Nobody is explaining what God as if we all have the same idea.
In the context of my discussion with Frank a god is one who can create something out of nothing.
In the context of my discussion with Frank, God is the "I AM" Who has revealed Himself first through the Jewish people and more completely to all people when the Second Person of the Trinity came down to earth to die for our sins.
And I have no problem whatever with you blindly guessing that that GOD exists. You may be correct...that it exists.
It may exist...I may not exist. I do not know which it is.
And Neal, YOU DO NOT KNOW EITHER.
Unless you are saying that that GOD revealed itself to you...in which case, you must explain how you KNOW that you are not merely deluding yourself.
Frank,
In this particular post you changed parameters from your typical conversation. You changed it from "does a god exist" to "does God exist", which to me means the God of at least what we call the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).
It will take awhile to answer your question because the evidence is quite substantial. However, first I would like to know if you will admit that we should know that "a god" exists.
Frank
I must admit that I did chuckle at your typo. Since we were talking about the existence of a god it reminded me of "I think therefore I am'. I have made worse typos.
You all seem to be referring to a patriarchal God in the sense that the mind is basic, and the mind creates the physical universe opposed to the matriarchal credo that the physical universe is basic and the mind arises from the physical.
So the basic question is whether the mind creates the physical or the physical creates the mind. So the mind comes up with the question of where I came from and what am I? It becomes a dog chasing his tail. That's the problem of patriarchal religion.
And nobody has resolved the question except the mystics, for one the Zen Buddhists who don't make a statement at all but merely come to the point through meditation or other means of "stopping the chasing of their tails."
The matriarchal religions, which predated the patriarchal religions, never had the problem, because to them the physical was the basis and the mind was dependent on the physical, so the two made peace and were in balance.
It was the patriarchy that historically overran the goddess cultures, the matriarchal cultures, destroyed the goddess, literally destroyed the matriarchal cultures and the world has been in a state of imbalance since then. But the patriarchy religions have never come to peace with themselves. And now we're arguing about how the physical can come from the mind assuming that the physical does come from the mind.
I am not very familiar with Eastern Religions but here is the Judeo/Christian belief:
God has always existed. He created the angels. Then He created the physical universe.
Adam and Eve were created with a spirit,soul,and body. When they sinned they died spiritually. Their minds and bodies also got messed up. Since they were representatives of the animals the animals suffered the same consequences.
Jesus made it possible for spiritual rebirth. As the Holy Spirit works in the lives of believers there is a renewing of the person's mind. The body is restored after the believer physically dies.
Satan (a fallen angel) will do anything possible to interfere with the believer's spiritual growth. He will also do whatever he can to deceive non-believers. For example, Satan knows that he can give a form of peace to a person who practices Eastern meditation. As long as Satan can keep the person away from God, he doesn't care. If Satan gets the chance, he is more than willing to cause other forms of destruction to the non-believer's life.
We have been promised that both biblical Judaism and Christianity will always exist.
So, because you absolutely LOVE analogies, let's do one.
So visible light, the things we can see, come in a fairly narrow wavelength. Sound has a somewhat wider wavelength, but past a certain point, humans can't detect. Infrared and radar for instance, need machines. Ditto to gamma, x-ray, and UV for the most part. This scale isn't all inclusive.
All of these are part of the physical world, but not all of these are detectable. Since we have rather limited perception, we cannot detect things outside our puny human senses.
"If a thing exists...it is a part of nature."
Nonsense. Just as gamma waves are supersensory (above what we can sense), a supernatural being exists outside our wavelength of what we can detect as existing (or, why you can't see God). But just as a frequency can be modulated into a different range, a supernatural being can manifest within our reality.
Nobody is explaining what God as if we all have the same idea.
In the context of my discussion with Frank a god is one who can create something out of nothing.
In the context of my discussion with Frank, God is the "I AM" Who has revealed Himself first through the Jewish people and more completely to all people when the Second Person of the Trinity came down to earth to die for our sins.
And I have no problem whatever with you blindly guessing that that GOD exists. You may be correct...that it exists.
It may exist...I may not exist. I do not know which it is.
And Neal, YOU DO NOT KNOW EITHER.
