God is Learned

[AV1611VET]

Science answered the questions God could not.

Really?

Pray and ask God what 5 + 4 are, and see if He answers you the way you probably thought?

What would you expect?

Would it be okay if God sent a good math teacher your way; or would you be expecting God Himself to show up and answer you?

Using you guys' Law of Unanswered Prayers,* is it okay if those wanting answers to their math test abandon God as well?

After all, Mr. Smith, the math teacher, answers the questions God "won't"?

Is it okay if I pray to God and ask for a dozen doughnuts?

And if He doesn't create them in front of me, and I have to go to the bakery and have someone I've never met before bake them for me ... am I justified in denying His existence?

Or can I assume He gifted us bakers?

* I just made that term up.

 

[Old Ned]

Really?

Pray and ask God what 5 + 4 are, and see if He answers you the way you probably thought?

What would you expect?

Would it be okay if God sent a good math teacher your way; or would you be expecting God Himself to show up and answer you?

Using you guys' Law of Unanswered Prayers,* is it okay if those wanting answers to their math test abandon God as well?

After all, Mr. Smith, the math teacher, answers the questions God "won't"?

Is it okay if I pray to God and ask for a dozen doughnuts?

And if He doesn't create them in front of me, and I have to go to the bakery and have someone I've never met before bake them for me ... am I justified in denying His existence?

Or can I assume He gifted us bakers?

* I just made that term up.

Please don't insult me Av, no I never prayed for anything so trivial.
99% of my prayers were for others, please help the old lady at number 23 be strong after the death of her husband.
Please help that dog that is lost and out in the wild alone.
The prayer for me was the same for 15 years from the age of 12, "Please help me escape this nightmare"

And what actually helped me in the end, was a non believer, a born atheist. Never believed in any God or religion. God and Jesus ignored me, a non believer helped me.
Next you are going to suggest God sent her?... Why would God send an Atheist? If he wanted me to believe, surely he would have sent a believer?

Stop making assumptions as to how and what made me convert, it was a slow process, took years. No one was trying, I wasn't trying. God failed where Science succeeded.

It's simple Av, God either does not exist, does not care or does not have the power to have helped me keep my faith. In any of those cases it means his word lied.
Once again, I do not want to be part of something that teaches lies and maliciousness.

Science does not lie, it may not always be nice... but at least it is honest.

 

[juvenissun]

People taught it to me and explained it, the only difference is that they never told me I had to believe it.

Me neither. In fact, people did not teach me anything. People taught me AFTER I believe God

 

[juvenissun]

I did learn, I eventually lost any faith I once had, it took years and it diminished.
Every now and again I get that feeling of being watched, but it's nothing more than a forced paranoia from years of believing I was being watched. (watched by God, obviously)

But I still know the knowledge I was taught, I just disagree due to the extreme lack of evidence and complete lack of logic and total contradiction, page by page.

If you're suggesting you can't learn something and not like it then that's kind of ignorant.
I learned how to form concrete, but I hate doing it, so I don't. But I learned how.

Think again about your OP. If God is learned, then who is the teacher?
You don't believe in God. Could I say you did not learn enough?
If you learned enough about God, and do not believe in God, then what does your OP mean?

 

[Asvin]

Ok spurred by another post, could someone explain to me, if there is only "One true God"
How is it that there are people on this planet who have never heard of such?

Is there a contradiction between the statements: 1) God exists and 2) Some people never hear the Gospel?

Does God not have the power to form belief without the help of man?

Surely each God is simply a learned piece of knowledge, so if no one had ever told you about God, this would mean you have no knowledge of his/her/it's existence and therefore do not believe or love in any such deity.

Wrong! Let's say Mr. Tim in North Korea never heard the Gospel. He defects to the South and the first thing he does is read the Holy Bible. He humbles his heart and proclaims Jesus to be his savior. Did anyone "teach" him about God? No!

Would this then mean that in the realm of the Christian bible, these innocent untaught people would not be allowed into heaven for non belief?

If this is the case, why would God not teach them himself or send someone to teach them.

Does this mean that God has no power and relies on man to spread his own word?

How do you think people in the Old Testament were saved? God will judge people only according to the revelation that they receive. Christ's sacrificial death is not made trivial because it is still required for the sins of this person to be forgiven and admitted into heaven. That's what His death and resurrection mean.

 

[AV1611VET]

Next you are going to suggest God sent her?... Why would God send an Atheist?

So you could lead her to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ?

Way to go.

She helped you out of a nightmare, and what did you do for her?

If he wanted me to believe, surely he would have sent a believer?

Maybe He wants her to believe, so He sent you to her?

You know ... a win/win situation?

 

[Old Ned]

Wrong! Let's say Mr. Tim in North Korea never heard the Gospel. He defects to the South and the first thing he does is read the Holy Bible. He humbles his heart and proclaims Jesus to be his savior. Did anyone "teach" him about God? No!
.

