God Doesn't Want Me To Know Him

[ToddNotTodd]

You see the glass half-empty, I see it as half-full. I choose to see it as half-full, even when I can't be sure I see the glass clearly at all. Because, in the end, I have nothing to lose by doing so, and everything to gain.

Unless another religion is true and you end up in that version of hell because of your beliefs...

 

[FireDragon76]

Unless another religion is true and you end up in that version of hell because of your beliefs...

What religion would that be?

FWIW, I don't think Muhammed is the prophet of God. But even Islam is true, its my understanding that Allah is merciful and most Muslims I have talked to seem to have respect for Christians. So, I don't worry too much about this possibility.

IF Buddhism or Hinduism is true... I get another chance in the next life

See... you can't argue away hypothetical religions here (pagan gods? Thor, Zeus?.. puhleez). We have to look at real religions and what they believe. And most religious people that are intelligent realize that it's not an "all or nothing" game (even in most conservative American churches, most people in the pews do not believe that God necessarily damns those of different faiths), and that there is some truth in many religions.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

What religion would that be?

Any existent religion, past religion or possible future religion. Or perhaps a god that advocates no religion and who punishes anyone who blindly believes in any religion and rewards skeptics.

FWIW, I don't think Muhammed is the prophet of God. But even Islam is true, its my understanding that Allah is merciful and most Muslims I have talked to seem to have respect for Christians. So, I don't worry too much about this possibility.

IF Buddhism or Hinduism is true... I get another chance in the next life

See... you can't argue away hypothetical religions here (pagan gods? Thor, Zeus?.. puhleez). We have to look at real religions and what they believe.

So you have an objective way to tell what a "real" religion is?

And most religious people that are intelligent realize that it's not an "all or nothing" game (even in most conservative American churches, most people in the pews do not believe that God necessarily damns those of different faiths).

Citation needed. It's my experience on these boards that Christians generally believe adherents to other religions go to hell.

It's the snide atheist who thinks he has really gained something other than a few years of hedonistic merriment before... the grave.

You have proof that's not the case?

 

[AGTG]

Sigh. And so we reach the standard impasse.

Honestly, if you want to 'share the gospel' (again, don't really know what that means), with non-believers, why do you give up at the first - and quite reasonable - challenge? I've seen and heard this so many times, that I can't help assuming there is a serious problem in the way people are prepared to evangelise. It seems as though they're only prepared for preaching to the converted, which is frankly bizarre to me. If conversion is the goal, why aren't believers sent out armed with answers to the challenges we see in 2016? The very challenges being presented here. I mean good answers, not threats and waffle. Answers which demonstrate the gods' worthiness in a convincing way, as opposed to "just take my word for it". In this day and age, no one is going to take your word for it. The internet has ended the era of authoritarian indoctrination via isolation.

You must work harder, now ... that's all. But then you say it's not worth it. I hope for your sake your god doesn't interpret that in a way which is not in your favour.

You've proven yourself to be a troll. God loves trolls, but even trolls need to own their mess and recognize their need for a Savior.

 

[afishamongmany]

So you used your puny human logic to convince yourself that your god exists, and is good. Interesting.

Hi there Locutus,
This is all messmerising, I mean, mesmerising stuff, as in dogs chasing tails and hamsters turning wheels. What you are not understanding (or more probably what you refuse to accept) is that being born again of God's Spirit does not happen by 'convincing ourselves'. It is an action of God, from outside of a person, within a person. An act that fundamentally and forever changes the nature of the person and the nature of their relationship with the Creator.

You logic seems to be - I hear no God. I see no God. There is no God. Puny, hamster-wheel stuff.
There is evil in the world therefore if God created the world He is evil. Pathetic!

As long as you refuse to recognise that there is life outside of of the material universe (aka the hamster cage) and that all life within this material universe derives from its Creator who is Spirit, you will live and die by hamster logic.

God bless you
><>

 

[afishamongmany]

...No, really, what, exactly, is the great crime that makes one worthy of this? That we exist? That we aren't perfect in a way that is explicitly designed to be impossible?