Unless you are saying that that GOD revealed itself to you...in which case, you must explain how you KNOW that you are not merely deluding yourself.
Frank,
In this particular post you changed parameters from your typical conversation. You changed it from "does a god exist" to "does God exist", which to me means the God of at least what we call the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).
It will take awhile to answer your question because the evidence is quite substantial. However, first I would like to know if you will admit that we should know that "a god" exists.
There is absolutely no way I KNOW that any gods exist...and there is no way ANYONE here should KNOW that a god exists. All anyone can do on the question of whether at least one god exists...is to make a blind guess.
I have never changed my position on the issue...I have offered essentially the same one for over 20 years in this forum and in its predecessor, Abuzz. Here it is again:
I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.
(When I use the word "GOD or gods" here, I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF SUCH AN ENTITY OR ENTITIES ACTUALLY EXIST.)
0 Replies
Frank Apisa
1
Fri 26 Aug, 2022 02:32 am
@NealNealNeal,
NealNealNeal wrote:
Frank
I must admit that I did chuckle at your typo. Since we were talking about the existence of a god it reminded me of "I think therefore I am'. I have made worse typos.
Thank you, Neal. I sometimes post in a hurry...and typo's are almost unavoidable. I do try to proofread my posts, but some are gonna sneak through.
So, because you absolutely LOVE analogies, let's do one.
So visible light, the things we can see, come in a fairly narrow wavelength. Sound has a somewhat wider wavelength, but past a certain point, humans can't detect. Infrared and radar for instance, need machines. Ditto to gamma, x-ray, and UV for the most part. This scale isn't all inclusive.
All of these are part of the physical world, but not all of these are detectable. Since we have rather limited perception, we cannot detect things outside our puny human senses.
"If a thing exists...it is a part of nature."
Nonsense. Just as gamma waves are supersensory (above what we can sense), a supernatural being exists outside our wavelength of what we can detect as existing (or, why you can't see God). But just as a frequency can be modulated into a different range, a supernatural being can manifest within our reality.
Frank,
Now let's address your excellent question of how I know that I am not deluding myself:
I will leave the evidence for Christianity for a later post.
The answer is that the Christian Life is impossible to live without God. First, the Bible makes no sense without the Holy Spirit explaining it to us. When I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior the Bible began to make sense. Why? Because the Holy Spirit was explaining it to me.
Jesus' teachings also makes no sense in our society without God. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. It is virtually opposite to what secular society says is true. Some secular people may say that Jesus' teachings provide nice guidelines for living. However, how many of them make Jesus' teachings a literally way of their life?
Çhristianity says that a person is totally dependent on God both in salvation and in living the Christian Life. God is sovereign. This is true in practice as much as it is in a theological sense. The Christian knows about God's Providence.
Çhristianity is a personal relationship with God. While it is true that our 5 natural senses play a minimal role, it is also true that our spirit plays an extremely important role. My spirit interacts with God on a hourly basis. God impresses on me different facts "out of the blue". At times He empowers me "out of the blue". Their is no possibility of these things coming from within myself.
The Christian Life is impossible without God. It would end in failure without God. The Christian learns to "abide in Christ" where He governs the Christian's life.
Once again, the Christian Life is a personal relationship with God. It is impossible without God.
Frank,
Now let's address your excellent question of how I know that I am not deluding myself:
I will leave the evidence for Christianity for a later post.
The answer is that the Christian Life is impossible to live without God. First, the Bible makes no sense without the Holy Spirit explaining it to us. When I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior the Bible began to make sense. Why? Because the Holy Spirit was explaining it to me.
Jesus' teachings also makes no sense in our society without God. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. It is virtually opposite to what secular society says is true. Some secular people may say that Jesus' teachings provide nice guidelines for living. However, how many of them make Jesus' teachings a literally way of their life?
Çhristianity says that a person is totally dependent on God both in salvation and in living the Christian Life. God is sovereign. This is true in practice as much as it is in a theological sense. The Christian knows about God's Providence.
Çhristianity is a personal relationship with God. While it is true that our 5 natural senses play a minimal role, it is also true that our spirit plays an extremely important role. My spirit interacts with God on a hourly basis. God impresses on me different facts "out of the blue". At times He empowers me "out of the blue". Their is no possibility of these things coming from within myself.
