That is beyond awesome. 
No. For three straight shuffles of cards to be the same, we assume Shuffle 1 is, well, whatever it is. It doesn’t matter what the shuffle is. Whatever it is is fine.
Now we shuffle a second time. The odds they are identical are 1 in (super long number, which can be described as 52!)
Now a third time, so the odds are 1 in 52! squared.
They’re just words. If they were God’s words, why did he choose to only reveal it to the Jewish people and nobody else? What if the billions of people who lived and died without even knowing who God is. Why doesn’t God care about them?
You have verses pop into your head because you’re familiar with the Bible. A muslim would have Koran verses pop into his head. He would say he has a personal relationship with Allah no different than you have with God.
If the Bible is just a step to knowing who God is, are there other ways to do so without the Bible? If it’s such a universal truth, would it be self-evident?
See, here comes the cycle again. I’m going to have to prove that the Bible is God’s words using the Bible.
"Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. "
II Peter 1:20-21 NIV
Reiteration: HOLY SPIRIT
Here’s what it’s like. The thought is involuntary. It just appears in a split of a second. I was searching online and what Whittaker Chambers said. And please believe me when I say this that what is said is exactly what I felt before I read what he said. I was actually shocked to see that he had the same experience. Haha, in fact, I use the word involuntary because of Chambers, kind of copied him to explain the Holy Spirit verbally.
“The thought was involuntary and unwanted. I crowded it out of my mind. But I never wholly forgot it or the occasion. I had to crowd it out of my mind. If I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God. I did not then know that, at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.” - Whittaker Chambers
So can I, in fact, prove that I am God through the use of my own writings?
If the belief that there is a God and He is directing your life gives you comfort and happiness, well that’s good. Everyone needs a source of comfort and happiness. Good for you, and I’m pleased you’re pleased.
BUT
Do not then shut yourself off from other beliefs which give OTHER people comfort and happiness - yours is not the only source of spiritual joy.
Personally, the thought of a supernatural being directing my life and the world around me like a board game gives me the creeps. My life is mine, I’m well beyond needing a pseudo-father figure to take me by the hand. If I need comfort, I have a husband and friends and animals to do that. They also are a source of joy in my life. Would you take that joy from me and give me creepiness instead?
This is somewhat flippant but it will help to illustrate a point.
I have my own personal relationship with my car. I have it set up just so and I drive it in a manner that it likes to be driven. I maintain it and pamper it. In return, it gets me from A to B safely and provides me with a genuine sense of joy and pride.
I have personified a thing; an object. Yet when it breaks down, I feel down and responsible.
Is that so different than you personifying a fictional figure you’ve been raised to believe is real and to which you’ve developed an emotional attachment?
It didn’t work the first 15 times…
Timo, find a path that works for you - but understand it - you really don’t at this point - and that is normal for seventeen. Know any twelve year olds? Know how they argue? Yep - that’s sort of what you sound like. You are not yet making mature arguments.
Then, respect the faith, or lack thereof, of other people. Why Christians are so conceited as to believe they are the only repositories of God’s Truth is beyond me. I know Christianity is evangelical - and there are two paths to being evangelical - one you are doing here - trying to make logical arguments that are far beyond you and that have been made for centuries. It isn’t the path to success unless you happen to find someone really stupid (and those people aren’t here). The other is to get off the computer, go out, and live a Christian life. Live a life so full of the love of God, the generosity of Spirit, that people say “wow, I want that. I want to glow like that, I want to have that inner peace” And then - when they ask (and not before) you can tell them.
Open your eyes though, you may discover many paths to that inner peace - that communication to God or connection to the Universe. Those paths may not work for you, but ask yourself, what is the end result you are looking for from a spiritual practice. Belief in one dogma? Or to make yourself and the world better? And would the God you believe in really prefer the first to the second? No God I’d want to believe in would.
Do you understand the concept of circular reasoning?
Probably not. And you have chosen to NOT respond to my questions and many others after repeated, civil requests to do so. Regurgitating biblical verses is not a valid response. I think we’re done here.
