God, not convinced.

Tellyontellyon said:

Maybe I do need to believe in a creator, but haven't had it convincingly put to me yet?

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The best proof if you want to call it that of the spiritual realm existing are that many people do experience it in various ways. When you say "psychic experiences" what you really mean are "spiritual experiences". The spiritual isn't only God. If there truly was no spiritual realm why are so many people interested in it? The spiritual isn't just mainstream churches it's all forms of psychic exploration as well. People want contact with the spiritual but not necessarily with God.

Disbelief in God I think stems from the spiritual not being easily seen or experienced like the physical world, but it is experienced, it just isn't as obvious as the chair you are sitting on. It needs to be looked for. Unfortunately most people, yourself included look for 'psychic experiences' rather than God and are more likely to find them. Psychic experiences comes from the demonic side of the spiritual realm.

Often people have a view of what God should be and God doesn't fit those preconceived ideas and this also turns them away. The fact that people think God should fit into their ideas is pretty outlandish really. Why would God come and do what insignificant people on this tiny planet want him to do?
Also being very logical and the need for proof comes from the mind, but we don't know God with our mind but rather our spirit. First though it says we need to believe that he exists.
Hebrews 11:6 Without Faith it is Impossible to Please God, Because Anyone who Comes to him Must Believe That he Exists and That he Rewards Those who earnestly Seek him.

It isn't for us to convince you. We can point the way which would be reading the Gospels or point the ways to some good books which show that Jesus was an historical figure which might at least satisfy your mind, but ultimately its up to you to reach out to God. We can't do that for you.

I had a much longer post, but it was very rambly, and I don't know how helpful it would've been. So I'll try to be shorter here.

I'd maintain that the true opposite of theism isn't atheism, but nihilism.

Atheism is simply a lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods. But nihilism is a response to the universe that effectively says there is no great meaning behind everything.

Thus the assertion of God is not about believing in fantastical powerful spirits that control the weather and fertility; though such beliefs have been common to human religions for millennia. I'd argue the assertion of God is an act of defiance against the cold, dark, abyss of seeming nothingness that lay out there in the universe.

Am I just a monkey, among a lot of other monkeys, screaming out into the unhearing and uncaring void? Or is there Something, Someone, that cares?

Have the billions of years of atoms coalescing into stars, planets, and even us have a point? I mean, a greater point, a more significance meaning outside of some pedantic "Life is what you make it"--a phrase I would maintain is helpful to hear in some contexts, but says absolutely nothing about the universe as a whole.

Am I only an assemblage of atoms in a particular time and place, and just happen to have been cursed with awareness so that I can peer into the cosmos and realize there's nothing else there?

If I am a piece of the universe looking back at itself, then what is it that I see?

Do I stare out there and see nothing? Nothing but more stuff? Just stars and void outward in ever larger systems of arrangement until, well, until either we reach the edge of the universe or discover the universe is bigger than we currently postulate?

I don't mean to say that the universe isn't lovely, it is. I don't mean to say that stars and void are meaningless. But I maintain that permanence is better than transience.

Which is to say, is the ultimate cosmic victor entropy? Even imagining endless cycles of the universe, even allowing the possibility of infinite regress of the universe's birth and rebirth over countless eons--we are still seeing the victory of entropy. A massive explosion of cosmic brilliance, followed by trillions of years of slow decay; ad infinitum.

If, in the end, it's all just entropy; then the author of Ecclesiastes has spoken truthfully, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light..

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
- Dylan Thomas

God is the defiance against death. Life has meaning, not just subjective, temporary, transient meaning--but real meaning. We are more than just the sum of our parts, we are more than just monkeys screaming into the void.

Jesus Christ says that knows One whom He calls His Father, the Source and Origin from whence He came, who loves the world. Bigger than the heavens, nearer than the breath. There is Love and Mercy and Kindness. These things are real--love is real, kindness is real. What we do matters, how we love one another matters--not just subjectively, but objectively.

Death doesn't get the last hurrah.
Entropy doesn't win the war.
The universe isn't just a nothingness, it's real--and it really matters.

Every star, every blade of grass, every smiling baby, every purring kitten. It all matters.