Hello Cadet,
Our sin is that we despise the One who has brought us into existence and do not give honour, praise and thank to the One who gives us every breath we take. Perfection impossible, no in the beginning God declared all to be good. But it is certainly true that God has designed the universe as a place where sin is possible. And if that were not so? Think about it.

I owe my neighbor's dog nothing, but if I strung it up in my basement and spent several days working it over with a skinning knife until it died, people would rightfully call me a monster.

So what's all that supposed to say? This is some sort of picture of The Living God, maker of heaven and earth who has made Himself know to us in the person of Jesus Christ? Disappointing junk.

Clay can't think. It can't feel. It isn't sentient or sapient or capable of rational thought. It can't experience pain. It is a poor comparison to humans. If I were to craft a sentient being (say, for example, an AI program built as a 1:1 model copy of a human brain), this would not give me the right to torture it, and were I to actually create "android hell", you would be right to call me a monster for doing so.

Take a step back and you see how absurd all of this becomes. Simply by means of existing and not holding up to an impossible standard you think you deserve to be tortured forever. You believe that might makes right, or that creating a being gives you the right to torment it. That's absurd.

Yea that's right it is absurd. But this is not The Living God, this is The Cadet's supposed god of the Christians, the monster, torturing god. And The Cadet clings to his construct as a man far from shore might cling to a plank of wood in the swelling sea.

A clay pot is a very good metaphor for what we are and of course The Potter may indeed do what ever He wants with His pots. You are telling me I believe in an immoral monster. I know differently because I know the Who I believe in, not just 'in my head', not just 'from The Book' but in heart and soul and through life's experiences.

Cadet, for me it comes to this, you say, “God doesn't want me to know Him.”, my God says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened. Seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be given you.” Who should I believe?

He is just and true in all He does and nothing is hidden from his sight not even the darkest recesses of a hamster's cage.

Remember, “Faith is the evidence.” and you have heard many witnesses.

God bless you
><>

 

[Locutus]

Hi there Locutus,
This is all messmerising, I mean, mesmerising stuff, as in dogs chasing tails and hamsters turning wheels. What you are not understanding (or more probably what you refuse to accept) is that being born again of God's Spirit does not happen by 'convincing ourselves'. It is an action of God, from outside of a person, within a person. An act that fundamentally and forever changes the nature of the person and the nature of their relationship with the Creator.

You logic seems to be - I hear no God. I see no God. There is no God. Puny, hamster-wheel stuff.
There is evil in the world therefore if God created the world He is evil. Pathetic!

As long as you refuse to recognise that there is life outside of of the material universe (aka the hamster cage) and that all life within this material universe derives from its Creator who is Spirit, you will live and die by hamster logic.

God bless you
><>

More than happy to accept the existence of a "life outside the material". All I need is evidence it exists and I'm good to go.

And if you feel your particular religion is the best option in that mysterious non-material world, I'll also need specifics on how to know who is who in that realm.

Can you help me out?

 

[Locutus]

You've proven yourself to be a troll. God loves trolls, but even trolls need to own their mess and recognize their need for a Savior.

If you don't like having your beliefs challenged, why are you participating in open debates?

 

[afishamongmany]

I don't think that, for the majority of apologists, coherent answers to challenges are even necessary. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard "It's not me but the holy spirit that convinces you."

Hello TodNotTodd,
I'm puzzled. What is incoherent about "It's not me but the holy spirit that convinces you."?
Go well
><>

 

[afishamongmany]

More than happy to accept the existence of a "life outside the material". All I need is evidence it exists and I'm good to go.

And if you feel your particular religion is the best option in that mysterious non-material world, I'll also need specifics on how to know who is who in that realm.

Can you help me out?

