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Quote (Colter @ Dec. 15 2007,22:35) Good morning Stu, Never mind, I thought you might like that philosophical commentary.
I don't really think we have much in common to share so I'll wrap this line of discussion up.
Thanks
Colter
Hi ColterYes, I fear for you if you seriously think there is anything worth taking seriously in what you posted. I promise I won't pray for you though!
Stuart
Hi Nick
Quote We do not have the ability to prove to you the existence and activities of our God.
These things are obvious in creation and if you cannot see them then that is your problem.
If they are obvious, please how me how they are so. More particularly, why are they especially the result of creation? I think your two statements above contradict one another.Quote So why do you come to attack the faith of others who do know Him and His love if He does not exist?
To attack people would be to violate the rules here. To attack their mythical ideas, given the bloody history of many of those who have claimed to be christian yet have shown nothing but contempt for their fellow humans, is right, in my opinion.Quote Is your attitude not an oxymoronic one?
How so?Quote Or perhaps you do believe and just hate Him?
This will be my 832nd post here. Even if you have only read a fraction of them, there should be enough material for you to judge whether I believe in your messiah or not. What does it say about your beliefs that it is difficult to distinguish between those who do believe and those who don’t?Stuart
Quote (Colter @ Dec. 18 2007,00:45) Quote (Stu @ Dec. 17 2007,19:30) Quote (Colter @ Dec. 15 2007,22:35) Good morning Stu, Never mind, I thought you might like that philosophical commentary.
I don't really think we have much in common to share so I'll wrap this line of discussion up.
Thanks
Colter
Hi ColterYes, I fear for you if you seriously think there is anything worth taking seriously in what you posted. I promise I won't pray for you though!
Stuart
Hi Stu,Your post are kind of mean spirited.
Colter
Ok, sorry, you may not have gathered that I do not think there is any such thing as the god you worship, or any god for that matter. I am what Mrs.IM4Truth calls an antichrist, although if Jesus did exist and we strip away the massive spin doctoring and myth invention performed by Paul and whoever wrote John and the other canonical gospels, probably he would have been the kind of person I could relate to. However as presented, he's not.To the stuff you posted. You are a real, live, intelligent human being. The fairy tales in the book you quoted do not relate in any way to the realities described by science, or the understanding we have of human nature, which includes the human qualities you have. You can call me mean spirited if you want but just read what you posted from the point of view of a non-believer, then consider the words pot…kettle…black.
Stuart
Hi Stu,
These these scientific realities you speak of-are they the transient truths that could be blown away by tomorrow's evidence?
That sounds like an unreliable reality to me.Quote (Colter @ Dec. 18 2007,00:36) Quote (kenrch @ Dec. 17 2007,14:19) Quote (Colter @ Dec. 17 2007,14:12) So we are not to believe the epistles and now we are not to believe Luke. So we are not to believe the New testament! Is that what you are saying? Jesus is not the messiah? He is not the lamb of God?
Gal 1:4 who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father:
The Messiah has yet to come? Hum where have I heard that?
Jesus came to give us a chance to enter into the kingdom before He comes to extinguish the earth. The kingdom of heaven is at hand!
Rev 21:27 and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Kenrch,
Jesus never at anytime anywhere on any occasion said that he was going to “extinguish the earth”. Some backward apocalyptic writer got hold of Johns revelation and distorted it. The Christ from Nazareth and the one depicted in the BOR are not the same person. “By their fruits yea will know them”.
* the kingdom that Jesus established is “spiritual”, the king is the rule of the Father and Son combined in the heart of man. The Jews thought that the Messiah was to rule a material Israel. The kingdom as Jesus taught it has never really been tried, his gospel sleeps like a cocoon inside Christendom until an age when believers turn to rely solely upon him.
* we are to believe in Jesus, secondary commentary and doctrine formation should be taken in the context that they are mans opinion.
* as Jesus was being killed by religion he asked our Father in heaven to forgive the people doing it, “forgive them Father, for they know not what they do”.
Colter
OK C, Just who do you believe Jesus to be?
Kenrch,I believe Jesus to be the Son of God incarnate in the flesh, co-creator of our world. I believe he incarnated for the purpose of achieving unquestioned sovereignty of his own creation as well as to reveal God the Father to ALL of mankind (not just Israel).
The centerpiece of his divine revelation was that God is the Father of ALL men and women, consequently ALL mankind are brothers and sisters.
His church was a spiritual fellowship which he referred to as “the kingdom of heaven” or ” kingdom of God”. This fellowship consisted of ALL those who believe in the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of ALL mankind.