The Christian Life is impossible without God. It would end in failure without God. The Christian learns to "abide in Christ" where He governs the Christian's life.
Once again, the Christian Life is a personal relationship with God. It is impossible without God.
Ummm...and the part about how you know you are not deluding yourself?????
If the God of the Bible did not exist then I would not have the fruit of the Spirit no matter what circumstances are.
Yeah, you are deluding yourself...and engaging in some very, very poor logic.
0 Replies
izzythepush
2
Fri 26 Aug, 2022 09:26 am
@NealNealNeal,
The Bible is acollection of writings from a pre industrial civilisation, a lot of it is pre iron age.
It is chock full of historical inaccuracies, a lot of which is trying to shoe horn various stuff to make a point.
The 'census' in Augustus reign is a case in point. It never happened. There was never a case where people had to go back to their birth places for a census. It's illogical, all those days spent travelling instead of being productive members of the empire.
It was all about fitting in with earlier prophecies and is total bollocks.
If we are to take your claim of the 'fruit of the spirit' as proof, then by the same token we must accept Cheater 120's deranged rantings.
And every person in a nuthouse who claims to be Napoleon, if he wasn't Napoleon he wouldn't know it in his heart regardless of the circumstances.
Some people have accused me of being anti Christian, but there are plenty of Christians on A2K I get on very well with.
Not just the people who post on other threads who happen to be Christian, but don't go on about it, but posters who come here to talk about their religion.
I got on very well with Spademaster, and I have very amicable converstaions with DavidSheep88.
Their Christianity is concerned with what unites us all, not about dividing up people into sheep and goats.
And that's it, I really don't care what people believe, just as long as they don't use that belief system to attack other groups of people.
And so many "Christians" spread division, hate and intolerance, and that's what I have a problem with.
The only reason I've singled out Christianity is because it's the one on here, but the same criticism can be said of any belief system.
Look at Islam, on one extreme there's the jihadis who want to kill all unbelievers and then there are the Sufis who talk about how we're all badically after the same thing.
On that note if any of you can bear tearing yourselves away from the Bible you could benefit from reading a bit of Idries Shah.
In Acts 26:24 Festus accused the Apostle Paul of being insane. Elsewhere, the Bible anticipates responses similar to yours.
It is up to God to convince you that what I am saying is true. I can only join millions of other people in testifying that Christianity is true.
In Acts 26:24 Festus accused the Apostle Paul of being insane. Elsewhere, the Bible anticipates responses similar to yours.
It is up to God to convince you that what I am saying is true. I can only join millions of other people in testifying that Christianity is true.
I want you to know that I sincerely thank you for sharing your blind guess that "Christianity is true"...whatever you think that means.
I know there is a religion known as Christianity. I used to be a participant of that religion...a fairly enthusiastic participant.
So, of course, that is true.
But insofar as Christianity assert that there is a GOD...all it is doing is asserting a blind guess about the Reality.
I am not saying that blind guess is wrong. I may well be correct. But right or wrong...it is nothing but a blind guess.
Not sure why you keep fighting that, because it is as obvious as a face on Mt. Rushmore.
I understand your point. Sometimes Christians can be judgmental on their own instead of stating what Jesus said. However, Jesus ordered Christians to spread the gospel. And there would be no need for salvation if sin did not exist.
I understand your point. Sometimes Christians can be judgmental on their own instead of stating what Jesus said. However, Jesus ordered Christians to spread the gospel. And there would be no need for salvation if sin did not exist.
There would be no need for salvation if the god you people worship did not have anger control problems.
If one angers your god...your god will condemn he/she to eternal punishment...from which the person must be "saved." That is what this " salvation nonsense is all about...saving one from the anger of an out-of-control god.
Frankly, if your god were a human operating in America right now...doling out ETERNAL PUNISHMENT for violations...it would be immediately housed in an insane asylum under restrictions more severe than those used to contain Hannibal Lecter.
So...seek your "salvation" from the god that is cruel enough to condemn people for all of eternity for not following its laws exactly.
And if some of us think you are suckers for doing so...ahhh...you just have to put up with it.
