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What if someone said...
I know what it is like to be a Hindu...to be born of Vishnu and to know him. I know what it is like to be led of the Spirit of Vishnu. I, also, know what it is like to be a non-Hindu...unsaved, lost, and without Vishnu and that is what it like to be an atheist or a Christian or a Muslim etc. Vishnu for ALL humanity. Vishnu is it.
What would you think?
I don't see why they wouldn't. I woukd be pretty convinced about the existence of Pyramid builders also.Yes, it's called intellectual honesty.
And there are Muslims who have blown themselves up in the name of their god. You'd want to be pretty convinced of his existence to do something as extreme as that.
That's not what you were asked. You were asked if you could just, right now, on a whim or on a will drop your belief in Christianity for Islam. Could you do it? Why or why not?Inan3 said:I CHOSE to believe. I still CHOOSE to believe, even though, I have had so many atheists trying to change my mind with all their "evidence" . I still CHOOSE to believe because no one can tell me where it all came from. No one has the answer to how we got here. No one can fill in all the gaps and blanks that are still out there and no one can remove the last 40 years of a credible relationship with the Lord God from my life. He's in my heart, my life, my mind. No one has EVER been able to show me a better way. Do you have a better way, AC?
You refuse to even entertain the possibility that you might be wrong. There are Muslims and Hindus out there who are just as convinced as you are that their Gods are real. They have just as much evidence as you as well, as in just their own holy texts. Your own personal conviction, as strong as it may be, is still not evidence of anything.
Well, snce you've made a CHOICE, are you willing to consider the possibility, either here or somewhere down the road, that you made the wrong CHOICE?
A choice to acknowledge that man is created is more or less the same as the choice to believe that the Great Pyramids were created.
Like whether or not the Great Pyramid is built or whether or not magnetic fields actually exist? You're confusing a materialist for a theist and assuming that the bias you harbor which prevents you from acknowledging what is in front of you persists as a universally shared trait.We're discussing the possibility of being wrong -- have you ever considered the possibility that you were wrong... about anything?
Muslims, Hindus and Christians acknowledge the same uncaused cause. There is only one.
Actually you're a materialist. We are only talking about the existence of God.You are wrong. Muslims, Hindus and Christians believe different things. You shouldn't have to be told this.
What is a "middle eastern uncaused cause"?And back to the point of the thread, supposing there had to have been an uncaused cause, and even supposing that cause was an intelligent deity, why are you so sure it was a particular violent, intolerant, Middle-Eastern deity with a peculiar hatred for shellfish and cotton-polyester blends?
Funny. There's lots of Muslims in the world that say Christianity is brainwashing. I wonder why that is.
Christianity is a CHOICE to believe where as Islam is a brainwashing of it's adherents by force. Not the same thing.
Well, in your best intellectual honesty tell me all your doubts about what you believe. What do you entertain is wrong about the way you think?
I know this, that it is so ironic how you guys seem to ALWAYS get what we Christians say so twisted up and opposite of what we actually do say. It's just like two opposite polarities or like night and day or light and darkness. You actually CANNOT understand what we say because you almost NEVER get it right. I used to think you did it on purpose but now I am beginning to wonder.
I know what it is like to be led of the Spirit of God. I, also, know what it is like to be a non-Christian ... unsaved, lost and without God and that is what it is like to be an atheist or a Hindu or a Muslim etc.
i'm not saying it shouldn't happen now. i've stated all throughout this leg of the discussion that it seemed to me that jesus had a place for miraculous healing, but that it was only a means not an end. when jesus says the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it seems to me to he is trying to get people away from being carnally minded, but still did employ physical healing to teach and to pour out compassion.
no, jesus did not teach a doctrine of medical science either. i did not use the verse in the way you say i have. i merely pointed out that jesus has left room for both. neither did i claim that a single verse was a dismissal of a proposed faith healing doctrine, but said that the absence of such a doctrine should place the verse into perspective.
not at all. if i pay your speeding ticket for you, i have taken the consequence from you and applied it to myself, thus giving you a new consequence. you can choose to be grateful and allow the gratitude to affect your life and/or others around you, or you can choose to say "who does that jerk think he is? what is he trying to pull with that stunt?"
