Why Chrisianity

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Foreshadow

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It seems you don't understand a very crucial element in your own argument—but you're in good company because a lot of people miss it when they raise this argument.

Specifically, this argument only works with regard to beings that are bounded by temporal and spatial limitations (space-time dimensions of this universe). Beings like you and me. We are constrained by spatio-temporal realities. We have a linear experience of time; the 'past' is distinct from the 'present', and both are distinct from the 'future'. And our spatial experience is similar; the fact that I am standing 'here' means that I'm not standing 'there'.

This is not the case for God. As the creator, he transcends (exists independent of) this universe with its temporal and spatial dimensions. He does not "see the past, present, and future at will" because such things don't exist to him; i.e., for God there is no such thing as a 'past' or 'future' to contemplate. With respect to his frame of reference, it is incoherent to talk of what he will do or has done, because God exists at every point of time and space simultaneously (omnipresent). For God, there is no such thing as changing what he "has done" or planning what he "will do" because, for God, there is only what he "is doing"; God does not "foresee," he only "sees" because everything is present to him in an eternal 'now'.

You could, of course, argue that God does experience things like 'past' and 'future' or that he didn't create the physical universe, but then you would no longer be talking about the God of Christian theism. Other gods might not withstand critical scrutiny. All I know is that the God of Christian theism does.
Hmm. I understand what you are saying. Thank you for correcting me. However even if there is no such thing as past and future for him. he would still see himself seeing himself changing something for the simply reason that he controls the universe and sometimes he would have to join liner time inorder to change events on earth.
 
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Ryft

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Hmm. I understand what you are saying. Thank you for correcting me. However even if there is no such thing as past and future for him. he would still see himself seeing himself changing something for the simply reason that he controls the universe and sometimes he would have to join liner time inorder to change events on earth.

I don't think you fully grasped the correction, because here you are talking about God "seeing himself changing something." That is contradictory for a being who is omnipresent, or exists at every point in time and space simultaneously. For God there is never such a thing as "changing something," a notion that implies a set past.

Also, God does not need to "join linear time" in order to effect events on earth, because he is already present at every point of time and space. Whatever he wants to do, he is already there to do it—no matter when or where it is.

As it has been shown thus far, the God of Christian theism indeed stands up to critical scrutiny. All kinds of arguments are raised against this God, and they all systemically fail to make even a dent. That's why I affirm this God over all other gods that have been proposed or believed.
 
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Ryft

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You just proved one of some atheist's points though. How can you be omnipresent and omniscience at the same time? Also you offended(not the you insult kind of offended) one argument. What about the others?

I have defeated more than just one argument. You forgot that in addition to addressing Problem of Evil arguments I also confronted your argument, defeating the idea that God cannot be both 'omniscient' and 'omnipotent' at the same time by showing that there is no contradiction. Remember, I referred to logical arguments against the existence of God (Msg. #33); "these attempt to prove that God, as proposed by Christian theism, cannot exist because he exhibits self-contradicting attributes"—such as your attempt with the omniscience vs. omnipotence issue (Msg. #39).

There are hundreds of arguments against this God; I have neither the time, nor am I prepared, to list them all here and address them in this thread. But of the three examples I gave, there is only one left: those arguments that follow the "who created the Creator" theme. These arguments likewise do not work, and all for the same reason. Whether it's about who "caused" the First Cause, "designed" the Designer, "created" the Creator, they all presuppose a being whose existence had a beginning point. This is the logical fallacy known as Complex Question (also Loaded Question).

The most common example of this fallacy is the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" To answer the question is to validate it: whether you answer with a "yes" or a "no," either way you concede to having beaten your wife, which is what the question presupposes. What is the response to be? Simple: point out the fallacy. The person need only say, "The question wrongly assumes that I have beaten my wife. But the reality is that I have never." You cannot 'stop' beating your wife if you never started.