Sure. I can but try. But not today ><>

 

[Locutus]

Hello TodNotTodd,
I'm puzzled. What is incoherent about "It's not me but the holy spirit that convinces you."?
Go well
><>

It's as coherent as "the zoggleflintopup convinces you"

It provides zero information. Coming from someone who appears to want to transmit information (important information, at that), it seems perverse to be so obscure.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Hello TodNotTodd,
I'm puzzled. What is incoherent about "It's not me but the holy spirit that convinces you."?
Go well
><>

I was speaking about incoherent answers that lead to the statement "It's not me but the holy spirit that convinces you." It's used as an excuse for faulty reasoning, as in "It doesn't matter if my logic is circular or I'm resorting to an argument from ignorance. I'm not required to make any sense since the holy spirit is the one doing the convincing, not me.".

 

[The Cadet]

I doubt you are going to find "unambiguous evidence" that can't be defeated by some sort of argument.

Again, we come back to the issue in the first post. Is it possible to convince me? If not, I'm destined for hell. If so, then God would know what he would need to do in order to convince me, and could convince me.

I mean, imagine a world in which once a week, God checked in with people in their dreams. Every once in a while, say, maybe once every few weeks on Sunday evening before the work week starts, after you fall asleep, God appears to you in a lucid dream, talks through your week, and maybe gives you a few pointers on how to be a better person and a better Christian. This would be the kind of behavior which would leave virtually no doubt that there is a God, and even less doubt that that God wants a personal relationship with us. I don't think there'd be such a thing as an atheist or a non-Christian.

That's not what happens, though. Instead, this "personal relationship" that we're supposed to have with God is contingent upon us first believing that he exists. We have to believe, then we'll get evidence. Eventually. Conditionally. Maybe. I mean, just ask Matt Dillahunty how well that worked out for him - faithful Christian all his life, ended up deconverting while in seminary when he tried to fulfill his obligation from 1 Peter 3:15 and found that he couldn't. Or, you know, ask me - I used to be a Christian. I used to pray. But eventually I realized I was just talking to the walls, and they weren't listening, and that I had no reason to believe what I believed. So I changed my mind. (I dislike using myself for this example because I was never the best Christian, wasn't much of a churchgoer, raised by hippies, etc., but I truly did believe in God, otherwise I wouldn't have prayed to him.)

Saul was not saved because he was worthy. None of us merit salvation. On the contrary, God often goes after the worst sorts of people to save (let's keep in mind that Saul was basically the iron age equivalent of an ISIS iihadi, he was indeed a murderer). And God chooses to save those people in that manner according to his purposes, not ours.

"God works in mysterious ways" is not a very satisfying answer to the question of why a being who wants a relationship with me is unwilling to reveal himself in any way until I accept his existence without good reason, particularly given how he revealed himself unambiguously to various people throughout history.

I have no time to listen to that radio program, sorry.

It's fine, it's a point you hear quite often when Christians call in to witness - the "messages from God" they often report just seem to be simple coincidences.

But I think I know where you are headed. And I don't really have an answer that will knock your socks off. "Coincidences" or rather synchronicities have been taken seriously by many people of intelligence, such as Carl Jung, as evidence of something deeper going on than just some kind of random, blind luck.

As smart as Jung is, I don't see the concept of synchronicities to be particularly sensible. Humans look for patterns in everything. We even find them when they aren't there. It seems like wishful thinking to me, and I don't know what could possibly prove it wrong - it's certainly not a scientific hypothesis.

You see the glass half-empty, I see it as half-full. I choose to see it as half-full, even when I can't be sure I see the glass clearly at all. Because, in the end, I have nothing to lose by doing so, and everything to gain.

A few things religious belief can cost you:

• Your morality (see also: Ted Haggard, ISIS, Peter Popoff)
• Your time (or at least your sunday mornings)
• The value of your humanity (or does the message that we all deserve to be tortured forever not do that?)
• Your ability to accurately assess the world (see also: the entire Creation and Evolution forum)
• Your money (see also: Peter Popoff)
• Your life (Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists are well-known for their rejection of life-saving medical treatments, and that's just scratching the surface)

Maybe it hasn't cost you any of that. I don't know you, and I'm not sure what, exactly, you believe. But let's not pretend that there's no price to taking things on faith. Heck, for all we know, there is a God, but he's the ironic kind who values critical thinking above all, and who will cast believers into eternal hellfire. In that case, wagering falsely would cost you everything.

