I don't understand; do you consider a request-prayer to be answered if the request comes true?
No, sometimes it comes true later on, after God wants me to realize or learn something, usually...and sometimes it never comes true, but I see in the future that it was better that way. I interpret all this as 'answered', because in all these cases God is doing something, even if its something that I didn't have in mind. What I meant before is that many of my prayer requests did come true...I don't know why, but praise God!
You don't, and that's my point: people attribute chance occurance to divine intervention. Continuous troughs of bad luck don't get attributed, but a shimmer of light always is. If you're going to chalk things up to a deity, at least be consistent.
Why, I believe that sometimes God uses 'darkness' to teach us something! It's all a part of His plan. I do try to be consistent.
Nevertheless, to hold this belief is a tad arrogant.
Oki, well, sorry..I didnt' say it because I think I have more faith than others, I just know that faith is really important in a person's relationship with God.
Which is my point: if he answers so reliably and consistently, then Christianity should be far more widespread. There should be no deconversions, for starters.
In the Bible, Thomas knew Jesus and he
still didn't believe in the Resurrection before he saw for himself. No matter what God does, the person still decides whether or not to believe it or attribute it to Him or not. If He appeared on earth right now, there would still be people who are saying it's just a hallucination. It's not God's fault, and I'm not just blaming the people either: our wills and our minds are just weak. Mine too...it took a long time for me to realize that God was trying to reach me, He used a lot of people/events/circumstances before I got it.
I pray insofar as I talk to them when I cast a spell. Apart from that, I don't pray for requests; one of the tenents of Wiccan magick is to do things yourself before you resort to magick and the intervention of the gods.
That said, I do give the God a quick salute when I see the Sun, or the Goddess a kiss when I see the Moon. Just so they know I haven't forgotten about them
I almost became Wiccan once (it was a long time ago), but I don't really know much about the spells...if you don't mind answering, do your spells work? Why is it considered better to do things yourself? Personally I love the idea that God wants us to turn to Him instead of leaving us on our own.
Pray tell, what is your stance on divinity?
Sorry I don't really understand what you're asking..?
No. But my point was that he didn't need to sacrifice anything at all.
If He had forgotten about our sins 'just like that', that wouldn't be very just. What He did by taking on our sins showed that He's just
and loving. And by dying, He defeated death with death..since He was God, He rose again. He did what was necessary to save us while keeping His standard of goodness.
No, he is not: the perfect cannot create the imperfect. The world is imperfect, so therefore so is it's Creator (assuming one exists at all).
I disagree. If we do something that is not in His will, it becomes imperfect. He decides what is right because He's the Creator, and our view of 'right and wrong' comes from Him...we don't always follow it though....He gave us that ability when He gave us free will...which He did so that we could freely choose Him, according to theology.
Why could he not modify his law? It's not like people would chastise him for removing Hell, for instance.
That would be like asking God not to be good anymore, or holy. Anything other than His standard is sin ("missing the mark"). He can't sin, that would be doing something against Himself!
And as for changing His plan and taking away hell, well I think hell exists because people have free will, and since God gave us that it must have been worth the risk.
I beg to differ; I had no choice in being a Christian, and it is no coincidence that almost all theists follow the faith of their forefathers.
Many of my atheist friend grew up in religious homes
And I grew up in an atheist home. Maybe we just know different types of people.
Is this such an unreasonable request? If I told you that punching a baby wouldn't harm it, would you take my word for it or ask for evidence?
Oki the only response I have to this is: God gave us free will. Choosing faith based on evidence is not a free choice. And God is not like people, He wouldn't do anything evil, and is trustworthy.
Then the questioning atheist has a choice between Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jain, Sikhism, etc. If Christianity is true, but there is no hint that it is true, then how is the unbeliever supposed to come willingly, blindly, to God?
Christianity is the only religion that's based on a historical event, other religions are based on personal beliefs or visions. Many people saw the Resurrection happen, and there were skeptics who became
martyrs after they saw the risen Christ. Stephen, for example. If it had never happened, they would have remained skeptics. So there are hints that it's true. But no amount of evidence or 'hints' would make someone a believer, because even if they feel like Christianity
could be true, they still have to take that extra step and choose to believe. That's where the Holy Spirit helps us. Many Christians felt like God is calling them to believe (including myself), but in my knowledge other religions are chosen because people like the ideas or became they were brought up that way. Even if a person is brought up as a Christian, there still comes a point in their life when they have to choose between unbelief or make their faith their own.
Why the Christian god, though?
Before I knew what Christianity is, I was agnostic, and I researched different religions...Buddhism, Wicca, and other philosophies. Sometimes I came across things I liked, and wanted to join the religion...but only with Christianity did I feel like there was Someone out there who was calling me to believe. With other religions, it was just what I liked vs. what I didn't like. Just my experience.