The Christian need only do the same thing: "The question wrongly assumes that God's existence had a beginning point. But the reality is that it doesn't." The God of Christian theism is eternal: his existence has no point of actualization. You cannot 'create' something that already exists. Only that which begins to exist has a cause.

And to your question I would pose my own: "What if God is omniscient because he is omnipresent?"
 
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Foreshadow

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I wish I could answer that question, as it is on the tip of my tongue but I don't think I know. I am 13 years old, sometimes I know more there a average 13 year old and sometimes I know less. Not atheists can answer every single question you or any other person of your group of people can ask. However I think that that is a interesting question and I will think about that and get back to you.
How I can say this. Everything has a beginning and a end. Everything has a food chain. God is at the top of this foodchain but there are other food chains that precede him, that must be more powerful, and be God's Predator. It is a fact of nature, and something I learned in science in 7th grade a couple months ago. However powerful one might be it can always be stoped. God maybe well a god be had a beginging. You cant just be there. You have to be born, or created. He may not have been created by a intelligent force, but he was still created in someway. For you see God is a lifeform. Lifeforms live, reproduce and then die. A lifeform no matter how powerful can be destroyed, and can reproduce, and can be created, or born. Everything has a beginning point. EVERYTHING. Now I know I am not the master of knowledge(once again I am 13) but I know enough about life and the universe to get through the day.
 
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Stephen Kendall

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I wish I could answer that question, as it is on the tip of my tongue but I don't think I know. I am 13 years old, sometimes I know more there a average 13 year old and sometimes I know less. Not atheists can answer every single question you or any other person of your group of people can ask. However I think that that is a interesting question and I will think about that and get back to you.
How I can say this. Everything has a beginning and a end. Everything has a food chain. God is at the top of this foodchain but there are other food chains that precede him, that must be more powerful, and be God's Predator. It is a fact of nature, and something I learned in science in 7th grade a couple months ago. However powerful one might be it can always be stoped. God maybe well a god be had a beginging. You cant just be there. You have to be born, or created. He may not have been created by a intelligent force, but he was still created in someway. For you see God is a lifeform. Lifeforms live, reproduce and then die. A lifeform no matter how powerful can be destroyed, and can reproduce, and can be created, or born. Everything has a beginning point. EVERYTHING. Now I know I am not the master of knowledge(once again I am 13) but I know enough about life and the universe to get through the day.


First, let me say that I find you most interesting.

"Beginnings and endings", yet there is a God who says that we will be without an ending with him and he also says that he is the truth. What does he know that we don't? If something is 99.999999% pure and we round it off to whole numbers, then, of course, we are comforted that it is 100%, yet knowing that all systems inter-relate with their neighboring systems, we can't but wonder about that 1 part per billion of questionable substance(s). What is pure, or better, what is absolute? There is no absolute purity here. We live with things as best as we mortals can until death. What is on the other side of our mortality? The God that spoke to us? Are things over there like they are here, inter-relating system with system, forming the basis of entropy? We know that if a system has no inter-activity with other systems, then it can not be theoretically less than 100.000000000000000000000000000 to infinity % pure, since it has no loss. That system isn't known to exist on this side of life, but is this life? Why do we call something that dies life? It is alive if it dies later. That sounds correct from observation, but it seems hopeless to even mention that it is alive, since that is a dying system that we speak of. It is only part of our universe's Entropy. So, what is it that God knows that we don't?

