Because, as you phrased it, you have to believe, to ask, to receive the "effect" of the "Holy Ghost". For it not to be circular, you would not have to first believe. I know I can't ask, because the thought of it is completely ludicrous.
Does not one have to first believe God exists and trust God to hear their cry before they can ask God to forgive them of their sins and come into their heart and save them?
How is it circular to say that you would first have to believe that the coast guard officer exists and that he can save you from drowning in the sea before you can ask them to throw you the life preserver?
How is that circular reasoning?
“Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.”
How does this principle of parsimony show that God is merely a character in a book, and that Jesus and his apostles were merely characters inspired by actual person(s) of the time, and there were those that wished to create a means of controlling people via religion, with the promise of salvation? Or that writers of the Old and New Testaments, building on the knowledge of the failures of the religions before them, simply built in an assurance that the "truths" claimed in those texts are indefeasible?
What entities have I multiplied beyond necessity?
When you asked for evidence that would lend support the idea that God do not exist, and that Jesus was not who He and His apostles said He was.
But you insinuated that God was merely a character in a book though. You insinuated that Jesus and his apostles were merely characters inspired by actual person(s) of the time. You insinuated that here were those that wished to create a means of controlling people via religion, with the promise of salvation and that the writers of the Old and New Testaments, building on the knowledge of the failures of the religions before them, simply built in an assurance that the "truths" claimed in those texts are indefeasible.
In response I asked you for evidence of this. You made the claims not me.
Or, will you accept absence of evidence as evidence of absence, on the subject of gods?
This is a loaded question. You assume that there is no evidence for the existence of God.
It seems to me that if you were a seeker as you claim to be, you would be more concerned about responding to my questions instead of attempting to change the subject to whether or not I have posted here before under another account.