And we come down to the buden of proof again: Christians claim the resurrection occured, and that this is physical proof of Christianity's claims (even though it's only proof of the resurrection, but still). When sceptics reasonably ask for evidence that the resurrection occured... no response. So Christianity is just one religion among thousands that makes claims it cannot substantiate. Why, then, should the atheist convert?
There isn't "no response". There are lots of books on the subject...like Lee Strobel's 'Case for Christ', and Josh McDowell's 'Evidence that Demands a Verdict'.
No. But that does not mean we cannot comprehend infinity itself.
I think we're just talking about different things
I was talking about the knowledge part.
I see. Timeless might be a better word. Question: how can an entity outside of time (that is, unchanging) have an active and dynamic affect in our universe? If God simply created the universe and continued doing whatever timeless beings do, then this is deism. However, since you believe that God has had an active role in the universe, how can he be timeless? Indeed, to influence the universe he must be part of the flow of time, and thus cannot be it's Creator.
There are also conflicts with Free Will, but that's for later.
Why does God need to be changing to influence a changing world? He is the original, the world is the derivative....I think to talk about these things we need to have an understanding of time and eternity that no human has.
By 'nonsense' I meant that it makes no sense. But I still believe it to be true, Hamiltonians and all.
Well..something can make no sense to us, but still make sense to God. 'What makes sense' is a matter or perspective, and ours is rather limited.
You miss my point: those born in Islamic countries have heard the Christian gospel (or, at least, know of it). Those who are proselytised to are very unlikely to convert, much less likely than somone born in Middle-America. Thus, God, by dictating where and when a person will be born, directly dictates how likely they are to convert to Christianity.
So my question is this: why would God make it so unlikely for most of the world to convert? Why would he favour those born to Christian families?
There are lots of Christians in other countries too. It's not 'easier' for those born in Christian families, because even then they eventually reach a certain age where they have to make their faith their own. Many of them don't. Anyway, I believe that it's the Holy Spirit that brings people to God, and lots of people (like Christian martyrs) converted even though it was dangerous for them to do so. God doesn't favour those born to Christian families.
Why did they do this? Since it was forbidden, eating from it's fruit is morally wrong. Since they could do no wrong, they couldn't have eaten from something that was forbidden.
Good question. lol oki that part about 'not being able to sin' is not actual theology, it's just something I put in to explain the point. Maybe it's not true....that's why I said "here's how I see it".
But they chose the forbidden fruit because they gave in to temptation from the devil.
What do you mean by 'entered the world', exactly?
Previously, no one on earth sinned (the devil doesn't count because he's not from earth), and when Adam and Even sinned, it affected them and other things, through them.
People believe there are several possible reasons. 1. God is the source of Life, and they separated themselves from Him. They became spiritually dead, and this affected their immortal bodies and they became bound to the effects of time, etc. 2. Even though God wanted people to live forever, living forever in a fallen world is an endless life of suffering. So He made death, which is the separation of body and soul, to give people another chance to live in a perfect world.
Oki I'm not a theologian, lol, maybe you should ask someone more knowledgeable about this. But I think it could even be because of the sinful environment they were raised in. They were born to parents who were spiritually separated from God, and somehow this carried on to them. I think you should ask someone else about this, I don't know enough theology.
At the first sign of corruption, why didn't he send a global (or, indeed, local) flood? Why wait a few thousand years for the wickedness to spread?
Do you really think I know? I don't know His
mind.
Maybe He didn't kill Adam and Eve because He was giving the human race a chance to survive. He saved Noah because he was righteous.
First of all, even by Christian doctrine, we did not 'reject it': we were tricked by a creation of God.
Tempted, not tricked. Adam and Eve could have stayed obedient to God if they chose.
Second, if this entity is willing to interfere with the world, then it obviously does not care for the sanctity of free will.
He interferes in a way that doesn't harm our free will. Maybe that's why some people attribute miracles to God, and some to natural causes.
Actually, we have an answer: when a cell replicates, it and it's clone are just that: clones. But there is a difference in the original cell: it's telomere has shortened. The telomere is required for cell replication, and the shorter it is, the less likely the cell is to replicate properly. Hence the symptoms of old age.
The trick is lengthening the telomeres of all our cells in one go. But we know the cause of old age.
I know this, I did a science report on telomeres once
It still doesn't explain it though. The world could have been made in such a way that the telomeres did not get shorter, or repaired themselves, or something. Maybe it
was like that, before the fall.
Modern medicine has brought people back after their heart has stopped (or replaced), lifespans are increasing with no sign of tailing off, etc. Indeed, skin cells have been kept alive for 30 years and counting, which is far longer than their natural lifespan.
But no matter what scientists do, people always
eventually die.