I fell in love with the teachings of Jesus Christ. He did miracles, but what impressed me was his heart and direction. How could a man love his torturers and enemies? What kind of peace is in a man who isn't moved by our rather bad systems' inter-activities? He only gives of himself to love others, as he had taught many while on earth. He wasn't hypocritical to his word. If you are without hypocrisy till your existence is over, are not your words true? Many listened to this man and followed him. Jesus' faith that he shared with us is a life-style and relationship with whom he calls Father in Heaven. Why do so many people hate Christianity? Who could like a life-style of loving your tormentors and enemies? Who could believe that there is any absolute in a failed system as our universe is through Entropy? Better yet, who could believe that mere human beings could be like holy Jesus, sinning no more and dwelling with God himself forever. We know our desires and they aren't of God. We sin, plain and simple, but only as born as a human of the world. What if we are born of God? Is being born of the creator of birth / death (our cycled short existence) any different? Would such a birth with following Jesus allow us to be with God and as him through his son? How can God be born, his son be born and then us? If there is birth, there must be death. Why would spiritual birth be any different than our universe's physical birth? What is spiritual anyway? If there were spiritual things would they not be like the universe's physical, eating one another or is there another way to be fed? Is the food chain the only way to survive by? Plants eat photons (sort of) from the sun, yet the sun is giving itself up for them, not as a life but as just an unthinking energy supporting system for life. It doesn't eat for it is not alive, yet it is the base of the food chain, energy. So the food chain of life depends upon that which can not die, for it was never alive, pure energy. Why would such energy systems be around or in the balances that they are to be supportive of something that is less then they, being quickly decaying & thus inferior systems?

Here is a proposal. We are each born and accumulate character, motivation and some knowledge & tools of knowledge. Then, we find ourselves questioning things beyond the our system's envelope. What do we do? Back off and live within it, or do we dare to hope and dream beyond it (find a reason for our existence and something that we truly believe in)? Are dreamers part of the educated? I believe that they inspire and motivate all. Do their dreams have any value? They base science fiction upon some and they have come about and will in the future. Why would anyone want to stand for something that they believe in and hope for? This is the motivation of life. People stand up for what they believe in to form countries, to search for (at one time) impossible things like thoroughly understanding DNA or having a life-style that is unique and loving (peaceful co-existence (obeying Jesus alone)). Will a life-style, that a God says has no end, have any less credibility then starting nations or making science discoveries. People hoped to create things that are physical, why do people think that it is crazy to go beyond the physical? This may prove the existence of God over many things, "the desire in us for an existence way beyond the boundaries entropy." It is illogical, but is non the less a real desire, just like all the other things that we have desired and made to happen. Why do we have this? Were we designed to reach beyond ourselves into eternity? Most likely, we were and have dreamth about it from the very beginning of our humanity's existence.

Have a good day.
 
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Foreshadow

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We were made in God's Image. We are mortal, we have on average 5ft 5 to 5ft11. We have limited knowledge. We have delusions, some more than others and most important of all we have flaws. This means that God is mortal, he is 5 ft 11 if he is a male, he has limited knowledge, he has delusions, he might be egocentric, and he has flaws.
 
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Stephen Kendall

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We were made in God's Image. We are mortal, we have on average 5ft 5 to 5ft11. We have limited knowledge. We have delusions, some more than others and most important of all we have flaws. This means that God is mortal, he is 5 ft 11 if he is a male, he has limited knowledge, he has delusions, he might be egocentric, and he has flaws.

I was never on the side of question. So, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would live in opposition to hope & justice for all, especially for the down trodden. I haven't been able to live a secluded life apart from knowing the cries of human hearts. I can't imagine people who aren't able to hear them at all. When a man, woman or child is victim to an evil government or another bad person, yet innocent of any wrong doing, no one can hear him or care for him, if your heart believes in no God. Even when God demonstrates miracles, he is unreceived by such. Is their a God of the character of each man's individual belief? For me, one of Jesus' love, for another of Islam's tyrannical & egocentric God and yet for another's logically existing limited creature, little g god. You want to bask in the sunrises and sunsets with only the self-centered logical mind of "I am here and happy for the moment", without regard to a creator and to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd laws of spiritual existences (surely the soul has its own laws as do the physical world that our bodies are now living in).

