Life being intended to be difficult and a non-obvious "God"?

[JohnClay]

This is from a webpage that talks about a strategy guide for "the game of life"

Life Is a Video Game—Here Are the Cheat Codes

Welcome, Player One, to a strategy guide for the game known as Life.

markmanson.net

As you’ve undoubtedly discovered, the game of Life is often quite difficult. You will face unexpected challenges and long periods of frustration. You will often struggle with self-doubt, feel overwhelmed by helplessness and loss, and sometimes take a s**t when you’re out of toilet paper.
....
The goal of Life is simple: it is to Level Up as much as possible. Each Level in life presents a particular challenge that you must overcome. Once you overcome that challenge, you get to move on to the next Level. The goal is to complete as many levels as possible. At the end of the game, the person at the highest level gets to have the best funeral.
....
Life is designed to continually throw difficult and unexpected problems at you. Life is a never-ending stream of problems that must be confronted, surmounted, and/or solved. If at any point, Life runs out of problems to give us, then as players, we will unconsciously invent problems for ourselves.

I find it comforting when I am experiencing major difficulties that this is apparently normal...

I think life probably is literally a video game. The author of that quote might believe that too but he seems to believe we're on our own.

Related to this is my belief I'm playing "hide and seek" with God. That means God isn't obvious...
Perhaps my favourite quote about "God" is from Futurama:

GOD: Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

BENDER: Or a guy who burns down the bar for the insurance money.

GOD: Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

At the end of the episode God chuckles and repeats that last sentence so it looks like the creator of the show thought it was an important quote.

I don't believe that Jesus literally came back to life (I think it was mistaken identity) so most Christians would say I'm not a Christian.

 

[Tolworth John]

I don't believe that Jesus literally came back to life (I think it was mistaken identity

So what are your arguments and evidence that supports that belief?

 

[JohnClay]

So what are your arguments and evidence that supports that belief?

The "mistaken identity" theory

This might be an original theory.... in the "Mythical Jesus Vs Historical Jesus" group no-one had heard of this theory before... Mark 6:14-16 King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why...

www.christianforums.com

 

[Gregory Thompson]

This is from a webpage that talks about a strategy guide for "the game of life"

Life Is a Video Game—Here Are the Cheat Codes

Welcome, Player One, to a strategy guide for the game known as Life.

markmanson.net

I find it comforting when I am experiencing major difficulties that this is apparently normal...

I think life probably is literally a video game. The author of that quote might believe that too but he seems to believe we're on our own.

Related to this is my belief I'm playing "hide and seek" with God. That means God isn't obvious...
Perhaps my favourite quote about "God" is from Futurama:

At the end of the episode God chuckles and repeats that last sentence so it looks like the creator of the show thought it was an important quote.

I don't believe that Jesus literally came back to life (I think it was mistaken identity) so most Christians would say I'm not a Christian.

Here I was looking for a download link, soooo disappointed.

Yeah, resurrection, that's a big deal in Christianity.

 

[Lukaris]

I believe the book of Ecclesiastes is a good summation and coming to maturity of our understanding of God and our existence. We should remain spiritually, morally, psychologically etc. observant of what transpired in the Old Covenant that precedes Ecclesiastes & understand this within the Lord’s commandments.

Jesus Christ, our Lord, clearly sums these matters up in Matthew 22:36-40 and other Gospel writers, like Luke, give us additional insight into this in the example of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37.

I believe if a person can come to an understanding that what this world is really like as the Lord tells us in John 16:33, we can understand the reality of our existence. Adding to this is what the Lord says in Luke 13:1-9.

Paul tells us the summation of the Lord’s commandments and the conformation of our conscience to it in 1 Timothy 1:1-5 & the overall understanding of what this entails is 1 Timothy 2:1-6. The basic understanding of this was revealed by Jesus Christ in Matthew 6:1-15. Obviously this does not mean being some kind of zombie but a critical thinking which acknowledges a higher authority in God.

Hopefully this can provide a sense of common sense but faithful understanding in which we can see our brokenness ( Romans 3:23-25 etc.). From this we can understand the worthy creeds the ancient Christians have formed & given to us like the Nicene & Apostles’ creeds:

The Nicene Creed - Personal and Devotional Prayers - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

The official GOA English translation of the Nicene Creed

www.goarch.org

Apostles' Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born o...

www.usccb.org

 

[Tolworth John]

The "mistaken identity" theory

This might be an original theory.... in the "Mythical Jesus Vs Historical Jesus" group no-one had heard of this theory before... Mark 6:14-16 King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why...

www.christianforums.com

People who knew him well, who had spent three years in close company with him could not see that this person was not Jesus!
Where had this look-a-like been over those three years?
How was it that the disciples etc did not know about this double of Jesus?
How was it that he was there just at the time Jesus was crucified?
Why, when this ' fake ' was confincing Jesus's disciples he was alive, didn't the Jewish authorities produce the body of the real Jesus?

To claim it was a case of mistaken identity does not provide a convincing explanation.

