion, I will limit my discussion, for the most part, to the origin of such a characteristic (being careful to do so only in an accommodative sense). In humans, production of the skin coloring agent melanin is controlled by two pairs of genes. We can designate them Aa and Bb, the capital letters representing dominant genes and the small letters recessive genes. A and B, being dominant, produce melanin very well; being recessive, a and b produce melanin to a lesser degree.
Gary Parker, in his book, Creation: The Facts of Life (1980, pp. 77-81), has observed that if Adam and Eve were both AABB, they could have produced only children with the darkest coloration possible, and they themselves likewise would have been dark. That, barring genetic mutations (to be discussed later), would have produced a world composed only of dark-skinned people. But, as has been noted already, the Negroid race composes less than 10% of the world’s population, so by a process of elimination, this choice can be ruled out.
If Adam and Eve both had been aabb, they could have had only children that were aabb, that being the lightest coloration possible. Then, the world would contain no other groupings. But it does. So, this option also is ruled out by a process of elimination.
The real question is this: Is there a mechanism by which the racial characteristics which we see today could have originated with one human couple—in the short, few thousand year or so history of the Earth?
The answer is a resounding yes! If Adam and Eve had been “heterozygous” (AaBb; two dominant, two recessive genes), they would have been middle-brown in color. And, from them—in one generation—racial differences could have occurred quite easily. Figure 1 expresses the genetic possibilities that could result if Adam and Eve had been heterozygous. Note that in a single generation, one could expect (theoretically) these colorations to be produced: 1 darkest; 4 dark; 6 medium; 4 light; and 1 lightest.
A person born AABB carries genes for the darkest coloration possible, and since all genes are dominant, has no genes for lightness. If that person married another person who likewise carried all dominant genes, and moved to an area where no intermarriage with people of different colors occurred, the offspring resulting from this marriage then would carry the same dominant genes. These offspring will have “lost” the ability to be “white.” Conversely, if a person who is aabb, and thus the lightest possible, marries another person who likewise carries all recessive genes, and moves into an area where no intermarriage with people of other colors occurs, henceforth this union will produce only offspring of the lightest possible coloration. The offspring so produced will have “lost” the ability to be “black.” They no longer have the genes necessary to produce enough melanin for the black color.
Thus, starting with any two parents who were heterozygous (i.e., middle-brown in color), extreme racial colors (black and white, to name only two examples) could be produced in such a way that races would have permanently different colors. Of course, it also is possible to produce a middle-brown race that will have a fixed middle-brown color. If the original middle-brown parents produce offspring of either AAbb or aaBB, and these offspring marry only others their own color, avoiding intermarriage with those not of their own genetic makeup, their descendants will be a fixed middle-brown color.
(taken fromhttp://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2007)
It’s not that it does not compute, I understand the logic of man behind them, but it’s as I stated in my above post, once we are using the Word of God and the wisdom of God contained therein, the only thing that can challenge it is the Word of God. Using the wisdom of man is like throwing pebbles at the starship Enterprise to bring it down from orbit.
I don’t appreciate you insinuating I’m racist. I believe all of mankind, all races, spawned from Adam and Eve. I don’t see black or white or Asian or Indian when I look at someone… I see another human being.
Hah! you’re right. What you’ve said is what I meant to say.
Even IF my faith is wrong, and I live a life serving Jesus only to die and find out that after death all consciousness ends and all I become is a rotting corpse in the ground, what did I lose? Now, if my faith holds true (which it does and will), and when I die and after the Day of Judgment, look at what I’ve gained, and look at what those who denied a faith in Christ lose.
Faith has given me hope. Faith has shown me things that you those lack faith will never, ever, EVER, not in a billion years, see. So if I have seen what tangible evidence faith produces with my own eyes, I’m either lying, crazy, or telling the truth.
I never said I didn’t believe in the other gods or goddesses. I said from the beginning that I believe the Holy Trinity is God, and that there is no power greater than they. I might believe in Zeus, but I believe there is One greater than Zeus, and I believe there is none greater than the Holy Trinity.