I was lonely & working in industrial construction as a young man in my late 20's, far away from my home state of North Carolina. Wyoming had beautiful sunsets, yet a harsh environment to work in, especially in the winter time. I was there for almost a year. I lived in a man camp with 3,000 other workers. We had the necessary things like food and nice motel like place to live in with some privacy, our own rooms. I remember wanting to do something with my life. I was a very weak Christian. I wanted to not just work for myself every day over and over again without helping others who could use some help. I saw a Christian Children Fund missions advertisement on TV there in one of the man camp's gaint satellite TV rooms. I felt a desire to write down their toll free number to call them. I did and they sent me the picture of a needy child to sponsor in India. The night that I received the picture, it was very dark and stary outside. I read the letter and saw the picture in my room. I couldn't contain the joy in my heart. I went outside of my room in the Wyoming night to thank my God for this opportunity. I said a simple prayer of thanks and then waved my hand towards him in the heavens to show my love for him and acceptance to sponsor this child. As I waved my hand in a full arc of the sky from one side to the other, a falling star (meteor) stayed up with it until my hand came to rest again. It didn't surprise me, for I believed in God always, though I was selfish and worldly much of my life. As always there was a witness seeing this event. I spoke to him later about it, after a small man camp Bible study.

If my God was like all of life that I know, to one day die, I would love him no less and worship him all the more. I like you am able to look at things logically, but unlike you, my mind isn't set to steer away from the cries of human hearts & souls. It isn't very logical to think of a universe without a creator or no supreme being who would care for those who are treated with injustice and victims of crimes. We know that there are evil men like that of Hitler or Pol Pot, etc., but how come there is none of the opposite nature to nuture and love the victims of this world's system and existence. They need a God and hope to make any sense of their senseless existence. How could anyone be indifferent and believe in no such God? I understand your call to logic and reason, but how do these things offer anything to you, if they deny a universal call of hope and brotherhood; to love and care for the unfortunate and for each other. Personally, I do believe in God, as immortal and almighty, but my love for him isn't chained by a mind of logic & reasoning. I could not obey or follow a God that I didn't believe in, no matter how almighty or tyrannical he would be. I don't understand justice for lost evil people as stated to come from the scripture (the Bible), but I trust & love the one that I believe in (our Father in Heaven). I don't love or whorship a tyrannical & egocentrical God and couldn't, no matter his power and might, but I can follow the love of God that Jesus showed us. When you speak of Christianity as of the Christendom with its theologies, you don't speak of Christians who follow Jesus, but those who follow the dogmas of the Christian theologians throughout history. I believe in a kind and loving God through Jesus. My belief in justice through him is as kind and loving. Even being almighty, he will win over all things of evil and of ignorance without stooping down to be evil to evil. Why do I believe in a God in this way and not the way of the rest of Christendom? I believe in Jesus and his teachings of forgivenness and love. How can I say that I believe in Jesus and then believe that he would act against himself and his teachings to us. Do we create a God to match our hopes, or is there but one God and our realities are but one in co-existence? To worship, love and believe, we must do so honestly and with great courage, in jeopardy of our very existence or hope of existence. I believe that courage is something that God admires in us. It shows our honesty and deepest love. Let us love the God whom we believe. He exist and we will be greatly comforted. This universe that we live in is the existence of dying, entropy. There is an existence of living with not an ounce of entropy or any thinking of it around. Is it so just because I believe it or is it so because it has always been so from the ancient of days. If we live in the temporary, why would we doubt in living in the permanent? A seed is alive, but only in the temporary. Its glory is its death, yet did it really die? If death if figured so wrongly, will we always repeat our ignorance once it appears again on the horizion? Where is our faith? Let us join the ancient of days, our God, Creator and Father himself. Much love to you my young friend.
 
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Stephen Kendall

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I have defeated more than just one argument. You forgot that in addition to addressing Problem of Evil arguments I also confronted your argument, defeating the idea that God cannot be both 'omniscient' and 'omnipotent' at the same time by showing that there is no contradiction. Remember, I referred to logical arguments against the existence of God (Msg. #33); "these attempt to prove that God, as proposed by Christian theism, cannot exist because he exhibits self-contradicting attributes"—such as your attempt with the omniscience vs. omnipotence issue (Msg. #39).