 

[JohnClay]

People who knew him well, who had spent three years in close company with him could not see that this person was not Jesus!
Where had this look-a-like been over those three years?
How was it that the disciples etc did not know about this double of Jesus?
How was it that he was there just at the time Jesus was crucified?
Why, when this ' fake ' was confincing Jesus's disciples he was alive, didn't the Jewish authorities produce the body of the real Jesus?

To claim it was a case of mistaken identity does not provide a convincing explanation.

I'm saying in order for there to be mistaken identity the person does not need to look like Jesus.
See my examples here:

The "mistaken identity" theory

This might be an original theory.... in the "Mythical Jesus Vs Historical Jesus" group no-one had heard of this theory before... Mark 6:14-16 King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why...

www.christianforums.com

e.g. the 6000 in Nairobi thinking they saw Jesus, Herod thinking Jesus was John the Baptist, people thinking Jesus was Elijah, the woman thinking Jesus looked like the gardener, not recognising that it was Jesus on the road to Emmaus, etc.
This all makes sense in the mistaken identity theory. Otherwise it doesn't make sense (Herod thinking Jesus was John the Baptist, etc)

As far as why the Jewish authorities didn't produce the body of the real Jesus you could ask someone else. BTW apparently even the minister Martin Luther King Jr didn't believe in the resurrection.

 

[Tolworth John]

Herod thinking Jesus was John the Baptist, people thinking Jesus was Elijah, the woman thinking Jesus looked like the gardener, not recognising that it was Jesus on the road to Emmaus, etc.

Herod was working on reports not his own visule sightings, Elijah there was a prophercy that he was to come and this was prior to his resurrection .
In both the other cases, yes there was miss identifcation which was also corrected.

The disciples were dejected when Jesus was crucified, hiding from the authorities, yet after his resurection they were prepared to defy the same authorities.
They preached a crucified and resurrected Jesus and went to their deaths maintaining this belief.
If it was a lie why did they do that.

 

[JohnClay]

Herod was working on reports not his own visual sightings,

So was he told that Jesus looked identical to John the Baptist? My point is there are many examples where mistaken identity doesn't require them to look identical.

Elijah there was a prophecy that he was to come and this was prior to his resurrection .
In both the other cases, yes there was miss identification which was also corrected.

What about that example of 6000 people who thought they saw Jesus (see the thread)? And the gardener and on the road to Emmaus, etc. BTW did Jesus walk by himself to get to the road to Emmaus to see the two? (and they didn't think it was Jesus originally) Or did he teleport? When he meets the disciples in Luke 24 there is no mention of Thomas (like John 20) and in Luke Jesus soon ascends into Heaven but that isn't mentioned in John 20.
Also in every single sighting of "Jesus" after his death it only lasts for a short amount of time. That is like the 6000 - he was only there a short amount of time.

The disciples were dejected when Jesus was crucified, hiding from the authorities, yet after his resurection they were prepared to defy the same authorities.
They preached a crucified and resurrected Jesus and went to their deaths maintaining this belief.
If it was a lie why did they do that.

I'm not interested in trying to explain that but I'd like to point out that Martin Luther King Jr (a minister) and Bishop Shelby Spong didn't believe in the resurrection (or the virgin birth)

John Shelby Spong - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Tolworth John]

What about that example of 6000 people who thought they saw Jesus

irrelevent, Jesus appeared to peole prior to his acention into heaven and we were told we would only see him again when he returns.

A I said, both the gardener and the meeting on the road were clarified by Jesus.

What relevance is it if other people don't believe.
I am disapointed that martin Luther king didn't believe and not surprised at bishop spong,.

 

[JohnClay]

"What about that example of 6000 people who thought they saw Jesus"

irrelevent, Jesus appeared to peole prior to his acention into heaven and we were told we would only see him again when he returns.

It is relevant to the 500 and also shows that people can believe it was Jesus even if it didn't really look like him.

A I said, both the gardener and the meeting on the road were clarified by Jesus.

Why didn't they initially recognise Jesus? If he had a glorified body why did the woman think he was just a lowly gardener?

What relevance is it if other people don't believe.
I am disapointed that martin Luther king didn't believe and not surprised at bishop spong,.

It shows that the evidence for the resurrection isn't overwhelming if some experts in Christianity don't believe in it - even though the resurrection is the foundation of Christianity....

 

[Tolworth John]

It is relevant to the 500 and also shows that people can believe it was Jesus even if it didn't really look like him.

Why didn't they initially recognise Jesus? If he had a glorified body why did the woman think he was just a lowly gardener?

It shows that the evidence for the resurrection isn't overwhelming if some experts in Christianity don't believe in it - even though the resurrection is the foundation of Christianity....

People believe what they pursuade themselves is believable, even when the evidence says otherwise.

Evidence does not have to be overwhelming, only reasonable and it is more than reasonable that Jesus physically rose from the dead.

 

[IoanC]

If our attitude towards God is positive, difficulties will seem easy.

 

[JohnClay]

If our attitude towards God is positive, difficulties will seem easy.

What about Christians who were thrown to the lions? They could experience a kind of religious ecstasy though.

 

[Jesse Dornfeld]

so most Christians would say I'm not a Christian.

You're not.