No, no one taught him, he LEARNED it from a book.
Remove the missionaries, remove the book, remove anyone who speaks the same language as this hypothetical tribe, the island has never been found by western civilization and they have been living there for thousands of years.
Tucked away in a corner somewhere. Wouldn't know a book if they saw one.

So tell me, how do THESE people learn about Christ?

@Av... So, God saved me so I could save her by her saving me and me converting her we would both be saved?
Ok I get it.

God kind of messed that one up didn't he, we saved each other without God and then completely removed God and are perfectly happy with our free thoughts.

 

[Asvin]

No, no one taught him, he LEARNED it from a book.
Remove the missionaries, remove the book, remove anyone who speaks the same language as this hypothetical tribe, the island has never been found by western civilization and they have been living there for thousands of years.
Tucked away in a corner somewhere. Wouldn't know a book if they saw one.

So tell me, how do THESE people learn about Christ?

@Av... So, God saved me so I could save her by her saving me and me converting her we would both be saved?
Ok I get it.

God kind of messed that one up didn't he, we saved each other without God and then completely removed God and are perfectly happy with our free thoughts.

They would learn about Christ the same way the people in the Old Testament learned about Him and the triune God. Why do non-Christians have a problem with people never hearing about the Gospel and Christ in this day and age but not in the Old Testament times? What's the difference?

 

[AV1611VET]

They would learn about Christ the same way the people in the Old Testament learned about Him and the triune God. Why do non-Christians have a problem with people never hearing about the Gospel and Christ in this day and age but not in the Old Testament times? What's the difference?

 

[Old Ned]

They would learn about Christ the same way the people in the Old Testament learned about Him and the triune God. Why do non-Christians have a problem with people never hearing about the Gospel and Christ in this day and age but not in the Old Testament times? What's the difference?

Ok, would you mind explaining to me how they learned about him in the old testament?
I would be most grateful for the explanation.

 

[Michael]

How?... I read it and didn't ignore the nasty bits.
The word of God is vicious, unrelenting, narcissistic, masochistic and intensely immoral.
On top of that, God and Jesus turned their backs on me for 15 years of asking, begging for help.

Science answered the questions God could not.
If he really existed and gave a rats butt about me, then surely he would have made an effort to show himself more powerful than the word of Science.
He couldn't or didn't bother, in either case it proved to me that he either does not exists or he does not care. I do not and will not be a part of a regime that doesn't care about living creatures.
I am worth more than that, and so are you.

Exactly what kind of 'help' were you asking for?

I'm not sure how you square your own 'lack of' experiences of God with the experiences of Helen Keller and countless other human beings that have claimed to experience God throughout human history. Your position is a bit akin to holding the belief that since you personally have never seen a kangaroo in real life, they must not actually exist. You're effectively holding up a *lack of personal experience* as a 'knowledge position', which frankly seems rather illogical.

 

[Split Rock]

They would learn about Christ the same way the people in the Old Testament learned about Him and the triune God. Why do non-Christians have a problem with people never hearing about the Gospel and Christ in this day and age but not in the Old Testament times? What's the difference?

Ok, would you mind explaining to me how they learned about him in the old testament?
I would be most grateful for the explanation.

The O.T. God was the God of the Hebrews. He wasn't the God of the Egyyptians or the Phillistines or the Hittites. That was why it was OK to slaughter them. It wasn't until Christianity that he became "all inclusive" so to speak. Oh, and what do you mean by claiming that O.T. people learned about the triune god? There was no such god back then, and the Jews still do not believe in any such god.

 

[PsychoSarah]

The O.T. God was the God of the Hebrews. He wasn't the God of the Egyyptians or the Phillistines or the Hittites. That was why it was OK to slaughter them. It wasn't until Christianity that he became "all inclusive" so to speak. Oh, and what do you mean by claiming that O.T. people learned about the triune god? There was no such god back then, and the Jews still do not believe in any such god.

The O.T. God was a terrible person. Oh, those people building that tall tower will be capable of anything. I better mess up how they talk! (The Tower of Babel story is often misinterpreted as them attempting to get to heaven, however, the tower reached the HEAVENS, as in the sky, not heaven the place).

 

[Old Ned]

Exactly what kind of 'help' were you asking for?

I'm not sure how you square your own 'lack of' experiences of God with the experiences of Helen Keller and countless other human beings that have claimed to experience God throughout human history. Your position is a bit akin to holding the belief that since you personally have never seen a kangaroo in real life, they must not actually exist. You're effectively holding up a *lack of personal experience* as a 'knowledge position', which frankly seems rather illogical.

Any help, just a little.
Help that God ignored and Science provided.

I asked for help, God ignored me, Science handed me the gateway and walked me through it.

After my life became much much better, I started learning more, probably because I hit 30 and just really started getting interested in all kinds of things.
And when you start learning how things work and the reason things happen, and are shown exactly how things happen, from how GPS systems work to ancient Greek life, and multitudes in between.
The more I learned, the less sense God made and the more sense it made that I had simply been filling in gaps in my own lack of knowledge with "God did it", in almost ever case, there has been a logical, proven answer to every question I've asked. From Science, not God.