There are hundreds arguments against the God; I have neither the time, nor am I prepared, to list them all here and address them in this thread. But of the three examples I gave, there is only one left: those arguments that follow the "who created the Creator" theme. These arguments likewise do not work, and all for the same reason. Whether it's about who "caused" the First Cause, "designed" the Designer, "created" the Creator, they all presuppose a being whose existence had a beginning point. This is the logical fallacy known as Complex Question (also Loaded Question).

The most common example of this fallacy is the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" To answer the question is to validate it: whether you answer with a "yes" or a "no," either way you concede to having beaten your wife, which is what the question presupposes. What is the response to be? Simple: point out the fallacy. The person need only say, "The question wrongly assumes that I have beaten my wife. But the reality is that I have never." You cannot 'stop' beating your wife if you never started.

The Christian need only do the same thing: "The question wrongly assumes that God's existence had a beginning point. But the reality is that it doesn't." The God of Christian theism is eternal: his existence has no point of actualization. You cannot 'create' something that already exists. Only that which begins to exist has a cause.

And to your question I would pose my own: "What if God is omniscient because he is omnipresent?"

What you say in your logic sounds correct. The straightest line possible still would be a curve to make a circle. Would not time and the number line all just go from infinity to circle back in on itself; however, only having to past the infinity mark before re-occurring (cycling again)? You can see that our logic and mortal-ness fails to understand such concepts. Maybe that is why God wants us to understand justice and love, things we are better equip to comprehend. Maybe justice for evil is to remain in the loop, but justice to those of God's (his chosen children) leave the circle to be with God.
 
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Ryft

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Everything has a beginning and a end. Everything has a food chain. God is at the top of this foodchain but there are other food chains that precede him, that must be more powerful, and be God's Predator. It is a fact of nature ... God is a lifeform. Lifeforms live, reproduce and then die. ... Everything has a beginning point. EVERYTHING.

(Please forgive my earlier posts; I had no idea you were really that young. Had I known this, I would have written in way that a person your age could more easily digest and understand—which I will of course do from this post onward.)

What you have said here is scientifically strong, but the discipline of science applies only to empirical questions. 'Empirical' means things that are available in some way to our sense perceptions (e.g., sight, touch, scent, taste, and hearing), things we can observe, measure, and test with likewise empirical results. Science tells us a lot about nature. But what if nature is only one part of reality? What if reality is larger than just the natural world?

What you and I are exploring in this conversation are some of these non-empirical questions, such as logic and reality itself, things that science is unable to address. That is why our toolbox for understanding reality is equipped with more tools than just science. As a matter of fact, one of these other important tools—philosophy—is itself the very foundation of science. In other words, science would not even exist if it were not for philosophy, because science functions on a large number of philosophical assumptions. Science is the building, and philosophy is the foundation upon which it rests; if you remove the foundation, then the building collapses.

You said that "life forms live, reproduce, and then die" in a competitive "food chain" network of predator and prey. That is something we observe when it comes to carbon-based biochemical life forms here on this planet, but that is not what you and I have been discussing. What you and I have been talking about (i.e., God) exists beyond not only this planet but the physical universe itself. You cannot take the 'rules of nature' that we observe on this tiny blue planet and impose them on the rest of the galaxy, the whole physical universe, and the entire scope of reality. And there are two interesting reasons why you can't. First, we have barely scratched 5% of the surface when it comes to understanding the physical universe; in other words, 95% of the physical universe we are completely ignorant about. Let's be clear, "95%" is a very big chunk. That means there is huge potential for what science 'knows' today being overturned in the future; i.e., you should be far, far more tentative about what you think we know.

Second, the fact that life forms are carbon-based is part of that humbling 5% of our knowledge; ergo, science is incapable of asserting that carbon-based life forms are the only type possible (e.g., carbon is not the only chemical element that has four valence bonds). And what we know about the 'rules of the game' when it comes to life applies only to what we know about carbon-based life forms on this little blue planet. But beyond this planet is a bigger solar system, within a large galaxy, within a vast cluster of galaxies, within a huge physical universe. We know a lot about our little blue planet, but (a) it absolutely pales in comparison to what we actually don't know about the physical universe, and (b) we have no reason to think that what applies here applies anywhere else in the cosmos.