-CryptoLutheran

I believe there must be justice as to how we have lived our lives and mercy for those prematurely deprived from doing so. The Lord sums it up in John 5:22-30 saying those who have done good ( the Christian or non Christian) & those who were evil ( Christian or non Christian) will be judged accordingly.

Tellyontellyon said:

Hi, I've been thinking about what I find difficult about Theistic religions... And it's God. Basically, I don't believe in a creator God.

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This is the problem all people have with God. Of course, the Bible says this isn't because they don't know that He exists; they do, but they are "suppressing the truth (of God) in unrighteousness" within themselves because they want to serve themselves rather than God. (Romans 1:18-21) God is, well, God. We have to approach Him as such which means He's the Boss, He's our Lord, God and King. What's more, God is, the Bible says, perfectly holy (1 John 1:5). We aren't. Not even close. And so, this makes approaching God doubly uncomfortable: He kicks our self-will and pride in the shins and says, "Humble yourself before me as your Maker and Ruler," and then He says, "You're rotten, utterly filthy, stained and fouled by sin." (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-18; Ephesians 2:1-3; Titus 3:3, etc.) The apostle John wrote particularly about this last matter, explaining the barrier admitting to sin can be for sinners:

John 3:19-20
19 "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20 "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

That anyone comes into relationship with God under this dynamic is a miracle! Who wants to be bossed about? Who wants to admit they're evil and in need of cleansing from sin? No one. Which is why Christians recognize that a person's salvation must always be a work of God. He has to do something special in a person to enable them to come to Him in humble admission of, and repentance from, their sin, seeking the cleansing from sin the sacrifice of Christ on the cross has provided for all who will, by faith, receive it. And so, the Bible says God gives "repentance to the acknowledging of the truth" (2 Timothy 2:25); God must draw sinful people to the Savior (John 6:44); God must convict the sinner of his/her sin and need of a Savior (John 16:8). But, though God does all these things for us in order that we might be reconciled to Himself, we finally must choose, freely, to trust in Christ as our Savior and serve him as our Lord.

Though God does all that I've described above, one may still resist Him, continuing on the Broad Way to destruction, determined to live for oneself, refusing to see themselves as God does. In support of this effort, those in rebellion toward God erect a multitude of "reasons" for doing so: God doesn't exist; God is evil; Christians suck; Jesus never existed and/or did not rise from the dead; reason and science oppose faith and the supernatural; and so on. All of these (and many other "objections" besides) have been answered exhaustively by Christians over the 2000 years since Christ's time on earth. There is today extremely robust answers to the questions and concerns of the skeptic and atheist that can be found here:

www.crossexamined.org
www.reasonablefaith.org
www.coldcasechristianity.com
www.str.org

One can also consider texts like: "Warranted Christian Belief" by Alvin Plantinga, or "The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology," edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, or J.P. Moreland's "Scaling the Secular City" and on and on.

In the end, God is a personal Being offering a personal, direct experience of Himself and it this experience that is the ultimate ground on which Christianity rests. Unfortunately, too many Christians these days have no real, personal experience of God, only ritual and doctrine, devoid of daily, transformative interaction with their Creator, or some grotesque, sensualized counterfeit of such interaction. And the world looks on with increasing skepticism as Christians offer argument and evidence for a God from whom they are nearly as distant as the person they hope to persuade to the faith. This isn't true across-the-board, of course; there are some very expert apologetical and philosophical Christians who are also deep in their personal experience of God. But in the affluence and comfort of the West, Christians have, at least in my experience within the Church, generally grown increasingly compromised, complacent and/or sensual in their faith, content with superficial religiosity, as caught up in the consumerist, subjectivistic approach to life and faith as any non-believer.

The result is that, despite an enormous body of intellectual reason for Christian belief, the average Christian's personal experience of God Himself is unimpressive (and in the case of the sensual Christian, simply bizarre) to the onlooking World. And so, the unbelieving World settles deeper into its skepticism, feeling Christians themselves are often the best argument against the God they say is real, and personal, and can be known. There is in this, though, very...convenient thinking. Judging Christianity on the basis of poor examples of it is no more reasonable than, say, judging Mozart's musical ability on the basis of a sixth-grade band's attempt to play his music. The band's hooting, and squawking, and blaring don't properly display Mozart's talent any more than complacent, compromised disciples of Christ properly display the teachings of Christ. If you want to have the very best basis from which to assess the nature of Christianity, consider its Founder, Jesus Christ. Judge the faith according to his representation of it, just as you would do with Mozart, finding the best philharmonic recording of his music to listen to before you made up your mind about Mozart's skill.