And I agree with you. I still don’t know the answer. But I can’t deny that God exists. Because He has been true to me through experience. So, if I can deny Him, even though I find it also unreasonable that God only chose to reveal it to the Jews at first, but I know that He is still just and trust, or have faith, that He has everything under control. Which includes natural disasters, poverty, and famine, I know…for me it’s also cruel, but just because we don’t understand or find it logical, doesn’t mean it isn’t. Doesn’t mean that there isn’t a reason for it. Because God loves every one of us. Also, just to add it in there, it also pains God. I don’t know why God doesn’t do anything about it, but don’t you think it takes more strength to look away than to stop it?
As I said…haha I’m not well versed in the Bible. In fact, I copied and pasted them from the internet. I don’t know all the books in the Bible. I don’t even know where the verses belong in the books of the Bible. The only verse I know by heart is this
“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16
Trust me when i say, that I am not well versed. haha, only recently did I find out that there was a book in the Bible called Jude. I was like…what…
In fact, which might be embarrassing to say, I haven’t read the whole Bible once.
Just like to add, I just flip to random pages in the Bible
John 14:26
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
What’s the definition of insanity again?
Timo, I’m a Christian (Presbyterian), and I also urge you to read the thread Czarcasm linked on Who Wrote the Bible and to join us in the weekly Bible Study.
In Luke’s version of Paul’s ministry at Athens as told in Acts, Paul found himself in a very similar situation to yours here (although he had more years experience behind him). It follows below. Not that he did not try to convince everybody and he didn’t start by contradicting others’ faith, but built from it, and pointing out how it was relevant to what he was saying. Confrontation rarely convinces people to believe your arguments: it helps if you can find a middle ground.
Acts 17:16-34
English Standard Version (ESV)
Paul in Athens
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Paul Addresses the Areopagus
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,[a] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;**
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’[c]
29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
Footnotes:
a.Acts 17:24 Greek made by hands
b.Acts 17:28 Probably from Epimenides of Crete
c.Acts 17:28 From Aratus’s poem “Phainomena”
No. You feel compelled to do so because you feel compelled to justify your own belief system in the face of challenging and contradicting evidence/ideas.
We do not propose these challenges to test your knowledge of the bible. We propose them to give you pause and see if you can find an answer that is not found in the bible or your own established beliefs.
You’re meant to consider the notion that the answers to these challenges cannot be found in any bible because the bible is not the alpha and omega to all the challenges in life. In fact, it answers very few of them.
Pretty sure all thought is ‘involuntary’ in its truest sense of meaning - I may ‘puirposefully’ think about something specific (like typing this sentence) but I have absolutely no control over the process itself.
So - you attribute to the supernatural that which can readily be explained by the natural.
As for your scriptural ‘proof’ - which prophets were being spoke of there? what words was he describing? You are just parroting other peoples beliefs.
It always reminds me of Buckaroo Bonzai “Home is where you wear your hat.” God in the sense I use the word - in the sense a lot of people who I know use the word, is convenient shorthand for a lot of rolled up concepts. Prayer is simply directed hope and gratitude, and its convenient to have a direction for it sometimes. You can thank “God” for the blessings of life, or you can thank the Universe, but at some time you say “that is an amazing sunset, I am so happy I’ve been privileged to see it.” If you are a Christian, you might praise Jesus or God for that sunset. If you are a Pagan, you might thank the Goddess or the Earth. If you are an atheist or agnostic, you might just leave it with “I feel privileged” - but it seems to me that its really a quibble - and the important thing isn’t what is on the other end listening (or not), but the appreciation.
I didn’t choose not to respond…I was just preoccupied with other responses. I’d be happy to look at your questions now if you’d like…
But I don’t know much facts…
So if you’re expecting a life changing response…yeah, I think it’s best to look elsewhere and not waste your time. I don’t know everything. I don’t know the said falsh-hood of the Bible.
But it’s kind of tedious going back and looking for your comments.
Quoting because I love this, and it needs to be said again. (Bolding mine)
Yeah… it’s a bit of a pile-on, Timo. Take your time and re-read the thread at your leisure if you’re inclined to see what you may have missed in the way of people’s replies and contrasting points of view.
Oh. Well, that being is not God, not if he has anything at all to do with Abraham’s God.