A confused atheist.

[Foolish]

So then you're saying that you can't accurately recall the key elements of (for example) the most significant event that happened to you when you were in junior high school?

How about people who were in Dallas when Kennedy got shot. If one of them told you what he saw, you'd reject his testimony?

Have you ever spoken to a survivor of the Nazi death camps? I have - should I reject his testimony because it happened over 60 years ago?

The reason you've given for that is fallacious. It's the ad hominem argument.

Yes, I would struggle to reproduce the exact conversations I had in school.

No, I haven't spoken to a concentration camp survivor, can you tell me exactly what he/she told you? Please ensure that you get his/her exact wording and phrasing.

Testimony in trials are notoriously Inaccurate as one ruminates on the facts over the years and one puts one's own slant upon the event.

 

[socialisview]

the women said something but most people wouldnt. if that happened i would assume that the one who cries is the mother and the one who doesnt is not. and confused atheist is trying to find proof for the bible so i put that there to say you ask god not man.

 

[socialisview]

a man only sees what he sees. he cant tell you what happened in the begging of the earth no matter how hard he searches for it. becuase everything changes.

 

[socialisview]

if their there they can explain it. if not they cant.

 

[Foolish]

They are not divine...kinda hard to explain...Jesus rose from the dead. He restored what none else could do, one's relationship with God.

Musing is a good thing. May your musings continue.

Hi brinny,

A number of posters have said the same as you.

We're currently discussing, amongst other things, the veracity of the biblical accounts. Your belief that Jesus Was risen is based on the bible and I can't see how it's logical to trust a source like the good book which was passed on verbally for many years before it's written. Oh and the scribes were Christians so they're hardly unbiased.

I must admit to some surprise tha people are arguing about its reliability as I thought people would say that belief in the unprovable and illogical is the definition of the word "faith" but some are arguing that it's logical to believe in the story of Christ.

I promise to continue musing, as I'm enjoying the counter arguments, from Hedrick and Catherineanne in particular as they are makin me learn and think.

I like this forum.

 

[socialisview]

Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. -Morpheus

 

[socialisview]

if you dont believe the bible ask god yourself. he will give you the answer. he says he speaks to mean in there deep slumber.

 

[socialisview]

but nobody listens

 

[socialisview]

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

New International Version (NIV)

God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit

6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[a]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[b] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”[c]
But we have the mind of Christ.

 

[Foolish]

Have you ever flown in a plane?

Used a lift?

Driven a car?

Swam?

Lit a fire?

I do hope you understand all of these fully before using them; any one of them can kill you if you are not careful.

Or could it be that you have one standard for most things, but have raised the bar rather higher to faith, because you do not want to believe it? It certainly looks that way.



I have no problem with evolution. I am not an expert, but I accept the findings of those who are; the Bible does not tell us to reject science.

Yes. If we had not had evidence since the Bible we would all have to be be off our rockers to still believe it. Do you honestly think we are all off our rockers?

Incontravertible, personal, first hand, day by day evidence; I for one would NOT be able to sustain faith without it.

It is like someone saying, look, gravity works; it is a force of attraction within nature; it is real; I am stuck to the ground; if I jump I fall down again. If I drop an apple, it goes to the ground; just look for yourself.

Then someone else says, I don't understand what you are saying, and until I understand gravity 100% I am going to say it is the air rejecting that which is not air; people are made up of earth, air, fire and water. Earth goes to earth, fire to fire, and water to water, so people fall to the ground, the same as water falls to the ground to find other water.

This theory is adequate, therefore, until you prove that you are right and I am wrong, I refuse to believe in gravity.

There really is nowhere to go on this, is there? Demanding 100% understanding of something when the primary limitation is our own intellect is never going to be a good path to choose.

I don't base my morality and life upon the use of a lift.

You are talking about risk. Which is completely different.

To say doubting Christianity is akin to doubting gravity isn't fair.

People were in the "earth to earth" position before Newton. He showed the existence of gravity through mathematics and his findings have been repeatedly proven to be consistent with observable phenomena over and over again. Gravity is testable. God is not.

You have faith in god, but it is not logical that he is there.

What's the evidence since the bible tha you refer to?

 

[socialisview]

ecclesiastes 3:14
I know that everything god does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. that sounds like matter is neither created nor destroyed just put into different forms. God says he is everything.

 

[socialisview]

and anything you live by is risk. it works or it doesnt that is the risk. and gods word does work just people dont follow gods word and try to fit it to them. that is why people judge when god says dont judge.

 

[brinny]

Originally Posted by brinny
They are not divine...kinda hard to explain...Jesus rose from the dead. He restored what none else could do, one's relationship with God.

Musing is a good thing. May your musings continue.

Hi brinny,

A number of posters have said the same as you.

We're currently discussing, amongst other things, the veracity of the biblical accounts. Your belief that Jesus Was risen is based on the bible and I can't see how it's logical to trust a source like the good book which was passed on verbally for many years before it's written. Oh and the scribes were Christians so they're hardly unbiased.

I must admit to some surprise tha people are arguing about its reliability as I thought people would say that belief in the unprovable and illogical is the definition of the word "faith" but some are arguing that it's logical to believe in the story of Christ.

I promise to continue musing, as I'm enjoying the counter arguments, from Hedrick and Catherineanne in particular as they are makin me learn and think.

I like this forum.