Tellyontellyon said:

I'm not looking for an argument, or asking you to 'convince me' in some cocky way, where I'm out to prove you wrong... but I do need to be convinced and to hear the best arguments for the existence of God.

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This isn't the standard, really, for a good argument. "Convince me" is a standard that is too subjective, too much at the mercy of the individual's preferences and prejudices. "I'm not convinced" can always be the response no matter the amount of evidence and reason offered in defense of the Christian faith. The Christian who allows this to be the standard they have to reach is doomed to failure; for it is a standard that shifts and flexes according to the skeptic who often, at bottom, simply doesn't want to be convinced.

God has offered sufficient reason to believe - reason enough to persuade multi-millions of people to faith in Christ - but often the skeptical person will only be satisfied by a personal appearance by God. But this is to make God jump through their hoops, to make God their lackey, essentially, doing their bidding, which He will never do. We can only come to God, into relationship with Him, humbly and contritely, not making demands of Him to satisfy our own particular standard for faith in Him. But when a man (or woman) lowers himself before God, humbly acknowledging his sin and trusting in Christ as his Savior, lo and behold, there God is, moving powerfully and clearly into his life, changing him naturally and profoundly, making him more and more like His Son.

Revelation 3:20
20 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Tellyontellyon said:

Hi, I've been thinking about what I find difficult about Theistic religions... And it's God. Basically, I don't believe in a creator God.

I grew up with a very scientifically orientated way of thinking and always dismissed the possibility of God, or anything spiritual, out of hand. I was open to the possibility of psychic experiences though.

As an adult, I had some stressful times and got into meditation and then Buddhism.

Although Buddhism includes being open to things like, rebirth and karma, invisible beings of various sorts, heaven, hell, demons and suchlike... it's possible to get by without believing those things...

However, over the years I find myself able to believe in these things in a way a strict materialist never would!

So... what stops me believing in God? What reason do I have for continuing to dismiss that possibility? I know it's not a Buddhist belief, but that's not a good reason not to believe in it. Buddhism tells us we shouldn't be attached to our own opinions, so I need to keep an open mind about this...

I think the old materialist part of me still holds sway, at least in the God area, and this is because I haven't heard a good argument about why it ought to be true?

I'm not looking for an argument, or asking you to 'convince me' in some cocky way, where I'm out to prove you wrong... but I do need to be convinced and to hear the best arguments for the existence of God.

So... um... come on... Convince me!

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Im gonna be real with you the idea that one person can prove an existence of a God is quite disingenuous of them. Its faith only friend we believe God existence because life and before life goes on the existence of souls. All life has souls, how do we know that you ask. Its simple all creatures such as mammals, Reptiles, and Amphibians.

All had a state of evolution from natural selection but such creatures need a state of consciousness to even possibly act. For more than a century, scientists have understood that natural selection have profound effects on how an animal looks -- Anolis lizards that spend more time on the ground, for example, might need longer legs for running, while species that remain in the trees usually have shorter legs better suited for climbing. Thats an example ones consciousness helps all act a different way from the way they normally act to have a state of living.

Consciousness existence isn't time warranted as we can tell even being not aware of your surroundings or acts you still are conscious. Same thing for animals, but possibly we can say the souls of the animals cause them to act better in the state of living as consciousness doesn't exist before they existence but they conscious acts could act before the others existence because the consciousness of they're acts cause the other to exist from they're acts. So we can conclude consciousness causes means of evolution which we know causes animals existence but consciousness origin is unknown. You know why because studying animals conscious acts and humans conscious acts prove they always had the act to do what they do before they do it proving its a wired act how so? You tell me...

Is it a mystery or is it a soul wired from God himself?

Tellyontellyon said:

I think the old materialist part of me still holds sway, at least in the God area, and this is because I haven't heard a good argument about why it ought to be true?

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I'm not certain, but I get the impression that your materialist past might be clouding your impression of God as 'material' rather than 'spirit'.