The religion of Jesus that he practiced all of his life and taught for the 3 years of his public ministry was to live a “decided life”, a life wherein we seek to do the will of God as we find him in personal experience. To love one another as he loved us.
The Christian church which subsequently grew up ABOUT Jesus became a virtual substitute for the “kingdom of heaven” ideal embodied in his teaching, it was inevitable that a social institution would evolve. The RCC basically became a reconvening of the Sanhedrin, church authority replaced the sovereignty of God's will in the heart of the believer. The long dark winter of Church oppression began and now we find ourselves a house divided against itself.
“Some day a reformation in the Christian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadulterated religious teachings of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus. In the enthusiasm of Pentecost, Peter unintentionally inaugurated a new religion, the religion of the risen and glorified Christ. The Apostle Paul later on transformed this new gospel into Christianity, a religion embodying his own theologic views and portraying his own personal experience with the Jesus of the Damascus road. The gospel of the kingdom is founded on the personal religious experience of the Jesus of Galilee; Christianity is founded almost exclusively on the personal religious experience of the Apostle Paul. Almost the whole of the New Testament is devoted, not to the portrayal of the significant and inspiring religious life of Jesus, but to a discussion of Paul's religious experience and to a portrayal of his personal religious convictions. The only notable exceptions to this statement, aside from certain parts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are the Book of Hebrews and the Epistle of James. Even Peter, in his writing, only once reverted to the personal religious life of his Master. The New Testament is a superb Christian document, but it is only meagerly Jesusonian.” UB 1955
Colter
Very True the Kingdom of heaven is within us! It IS Spirit!Paul was the apostle to the Gentile. Paul said we are one IN Christ. He also said that The Father's children are led by the Spirit.
That only those in the Spirit can please God and that those who are in the flesh cannot please God.Paul's mistake is that he did not make clear in his “writings” which law was nailed to the cross. As Peter states.
2Pe 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
2Pe 3:17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.The church today teaches that the very commandments of God were done away with by His Son. Nailed to the cross!
When Paul himself states he serves the law of God but not the law of Moses.
1Co 9:20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.
1Co 9:21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.What matters is keeping the commandments of God and faith in Jesus. 1Cor.7:19, Rev. 12:17; 14:12
Come out of her is the cry. Rev. 18:4
May the Holy Spirit draw us together,
Ken
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 18 2007,07:23) Hi Stu,
These these scientific realities you speak of-are they the transient truths that could be blown away by tomorrow's evidence?
That sounds like an unreliable reality to me.
Yes, science is subject to revision in the light of new evidence. That is why it is so useful. That the religious need to invent certainty because they can't cope with uncertainty, is quite telling.Stuart
Hi Stu,
The bible demands that we either fully accept or totally reject it as truth.
We have done the former and you the latter.
Why would you try to change our view?
What can you hope to gain?Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 19 2007,08:11) Hi Stu,
The bible demands that we either fully accept or totally reject it as truth.
We have done the former and you the latter.
Why would you try to change our view?
What can you hope to gain?
I resent the efforts christians make to convert me. I would never claim to have a mission to change your opinion. I just think that you should have the maximum amount of the relevant information so that the decisions you make are better informed ones.Questioning my motives for posting here is likely to be as profitable for you as it would be for me to question yours.
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Dec. 19 2007,19:55) Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 19 2007,08:11) Hi Stu,
The bible demands that we either fully accept or totally reject it as truth.
We have done the former and you the latter.
Why would you try to change our view?
What can you hope to gain?
I resent the efforts christians make to convert me. I would never claim to have a mission to change your opinion. I just think that you should have the maximum amount of the relevant information so that the decisions you make are better informed ones.Questioning my motives for posting here is likely to be as profitable for you as it would be for me to question yours.
Stuart
Hi Stu, I hope you don't mind me chipping in here. You say you resent the efforts Christians make to convert you. I can understand that.It might help you to know that if they didn't care about you, they may not bother.
Before I found that God was real I resented Christians, thinking them to be naive and self righteous, even pompous. When I hit rock bottom and asked God if He was real, could He please help me, He did. I asked Jesus into my life and started living for Him.
All of a sudden I found meaning to life, which before hand had escaped me. Not only that, but I discovered my identity, which had also eluded me.
Life today, 30 years down the track is a wonderful experience because God is in it. I don't know if you'd be interested in looking or not, but I have written about some of the experiences I've had with Him over the years. Have a look if you want.
http://www.all4god.net/index.htm
I feel thatnit doesn't hurt to look, so that an informed decision can be made.