I'm glad you like the forum. And that you will continue musing. Faith is inexplicably tied in with the spiritual realm, which is, in essence, another dimension. Our current dimension is limited, finite, and fades, like a flower, for we die. The "bridge", if you will, to the dimension of beauty and perfection is what we refer to as faith. Faith transcends from the impossible to the possible.

 

[Foolish]

The trouble is his philosophy amounts to "YHWH promised to do defeat evil, put things right and judge the unjust when he returned to be king. That's now happening in me and what i am doing." it's not an abstract "be nice to people".

To admire Jesus as a philosopher you basically have to invent a version of him for which there is no historical evidence.

The miracles (not magic) are inherently part and parcel of what he claimed to be doing; embodying YHWH's promisec return to Zion.

Ok, let me spell out why I see Jesus as a philosopher as opposed to god:

The teachings of Jesus seem, to me at least, to be variations and adaptations of various Greek philosophers e.g. Plato and Epicurus. The love thy fellow man and do unto others ideals were central to these Greek philosophers.

Hellenic Jews could then have transported those ideas to the middle east and th rest is history.

I think Jesus built on this work and the religious connotations were added so as to compete with the various other religions, particularly mithaism (which has striking similarities to Christianity by the way).

Ultimately Christianity won through simply because Constantine was converted.

 

[Catherineanne]

What's the evidence since the bible tha you refer to?

If I tried to tell you, it would sound like I was explaining the four humours; you really have to live it for yourself.

Here is a parallel; think of a really exceptional moment in your life, and then try to put it into words. Inevitably it will lose something in the process. The same goes for encounters with God; they partake of his ineffable nature.

 

[socialisview]

well you believe science. what gods says is in science. God says he was already here, science says energy was already here. God says he causes everything to happen. science says energy causes everything to happen. Cant you realize that mabe god is energy. who caused heaven and earth to be formed. it says in the bible a truth is made known with two or three witnesses. why cant we have science and god together. from what i studied they say the same thing.

 

[Foolish]

I think it's most likely that God is outside time. There are other approaches, but if you accept him as having created space-time, that seems to place him outside it.

But even if God is outside time, he deals with people who are within it, and thus he can have different dealings at different times. The difference between OT and NT is handled differently by different Christians. But I think most of us believe in some form of progressive revelation. For whatever reason, God pretty clearly doesn't act just by brute force. He is trying to help us understand him. And that process occurs over time. Christians vary in how they treat this. Because I don't think the Bible is inerrant, I think parts of it reflect a partial understanding of God. In my view, God was trying to bring Israel to understand him, but at early stages they saw him as a tribal war god, even though he wasn't. Hence the call to come out of pagan culture turned into killing all the pagans.

But if you look at the message of the Prophets, you'll find most of Jesus' message already present in the OT. The prophets said that what God cared about was not that you follow specific laws in how you worship him (although they certainly didn't accept idols or multiple gods), but how we treat each other. They saw Israel as a light to the Gentiles, not people sent to kill them. They demanded justice and support for the weakest members of society. Their priorities are very close to Jesus'. That message was present from during the period of the kings, which is really as far back as an accurate historical record goes.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" is from Lev 19:18, which is the heart of the old law code in the OT. However in the OT most of Israel saw this kind of thing as applying to other Israelites, not to outsiders. But there were prophets giving a wider view.

I'm not sure what you mean by fire and brimstone. If you're talking about threats of hell in the afterlife, the OT by and large doesn't contain such threats. In the OT, God is understood as taking his vengeance in history. So there isn't fire and brimstone, but when Israel is conquered, the Prophets see that as an act of judgement by God. I've run out of time (have to go to work), so I'm going to think about that for later today.

I suppose my issue with the process occurring over time is that thousands upon thousands of people died due to what they thought god wanted.

I see life as a very precious commodity and as such I would want my father (god) to see it as precious too. However, because of these partial understandings (using your words) of god's intentions means that people lost their lives.

If god is outside of time then he knew this would happen. Why doesn't he make him self clear. He's omnipotent. He could send a message to each of us when born (a real one, not an ethereal) so that we absolutely know of his existence and act accordingly.

As for the fire and brimstone reference; I was referring, in my own crude way, to the floods, genocides etc that occur in the OT and not necessarily about hell.

 

[Foolish]

if their there they can explain it. if not they cant.

You sir, are as mad as a box of frogs.

I like you.

 

[Catherineanne]

Ok, let me spell out why I see Jesus as a philosopher as opposed to god:

The teachings of Jesus seem, to me at least, to be variations and adaptations of various Greek philosophers e.g. Plato and Epicurus. The love thy fellow man and do unto others ideals were central to these Greek philosophers.

Maybe so, but love your enemies and turn the other cheek are not. Neither when you are asked to go one mile with someone, go with him two, nor when you are asked for your coat, give your shirt as well.

And no concept whatever of let he who is without sin cast the first stone, or that someone who harbours anger in his heart is as morally culpable as he who commits murder. The Greeks would certainly not have accepted that one.

In other words, Christ goes a lot further than the Hellens.

Hellenic Jews could then have transported those ideas to the middle east and th rest is history.

I think Jesus built on this work and the religious connotations were added so as to compete with the various other religions, particularly mithaism (which has striking similarities to Christianity by the way).

Ultimately Christianity won through simply because Constantine was converted.

That is the version without the hand of God through the Holy Spirit. Now consider putting the Holy Spirit back into the picture, and see his hand guiding the growth of the Church throughout the world.

That is the way most Christians would see it, I think.

 

[socialisview]

he is both. energy is not in time since scientist has said its been here.