I'm not talking about pitting one religions doctrines against another here (I admit, I choose to remain a Christian at times for somewhat pragmatic reasons), I'm just talking about being open to the possibility of an expanded moral and aesthetic vision that religion and spirituality offers, vs. just accepting the world as nothing more than what can be defined by whatever the current scientific consensus is.

I have no problem with being open to the possibility of such things. Anything is possible. But we need to be able to separate the possible from the actual. As of yet, I know of no mechanism which is useful for doing so outside of empiricism, and no method within empiricism which works better than the scientific method. We need those methods before we can really do much about it - sure, it might exist, but we have no reason to believe that and no method to ascertain evidence for it.

And in my experience, there's something quite powerful about all those "coincidences". Maybe not undeniable. I don't believe God usually wants to hit us over the head and compel us to believe, as in the case of Saul on the road to Damascus.

Why not? If I ask a woman I meet online to do a short video chat with me to ensure that she's actually the person she's presenting herself as, is she hitting me over the head and compelling me to believe that she's real? Well maybe, but the basis for any relationship really should be the understanding that those parties involved exist. We take this for granted in our day-to-day lives. There's exactly one kind of relationship I've seen where you haveto argue with others over whether the other party exists: "I have a girlfriend from another school, you don't know her" - in other words, relationships where the other party doesn't actually exist. :/ It should be a given that both parties in the relationship know that the other exists.

I don't see these coincidences as particularly powerful. Is that my fault? I dunno. But if god wants to reach me, then it's going to take more than that and He knows it. Which means the question remains: why hasn't He reached me? Why hasn't He tried? Does He not care that I will burn in hell for not knowing Him? It's the same issue with those whispers, that apparently can't be heard if our own voice is the loudest. Not only does this ignore the experience of any Christian who didn't hear God and deconverted, but God should know that many of us won't hear those whispers. He's either incapable or uninterested in reaching me, and neither bodes well if he cares about us and wants a relationship with us.

It's not an apologetic, and not really out to prove that God exists. But it does talk about what exactly Christians, and specifically Charismatic Christians, are getting out of their religious experiences, from a sociological and wider scientific perspective. And it does analyze the "method" that Charismatic Christians use to obtain that sort of awareness of God's presence and engage in a relationship with God, and looks at it in terms of the psychology and sociology, primarily. There's a great history of the theology of Christian mysticism there, too.

I'll see if my local library has a copy. Doubtful; it doesn't run many books in English, but worth a shot.

 

[The Cadet]

As long as you refuse to recognise that there is life outside of of the material universe (aka the hamster cage) and that all life within this material universe derives from its Creator who is Spirit, you will live and die by hamster logic.

I don't refuse to recognize that. I simply ask for evidence. I have yet to see any convincing reason to believe that there is life outside of the material universe. I'm not even sure "outside of the material universe" is even a coherent concept, to be honest. But at the end of the day, it comes down to evidence. I see no reason to believe in life outside of the material universe, therefore I do not believe in life outside of the material universe. Why do you believe in life outside of the material universe?

Our sin is that we despise the One who has brought us into existence

How does one despise something one does not believe exists?

and do not give honour, praise and thank to the One who gives us every breath we take.

And this is somehow worthy of eternal torture? Not prostrating ourselves 24/7 to someone simply because they put us into this world? What a horribly vain god you worship.

A clay pot is a very good metaphor for what we are and of course The Potter may indeed do what ever He wants with His pots.

Even if the pot can think, and feel, and experience? Imagine a potter capable of creating living clay golems, capable of feeling pain. Would you not call the potter a monster for smashing his "pots"?

@FireDragon76 this is a part of what I meant by giving up your moral compass, by the way.

Remember, “Faith is the evidence.”

If so, what of the faith of a Muslim or a Hindu?

 

[FireDragon76]

That's not what happens, though. Instead, this "personal relationship" that we're supposed to have with God is contingent upon us first believing that he exists. We have to believe, then we'll get evidence.

