- This topic has 101 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 6 months ago by
.
- Posts
And btw Marty I wasn’t asking the question as to where is God but answering it since that is the title of this post and my answer was from our bible.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith is also personal. When I was an Atheist, I asked God to prove himself to me and that he did. I wouldn’t consider this proof for anyone but myself and that is why it is my faith. I cannot give anyone my faith. They have to seek for themselves if they want faith in God.
That said, there are things that do prove the existence of God because he is self-evident. But as to who that God is, only those who seek God can know him. All else is religion that men practice as a way to get to know this God. But unless you seek God for yourself, and as long as your connection with God is exclusively through a religious organisation or another person, then that is as long as you have not found God.
Hi t8,
Realise that the works of God are enabled by the Spirit of God and your judgements will cease.
Ascribing to man what is of God is folly.
Nick, I challenge you to look into the mirror and see what manner of man you have become and end your obsession with judging all but yourself. I think I have given you good advice Nick and that you would do well to heed it.
Hello again, t8,
Organized religion is probably the worst form of religion, until you consider the alternative. Many people need the support of religious organizations in order to better understand their connection to God. As much as religion can stand in the way, it can really help. As I said in earlier posts, there is too much cowboy theology today. You really don’t need any form of studying, God forbid you should study theology or philosophy, skip the church fathers, history. Just sit back, relax, and that a nice, lazy anti-intellectual approach. Anyone with over an eighth-grade education, back of the pews. The result of all this do-it-yourself faith is a very superficial level of understanding and a very uninspirational faith. The most telling criticism of the churches is that they are often downright boring. Today, sociologists speak bout teh “nones.” The latter term denotes individuals fantastically interested in spirituality, yet want nothing to do with the churches. Why? The churches are boring, fail to educate. That’s a shame, because in the faith-revelatory situation, we can get easily confused. We need a time out, a place to go where we can share notes and gain a better perspective on what’s happening.
Technically the statement faith in God is evidence of God is a logical fallacy and thus a broken claim.
Obviously the correct understanding is not broken so the words of Scripture that are being applied need to be looked at deeper.
Hi, Kerwin,
I don’t know where you are coming from with your above statement about faith in God. Where does this fit into the ongoing discussion? Offhand, I am inclined to disagree with you. Faith in God is a kind of proof for God. All our concepts, no matter how imaginative some may be, are rooted in reality. Human imagination is never very free. So there must be some higher power, some higher way higher level of being, out there, something that humans have concretely experienced, as otherwise, nobody would bother to think about God at all, we would have no such concept. Furthermore belief in God is a very ancient, universal phenomenon. And that strongly suggests humans need to have a God. Now the system that generates the needs always meets the needs. There isn’t one thing we need that can’t be fund in reality. We need water, and there is water. If you became a drug addict even, and needed drugs, there are drugs out there. So it stand to reason that if we need God, there is a God.
Hoghead,
I am a slave to my imagination though thankful not to the degree of one of my uncles as I can function at an acceptable level. I imagine many and I hope do not exist and some are outright libel.
A human may believe is Thor but that does not mean the god of thunder exists.
A male may believe he a brother but that doe not mean he does.
I am coming from that passage that goes like “For now faith is the substance of things hoped for,the evidence of things not seen.”
I simply do not understand the spirit of the words though they are pretty.
Kerwin,
It’s quite simple in that he that comes to God must believe that he is…Heb11:6 for without faith it’s impossible to please him etc. If one does not believe in God then he is not real to them.
Hello, Kerwin,
You’d be surprised how much of what you can imagine, does exist, or at least has a basis in actual matters of fact. Take all those horror films about the Bogey Man. Yes, they are fiction to a large extent, but not wholly so . Read some time about the true story of Ed Gein (sp.), a real bogey man, in the late 50’s, who lived in the stereotypic spooky, rundown house, who looked really gross and creepy, and who really did dig up graves and kill women and make masks out of human flesh, and a host of other things so horrible not even Hollywood would bring them up. His true story was the reality basis for Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” And then, of course, good, old Jeffery Dalmer, the cannibal. Maybe Thor doesn’t exist, maybe Thor is more imagination than reality. However, there still is a reality basis to Thor. You cannot discount the fact all our concepts have roots in reality, that humans would have never come up with the concept of a God, had they not encountered one, however fancifully they may have elaborated on their experiences, in the later telling.
” Now the system that generates the needs always meets the needs. There isn’t one thing we need that can’t be fund in reality. We need water, and there is water. If you became a drug addict even, and needed drugs, there are drugs out there. So it stand to reason that if we need God, there is a God.”
All people need water,not all need drugs,and some people live quite comfortably in this world without faith in a God. Even the bible tells us “the fool has said in his heart there is no God” yet there are many laments in the OT about how the wicked and godless prosper in this world.
Yet even some of the Greek and Roman philosophers in all their ponderings and storytelling about gods would admit that it was all a way to control the populace.
If you feel you have a need for a god you can find one,but how? By simple faith,for by it all the patriarchs and saints did great deeds by looking/believing in things that they did not see. For they looked for a heavenly city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.
Hi AndrewAD
Every born again believer has the Father dwelling within himself, and this is the witness that testifies that His Word is true:
Romans 8
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
(But God has made promises to me relative to the salvation of my wife and my son, and about the ministry that he has for me. I believe these promises by “faith” although the promises have not yet been made manifest. But as for my ministry, there are things happening every day which are proof to me that God is faithful.)
About Abraham on this subject the scriptures state:
Hebrews 11:
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Love in Christ,
MartyHI, Andrewe,
Those people who are addicts do in fact need drugs. For example, alcoholics going cold turkey can die. As to people not needing God, truth is, they do make a God out of something, whether it me money, power. The Stalinisitc Soviet Union stated officially there was no God, yet Stalin took on godlike powers.
Hi T8,
God is not scientific despite your best efforts to teach that He is.
Yor boxes will never be BIG enough.
Nick, ‘sciences means ‘knowledge’. And without knowledge you can perish.
The word ‘conscience’ for example just means ‘with knowledge’.
There is certainly a thing called the knowledge of God. If we didn’t have that then we would be Atheists.
The problem is not science, it is lies pretending to be science.
There is knowledge that shows us that God exists and we are without excuse. That is science Nick. We use science for all kinds of things. Medical science, computer science, physics, etc. There is also knowledge of God and we can seek God there too. Ironically you say that “your boxes will never be big enough’ and I agree. But your answer seems to make the box smaller by eliminating science/knowledge of God.
Oh the irony.
Hi t8,
Knowing God and being known by Him is the goal.
This has little to do with knowing about Him.
Heb 11.6 points the way
Nick, if you were not interested about your wife or your siblings apart from knowing them, then to me that is a contradiction.
I think knowing someone and wanting to know them more shows itself in a passion for knowing about them too.
If you love God, I think you would be interested in all aspects of God and seek him on every level that the creator gave you the ability to ponder.
The Good Force be with you!
God is omnipresent, He is everywhere, He is in Me, and He is in you!
Yes, truly, we live forever & prosper! Alleluia! Amen! <3 🙂 * (Y)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