And not everything has a beginning and an end. That is not only philosophically incorrect but—so far as we know—scientifically incorrect too. (See the law of conservation of energy, which states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant. It is neither created nor destroyed; it only changes form). So no, not "everything." And if you meant that only in respect to life forms, see what I just wrote previously on that issue.
 
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Stephen Kendall

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(Please forgive my earlier posts; I had no idea you were really that young. Had I known this, I would have written in way that a person your age could more easily digest and understand—which I will of course do from this post onward.)

What you have said here is scientifically strong, but the discipline of science applies only to empirical questions. 'Empirical' means things that are available in some way to our sense perceptions (e.g., sight, touch, scent, taste, and hearing), things we can observe, measure, and test with likewise empirical results. Science tells us a lot about nature. But what if nature is only one part of reality? What if reality is larger than just the natural world?

What you and I are exploring in this conversation are some of these non-empirical questions, such as logic and reality itself, things that science is unable to address. That is why our toolbox for understanding reality is equipped with more tools than just science. As a matter of fact, one of these other important tools—philosophy—is itself the very foundation of science. In other words, science would not even exist if it were not for philosophy, because science functions on a large number of philosophical assumptions. Science is the building, and philosophy is the foundation upon which it rests; if you remove the foundation, then the building collapses.

You said that "life forms live, reproduce, and then die" in a competitive "food chain" network of predator and prey. That is something we observe when it comes to carbon-based biochemical life forms here on this planet, but that is not what you and I have been discussing. What you and I have been talking about (i.e., God) exists beyond not only this planet but the physical universe itself. You cannot take the 'rules of nature' that we observe on this tiny blue planet and impose them on the rest of the galaxy, the whole physical universe, and the entire scope of reality. And there are two interesting reasons why you can't. First, we have barely scratched 5% of the surface when it comes to understanding the physical universe; in other words, 95% of the physical universe we are completely ignorant about. Let's be clear, "95%" is a very big chunk. That means there is huge potential for what science 'knows' today being overturned in the future; i.e., you should be far, far more tentative about what you think we know.

Second, the fact that life forms are carbon-based is part of that humbling 5% of our knowledge; ergo, science is incapable of asserting that carbon-based life forms are the only type possible (e.g., carbon is not the only chemical element that has four valence bonds). And what we know about the 'rules of the game' when it comes to life applies only to what we know about carbon-based life forms on this little blue planet. But beyond this planet is a bigger solar system, within a large galaxy, within a vast cluster of galaxies, within a huge physical universe. We know a lot about our little blue planet, but (a) it absolutely pales in comparison to what we actually don't know about the physical universe, and (b) we have no reason to think that what applies here applies anywhere else in the cosmos.

And not everything has a beginning and an end. That is not only philosophically incorrect but—so far as we know—scientifically incorrect too. (See the law of conservation of energy, which states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant. It is neither created nor destroyed; it only changes form). So no, not "everything." And if you meant that only in respect to life forms, see what I just wrote previously on that issue.

Since conscious thought is but energy in the mind, could it not be conserved after death with our memory energies as well, providing the mind's integrity is maintain in its system outside of the body?

I enjoy your responses. I need a dictionary to understand things that you say, but I need it anyway. It is too bad we all can not have a time machine to add another 24 hours to each day to enjoy philosophies and science together. Life is busy for our physical & sociological needs; my wife is putting me to bed now (as things go flying by).
 
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Since conscious thought is but energy in the mind, could it not be conserved after death with our memory energies as well, providing the mind's integrity is maintain in its system outside of the body?