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 19 2007,19:26) Hi Stu,
Do you feel the heat from the God who is close to all men?
Don't blame us
What? You will have to be a little less cryptic, I'm afraid. Remember I don't think there is such a thing as a god, so you will have to talk about things that actually exist, in this case.Stuart
Hi Oxy
Quote I hope you don't mind me chipping in here.
Go ahead.Quote You say you resent the efforts Christians make to convert you. I can understand that. It might help you to know that if they didn't care about you, they may not bother.
That’s very sweet, however you just have to post as an atheist here for a while to realise how long that caring lasts. I’m not talking about dislike and abuse, of which I have suffered not much more than being called foolish. To the credit of those here at least they have a little more resoluteness than one Hare Krishna, who told me no more than two minutes into a footpath discussion that she felt she was wasting her time with me.Quote Before I found that God was real I resented Christians, thinking them to be naive and self righteous, even pompous. When I hit rock bottom and asked God if He was real, could He please help me, He did. I asked Jesus into my life and started living for Him. All of a sudden I found meaning to life, which before hand had escaped me. Not only that, but I discovered my identity, which had also eluded me. Life today, 30 years down the track is a wonderful experience because God is in it. I don't know if you'd be interested in looking or not, but I have written about some of the experiences I've had with Him over the years. Have a look if you want.
I do have a question for you, though. How can you bring yourself to worship a fictional character who, by his own “inspired” testimony has been responsible for somewhere between 2,000,000 and 32,000,000 human deaths, the slaughter of all but a few million of the animal and plant kingdoms (notwithstanding the impossibility of the flood myth) and condemns adulterers, homosexuals and atheists to death (depending on what verse you read)? Maybe you explain on your linked website. I’ll have a look.Quote I feel thatnit doesn't hurt to look, so that an informed decision can be made.
So you are up to speed with evolutionary theory, then?(Love that avatar, by the way. That is the most appropriate one here!).
Stuart
Hi again Oxy
I had a look on the ‘Is god real?’ page of your site. From what you write I think it is pretty clear that you have not followed though on your stated philosophy that ‘I feel thatnit doesn't hurt to look, so that an informed decision can be made.’ I say this because of your strawman description of the beginning of the universe and the way you quote Genesis as your explanation. The scientific explanation for the beginning of the universe does not explain why, but it does explain how, from a few microseconds after the big bang onwards. Genesis explains neither how nor why.
You write on your site:
Quote When you look at the world you can see it from two perspectives. You can look into the world we know and see the wonders of life. To mention the animals and plants that are just made for each other is to see the simple beauty of creation. I don't believe for one minute that the intricacies that exist in our world are there as a result of a 'Bang'. If you really felt that it doesn’t hurt to look, you would have found real evolutionary explanations for why animals and plants are ‘made’ for eachother. Of course they are not made, but leaving aside the question of microbes, the plants came first, then animals used the plants for energy, then the plants started using the animals for pollination. The key point (that t8 is completely blind to) is that there is no design involved. I wonder if you have really thought it through.
Stuart
Hi Stu,
But your EXPLANATIONS are based on science
which you admit is unreliable as a basis for any sort of real faith.
God is real and so are His revelations in the sacred writings.Thanks Stuart, but you may have been better off checking out my experiences with God. There are too many things for them to be coincidence.
I know that I haven't really covered the existance of God all that well, but it's kinda hard to prove God with that kind of approach. Far beter to enjoy the relationship.
Quote (Oxy @ Dec. 20 2007,18:28) Thanks Stuart, but you may have been better off checking out my experiences with God. There are too many things for them to be coincidence. I know that I haven't really covered the existance of God all that well, but it's kinda hard to prove God with that kind of approach. Far beter to enjoy the relationship.
Denying coincidence is not a good reason for humans to jump to conclusions, as discussed in thishttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2006/1647504.htm
The example I think of is when you think of a friend you have not heard from for a while then later that day 'out of the blue' that same friend phones you. A common human reaction would be that there was a link, some force that caused the second event to follow the first one. Of course if you consider the number of friends you have, the number of times per day you think of friends and the number of times yor friends phone you then you should be surprised actually that this coincidence does not happen more often than it does. Humans are notoriously poor at estimating odds. The popularity of gambling alone tells you that.
You can't prove the existence of god. I can't disprove it either. I don't think this relationship of which you speak exists outside your imagination. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, except when the believer starts to proclaim what others should do based on what is in his imagination.