i call them lesser in the sense that jesus placed more importance on the forgiveness of sins than the healing of illnesses. i paraphrased him on that in a previous post. i also alluded above to his statement about the kingdom of heaven, also indicative of a god who is very concerned with saving people. in saving one from spiritual death, one might also try save them from the carnality of mind. his compassion overlooked this when he attempts to meet people where they are at mentally and thus he heals them, but clearly he had hoped to show them more.
i see. you are looking for an end all, be all demonstration to finally put to rest any and all doubts everyone of us may have about jesus' divinity. but jesus has already demonstrated in his time and those who would doubt still doubted, saying "he casts out satan by satans power" (paraphrase, sorry, i'm running late for work).
the argument that why doesn't jesus come down again springs to mind. but if he did, it would prove more than anything else that god doing something once, wasn't effective the first time.
And for the purpose of this discussion, we're assuming there is some sort of a God. Now, if a creator were necessary for the universe, and your pyramid 747 babble had some merit to it, what reason is there to believe that this deity is the same deity described in the bible?Actually you're a materialist. We are only talking about the existence of God.
What is a "middle eastern uncaused cause"?
And for the purpose of this discussion, we're assuming there is some sort of a God. Now, if a creator were necessary for the universe, and your pyramid 747 babble had some merit to it, what reason is there to believe that this deity is the same deity described in the bible?
Do you deliberately misunderstand everyone just to troll, or have you actually some other issue, like English not being your first language?
Here is a q for you:
Why do you ask?
Does God exist? Here are six straight-forward reasons to believe that God is really there.
But first consider this. If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away.
It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking.
Photographs of astronauts walking on the moon, interviews with the astronauts, moon rocks...all the evidence would be worthless, because the person has already concluded that people cannot go to the moon.
When it comes to the possibility of God's existence, the Bible says that there are people who have seen sufficient evidence, but they have suppressed the truth about God. 1 On the other hand, for those who want to know God if he is there, he says, "You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you."2 Before you look at the facts surrounding God's existence, ask yourself, If God does exist, would I want to know him? Here then, are some reasons to consider...
1. Does God exist? The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.
2. Does God exist? The universe had a start - what caused it?
Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself.
*snip*
The universe has not always existed. It had a start...what caused that? Scientists have no explanation for the sudden explosion of light and matter.
3. Does God exist? The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. Why does it?
Much of life may seem uncertain, but look at what we can count on day after day:
*snip*
That there are many names for one God. This isnt entirely new.
Might want to lay off the copy-paste?
I would have thought from a Christian point of view however that that hadn't exactly changed.
Then if you're using both verses in that way, why emphasis medical healing over faith healing?
And healing someone gives them a new consequence. They got to be healed. Sorry, but you really can't claim that one is a new consequence and the other isn't.
Again, isn't that still a big problem today? You're pretty much acknowledging my point for me here - miracles would enable God to show them more - this would surely be beneficial if he's actually serious about saving people.
And I still don't see why this should be viewed as lesser necessarily seeing as it's pretty standard doctrine that Jesus meets us at where we are in life, not where we should be at.
Er...no, that wasn't at all what my point was.
You're claiming that "the power of love" in the form of looking after the sick and poor could be a strong testament to Christianity - whereas it doesn't have a monopoly on that, and wasn't the first belief system to encourage that. You can't make a case for something being true or different when there are thousands of other groups doing the same thing. It's like claiming that a good case for Christianity can be made because many of its adherents have hair. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the acts of looking after the poor and healing the sick have very little to do with the matter of Jesus' divinity.
But even then, Jesus' divinity wasn't what I was talking about either. I'm saying that ruling out a very convincing tool doesn't suggest a god that is as serious as saving people as his followers claim he is.
Actually, given that the choice to follow Christ is supposed to be fair, the fact that we got one poorly-recorded revelation 2000 years ago and that's all we getting also doesn't strike me as the action of a god who's serious about saving people.
To come down repeatedly isn't an indictment of God, merely an acknowledge that we, unlike God, change over time, in our collective knowledge, understanding, and perception of things.
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