I'm not sure I'd go that far in saying that we must first have faith. In fact, I think its the reverse. God draws us first before we believe. I attend a Lutheran church now days and they don't teach that people will themselves into belief. God initiates the relationship. On that point, I think you make a very good point that you can't just convince yourself to have faith, that's not how it works in my experience. But, I do think you can surrender to the possibility of having faith. That's what Pascal was talking about in his famous wager. By living as if we have faith, we become receptive to faith, but we can't create faith for ourselves.

The fact you are here debating these issues is actually a very good sign. It means on some level at least, you are a truth seeker, even if you are not consciously aware of it.

Eventually. Conditionally. Maybe. I mean, just ask Matt Dillahunty how well that worked out for him - faithful Christian all his life, ended up deconverting while in seminary when he tried to fulfill his obligation from 1 Peter 3:15 and found that he couldn't.

Seminary sometimes does that to people, especially if they come from a rationalistic Christian tradition. And especially if people make the mistake of believing it's their job, and not God's, to change peoples hearts.

Or, you know, ask me - I used to be a Christian. I used to pray.

I don't doubt you were a real Christian. Unlike the Calvinists and Reformed, Lutherans believe that a Christian can always abandon faith.

As smart as Jung is, I don't see the concept of synchronicities to be particularly sensible. Humans look for patterns in everything.

Maybe we were created to do that because that's the way the universe has been organized - intelligently. When I look at the natural world and the discoveries of science, I really don't see an accident there.

We even find them when they aren't there. It seems like wishful thinking to me, and I don't know what could possibly prove it wrong - it's certainly not a scientific hypothesis.

I don't think a scientific worldview is the only possible way to view the world. There are times when a scientific description falls short.

• Your morality (see also: Ted Haggard, ISIS, Peter Popoff)
• Your time (or at least your sunday mornings)

I talked about this on a recent post in Whosoever Will, May Come. The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. Church might seem like a chore but its not always a picnic to find something better to do.

• The value of your humanity (or does the message that we all deserve to be tortured forever not do that?)

I don't think God created Hell as a cosmic torture chamber, in fact I don't think God created Hell at all. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, as it's written in Genesis. No mention of hell. Hell is just the natural state were are born into, due to ancestral sins, we are born spiritually dead- materialism is our default reality. And sometimes Hell is not torture, sometimes its a primrose path where we get everything we want but we lose our soul in the process.

• Your ability to accurately assess the world (see also: the entire Creation and Evolution forum)

I'm not a Creationist, and neither are a great many other Christians. I can carry around an appreciation for the natural world in one hand and my faith in the other. In fact I think a disregard for nature is subchristian.

Not only does this ignore the experience of any Christian who didn't hear God and deconverted, but God should know that many of us won't hear those whispers. He's either incapable or uninterested in reaching me, and neither bodes well if he cares about us and wants a relationship with us.

I do believe the Bible contains the revelation of Jesus Christ. that right there is God communication with you: Jesus is the revelation of God. The rest, the personal experiences and synchronicities, are not nearly as important to consider.

 

[11god11]

Look at your eye in the mirror.

If that's not enough evidence then there is no helping you.

so true brother praise god

 

[Locutus]

I'm not sure I'd go that far in saying that we must first have faith. In fact, I think its the reverse. God draws us first before we believe. God initiates the relationship.

So why hasn't god drawn in our friend? Or me?

 

[Locutus]

so true brother praise god

Did you also look at the eyes destroyed by a particularly nasty kind of burrowing worm (created by the creator, for a purpose)? And how about those full of cataracts, or glaucoma. And those which don't see. Or have become cancerous (another of the creator's creations) and had be removed? And let's not forget the colourblind, and astigmatisms, and conjunctivitis, and retinal disorders, and macular degeneration, and the red eye of albinism.

 

[11god11]

So why hasn't god drawn in our friend? Or me?

he has you cant see it friend peace.

 

[11god11]

he has you cant see it friend peace.

or perhaps he hasn't im just observing apologies for getting involved gb