So far as we can tell, the fundamental stuff that makes up our conscious mind is the human brain, which obviously decomposes after death. Scientifically speaking, the conscious mind does not continue outside the death of the body. And the Scriptures likewise declare, "The dead know nothing"; in the grave "there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" (Eccl. 9: 5, 10; cf. Ps. 146: 3-4). As the psalmist admits to God in prayer (Ps. 6: 5), "No one remembers you when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave?" The dead certainly don't (Ps. 115:17). In death our bodies decompose and the breath of life returns to God (Job 34:14-15, Eccl. 12:7, Ps. 104:29; cf. Gen. 3:19, Eccl. 3:20). Our conscious mind rests in stasis within the omniscience of our Redeemer who, at the final trumpet, will call us out of our graves and into eternal life (e.g., Acts 2:34; cf. John 3:13). It is then that the redeemed in Christ—and only the redeemed—will be given immorality in imperishable bodies (1 Cor. 15:52-53, 1 Thes. 4:15-17; cf. John 5:28-29). The damned remain mortal and perishable.
 
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nhisname

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To Christians:
Why do you choose the christian God over the Thousands of thousands of Gods from thousands of religions all of whom say that they are the right religion?

I believe God chose me. He convicted my heart of sin during a revival service at 21 yrs. of age. There is only one God, the creator of the universe.
 
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nhisname

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Um I hate to burst you your bubble but two thousand years is a long long time ago and The Roman Empire is far far away from here. Can you verifie the specific real place on the specific eally day and the specific real people who(they were Christians and jews) only testifiy in the two thousand year old bible? Do you know about every single religion out there?

God's word is truth it has never changed.
 
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nhisname

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False. Buddhism, Jainism, Bahá'í, Zoroastrians the followers of Maher Baba amongst many others make the same claim. For instance we know that Maher Baba is real, he exists on film and photographs, and we know that Siddhārtha Gautama, whom Buddhists believe is the Enlightened One, existed because there is so much evidence of his existence. So the life of Gautama Buddha was a "a specific real event that happened to specific real person in a specific real place on a specific real day in real history witnessed by specific real people who were still around testifying about it when their stories were written down". Infact there is hardly any evidence outside of the Bible that Jesus Christ existed (I think he did, don't get me wrong) as the Josephus account is a forgery. This means that the other figures such as Buddha, Maher Baba, Bahá'u'lláh and even Zaraθuštra have more evidence to back up their existence than Jesus Christ.​


So, no Christianity isn't the only faith built around a true person. The accounts in the Bible were also written down long after the birth of Jesus is meant to take place, hence the numerous historical errors such as:​

1. It is said that Augustus decreed that a census of the entire Roman world should take place. This is unhistorical; there never was a census of the entire Roman world under Emperor Augustus.​

2. It claims that Galilee was part of the province of Iudea. It wasn't.​

3. It claims that Herod the Great was alive when Jesus was born. He wasn't.​

4. All the Biblical accounts of the Birth of Jesus disagree with eachother on many details.​

Et cetera.​




These other religions you speak of did any of their founders defeat death as Jesus did? No they're still in the ground. My savior lives and someday I'll live with him as that is his promise to me. Do any od these others promise the same thing? No. These are false religions created by satan himself. He is a liar and a thief. He comes to rob with deceit and why people fall for it I'll never understand.
 
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Ryft

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These are false religions created by Satan himself. He is a liar and a thief. He comes to rob with deceit, and why people fall for it I'll never understand.

The most extraordinarily effective campaign Satan has ever conducted was convincing people that he doesn't exist.
 
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dawnsday

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i don't know if this was said already...but i started becoming interested in it, for the pure fact that it was the only religion that pretty much laid it out that people are messed the heck up. no one is better then anyone else and we are all disasters.
 
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Ryft

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I don't know if this was said already, but I started becoming interested in it for the pure fact that it was the only religion that pretty much laid it out that people are messed the heck up. No one is better than anyone else and we are all disasters.

"The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but, at the same time, the most intellectually resisted fact."
— Malcolm Muggeridge
 
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