I know there’s zero to be gained from discussing this with you, Lacunas Quell, but since it only takes a few seconds-
The descent there has been very well established. Nobody who knows anything about this would assert there’s a missing link out there.
Nobody here is going to be impressed by Pascal’s Wager. It’s a ridiculous argument that presumes people can choose what to believe, a proposition I find dubious. And if you don’t accept the premise of gods and heavens and hells, there’s nothing to lose anyway.
Further, we all know by now that when arguing with a creationist (let alone a YEC), that every ‘link’ we present only allows them to reflexively claim “Ah hah! Look! Now there are two gaps!”
It’s generally just best to post the Primer for Erisian Evangelists or Pamphlet 1.
It also ignores the fact that the Christians making it are deliberately trying to stack the deck ahead of time. It’s easy to pretend that the only options are Jesus and not-Jesus, but that ignores the fact that, say, if Jesus is a myth then Christians are going to be in trouble when the valkyries do not choose them for a life in paradise. Or when their lack of devotion to the gods prohibits them from gaining entrance to the Elysian Fields. Or if Islam is right and Jesus was a prophet, but not the final word on what God wants and Christians have been ignoring the true Word of God for centuries now.
To say nothing of the blinding hate of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs.
So, a recap… Kanicbird asserted that truths are above facts.
I asked him if this was a fact.
He ducked this simple question for two weeks (he has finally admitted this), and has come up with this, the best answer he can offer:
Some may form the opinion that parts of this are sub-literate and literally meaningless, and parts of it are moronic drivel. What I would point out is that by Kanicbird’s own words and reasoning, if what he has written here is a truth (as he defines it), then it is not a fact. This is all that needs to be said.
Still no reply from Lacunas Quell.
Apologies for the hijack.
**ianzin **- you are being called for over here.
For cryin’ out loud…
I have started. Just because I might not have all my thoughts in order, or because I use the Bible and other Holy texts as a source of information doesn’t mean I haven’t been having intelligent conversation.
Compare my posts with Kanic to the posts of other people, and you’ll see this. I am not a scientist. I believe science exists, but I do not believe science has all the answers. There are things science cannot prove, will not prove, yet science is still considered a god because of what it has done. To put your faith in science is as foolish to me as it is to some people for me to put my faith in God.
I’ll start a new thread with a topic of debate, or by all means, you can start one, just let me know about it… but start a new, fresh thread. I realize that there was never an actual topic of debate in this thread, but I have done my best, and answered to the best of my abilities, all the posts I could.
Anything goes. People can make stuff up for all I care… I just don’t want anyone saying I can’t use the Bible (or any other Holy text) as a source of information. If I am claiming to be a Christian, that is my tool, I should have every right to use my tools. If you claim to be a Scientist, use your precious Science, but actually use it… I noticed in this thread that people who support scientific fact rarely even use it. If the do use it, they don’t quote their source. I understand some people may have, but it’s hard for me to keep up with this nightmare thread.
Here is my evidence… Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth”.
Here is some logical evidence… I’m not the first or only person to believe in God.
This is a little off topic, but will somewhat support my case… You do know about the Vatican Library, yes? You know that NO ONE can enter that library without permission of the pope, yes? There is SO much documentation in the Vatican library that, we as humans, should have access to. The Vatican is wrongly holding knowledge and information from billions of people. There are works in the Vatican library that they DO NOT want us to see because it will change our perception of EVERYTHING we have EVER known.
p.s. I’m strongly against the Catholic religion. It doesn’t bother me if you’re a devout catholic, my beef is with the leaders of that religion. I do not believe the pope speaks to the Lord Jesus. The Catholic church is in alliance with the forces of evil and darkness. The leaders of the Catholic religion mislead their followers by distorting and withholding truth.
If this keeps up I’ll probably skip straight to the Turkey Curse.