There is an interesting extra point here. Scripture says that if Jesus was not what he is claimed to be then god does not exist. So perhaps it is possible to falsify god.
Stuart
Hi Stu,
You say
“Scripture says that if Jesus was not what he is claimed to be then god does not exist. “
Where exactly?
ThanksQuote (Stu @ Dec. 20 2007,21:57) Quote (Oxy @ Dec. 20 2007,18:28) Thanks Stuart, but you may have been better off checking out my experiences with God. There are too many things for them to be coincidence. I know that I haven't really covered the existance of God all that well, but it's kinda hard to prove God with that kind of approach. Far beter to enjoy the relationship.
Denying coincidence is not a good reason for humans to jump to conclusions, as discussed in thishttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2006/1647504.htm
The example I think of is when you think of a friend you have not heard from for a while then later that day 'out of the blue' that same friend phones you. A common human reaction would be that there was a link, some force that caused the second event to follow the first one. Of course if you consider the number of friends you have, the number of times per day you think of friends and the number of times yor friends phone you then you should be surprised actually that this coincidence does not happen more often than it does. Humans are notoriously poor at estimating odds. The popularity of gambling alone tells you that.
You can't prove the existence of god. I can't disprove it either. I don't think this relationship of which you speak exists outside your imagination. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, except when the believer starts to proclaim what others should do based on what is in his imagination.
There is an interesting extra point here. Scripture says that if Jesus was not what he is claimed to be then god does not exist. So perhaps it is possible to falsify god.
Stuart
Hi Stu, I know it's hard to believe in a God that you've never met.The proof I have is in the relationship I have with Him, and yes, it is possible to know God in a relationship.
The whole point is that God is hidden in a sense from the unbeliever, but can be easily found by those who want to find Him. The trouble is, most people would rather make excuses as to why He doesn't exist than seriously attempt to find Him.
If you are at all interested in finding if God is real or not, start talking to Him. I know it may feel silly to start with.
If you want to know Him and put all your doubts behind you, all you have to do is tell Him that you are willing to live for Him from now on, regardless of the cost. He will meet you on those grounds and the jouney/relationship begins.
This is what is meant in Scripture by child like faith. The child simply believes without rationalising, reasoning or disputing.
Give it a go!
Quote (Oxy @ Dec. 21 2007,08:37) Quote (Stu @ Dec. 20 2007,21:57) Quote (Oxy @ Dec. 20 2007,18:28) Thanks Stuart, but you may have been better off checking out my experiences with God. There are too many things for them to be coincidence. I know that I haven't really covered the existance of God all that well, but it's kinda hard to prove God with that kind of approach. Far beter to enjoy the relationship.
Denying coincidence is not a good reason for humans to jump to conclusions, as discussed in thishttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2006/1647504.htm
The example I think of is when you think of a friend you have not heard from for a while then later that day 'out of the blue' that same friend phones you. A common human reaction would be that there was a link, some force that caused the second event to follow the first one. Of course if you consider the number of friends you have, the number of times per day you think of friends and the number of times yor friends phone you then you should be surprised actually that this coincidence does not happen more often than it does. Humans are notoriously poor at estimating odds. The popularity of gambling alone tells you that.
You can't prove the existence of god. I can't disprove it either. I don't think this relationship of which you speak exists outside your imagination. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, except when the believer starts to proclaim what others should do based on what is in his imagination.
There is an interesting extra point here. Scripture says that if Jesus was not what he is claimed to be then god does not exist. So perhaps it is possible to falsify god.
Stuart
Hi Stu, I know it's hard to believe in a God that you've never met.The proof I have is in the relationship I have with Him, and yes, it is possible to know God in a relationship.
The whole point is that God is hidden in a sense from the unbeliever, but can be easily found by those who want to find Him. The trouble is, most people would rather make excuses as to why He doesn't exist than seriously attempt to find Him.
If you are at all interested in finding if God is real or not, start talking to Him. I know it may feel silly to start with.
If you want to know Him and put all your doubts behind you, all you have to do is tell Him that you are willing to live for Him from now on, regardless of the cost. He will meet you on those grounds and the jouney/relationship begins.
This is what is meant in Scripture by child like faith. The child simply believes without rationalising, reasoning or disputing.
Give it a go!
Amen Oxy! He and Tow have never experienced the Holy Spirit! That's why I always tell them “they don't know”! There is nothing more anyone can say! The Holy Spirit only comes from the heart! There is only a heart felt confession and NOTHING ELSE! Doubt doesn't cut it! Lip service won't work! As you know!
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