Then I decided to reread the bible, and to be honest, I should have just done that in the first place, I got halfway through Genesis and was just like "what is wrong with these people?"
The rest, page by page put another nail in my coffin of belief in the Christian God and faith in the Christian Bible.

There's obviously much more to this story since it's over a long time, but that should cover the basics for you.

To be honest I don't know why I'm being sarcastically asked what I asked from god, that's a bit personal. But... Why shouldn't I? God is all powerful and everywhere and great etc... if this is true, he would help everyone who asked.

People tell me their child got into some university and they were thankful to God for answering their prayers.
So if he answers that, what about the rest of the prayers?

 

[Michael]

Any help, just a little.
Help that God ignored and Science provided.

I asked for help, God ignored me, Science handed me the gateway and walked me through it.

After my life became much much better, I started learning more, probably because I hit 30 and just really started getting interested in all kinds of things.
And when you start learning how things work and the reason things happen, and are shown exactly how things happen, from how GPS systems work to ancient Greek life, and multitudes in between.
The more I learned, the less sense God made and the more sense it made that I had simply been filling in gaps in my own lack of knowledge with "God did it", in almost ever case, there has been a logical, proven answer to every question I've asked. From Science, not God.

Then I decided to reread the bible, and to be honest, I should have just done that in the first place, I got halfway through Genesis and was just like "what is wrong with these people?"
The rest, page by page put another nail in my coffin of belief in the Christian God and faith in the Christian Bible.

There's obviously much more to this story since it's over a long time, but that should cover the basics for you.

To be honest I don't know why I'm being sarcastically asked what I asked from god, that's a bit personal. But... Why shouldn't I? God is all powerful and everywhere and great etc... if this is true, he would help everyone who asked.

People tell me their child got into some university and they were thankful to God for answering their prayers.
So if he answers that, what about the rest of the prayers?

That's not exactly particularly specific, but thanks for the overview. I don't really see science as being in conflict with 'God', although science can certainly be in conflict with various "religions". Protestants for instance tend to embrace YEC, whereas Catholics typically embrace evolutionary theory.

I've noticed that sometimes the 'answer to my prayer' is simply "no" sometimes by the way.

IMO science is great, but it's a poor substitute for a personal relationship with God, and science sometimes suffers from the same political pitfalls of any large group think process.

 

[Michael]

The more I learned, the less sense God made and the more sense it made that I had simply been filling in gaps in my own lack of knowledge with "God did it", in almost ever case, there has been a logical, proven answer to every question I've asked. From Science, not God.

FYI, in case you're ever interested in checking it out, in terms of 'how did we get here' types of questions, there's actually more *empirical* evidence for 'God created everything we see with electricity" than there is for the so called "scientific" explanation of how this universe came to exist. Science gropes around in the dark too. It's generally self correcting over time, but then again, religions evolve too. "Christianity" is a "correction/offshoot" of Judaism.

http://www.christianforums.com/t7440288/

IMO religion was simply a precursor to what today we would call "science', it's a way of making sense of the world around us. Science doesn't currently answer the "how did we get here' question any better than any other 'religion" on the planet by the way, in fact less so IMO.

Lambda-CDM theory about the nature of our universe is "learned" too, and it's just as bad as any religion in terms of lack of empirical support by the way. In fact it's worse in most cases (compared to most religions).

 

[Old Ned]

That's not exactly particularly specific, but thanks for the overview. I don't really see science as being in conflict with 'God', although science can certainly be in conflict with various "religions". Protestants for instance tend to embrace YEC, whereas Catholics typically embrace evolutionary theory.

I've noticed that sometimes the 'answer to my prayer' is simply "no" sometimes by the way.

IMO science is great, but it's a poor substitute for a personal relationship with God, and science sometimes suffers from the same political pitfalls of any large group think process.

Ok. no I'll give to that. Science did not enter conflict with god, because I've often said I'm ok with people believing God made Evolution happen. But I contradict myself there because Science did directly come into "conflict" with God.

Thinking God creates lightening, well that's pretty easily explained, storms, how the sea moves and works, all these things God supposedly controls are fully explained. And in most cases , recreatable.

This just shows me more and more that Nature does what it does and is more incredible than just thinking some dude in the sky did it.

Evolution is a better story than the Bible. (Yes I called it a story, for effect)

Add up everything and then pile on top the questions of why God doesn't stop famine or war or tornado or earthquakes etc etc etc etc etc... all of this simply suggests either God does not exist, or God has much less power than we are to believe, meaning he lied... or he's really not very nice.

As for a lack of relationship...with God?... Don't need him, since "leaving" him, I have much happier and more excited about life.

May I question how you came to Faith and why you continue to believe?

 

[bhsmte]

Any help, just a little.
Help that God ignored and Science provided.

I asked for help, God ignored me, Science handed me the gateway and walked me through it.

After my life became much much better, I started learning more, probably because I hit 30 and just really started getting interested in all kinds of things.
And when you start learning how things work and the reason things happen, and are shown exactly how things happen, from how GPS systems work to ancient Greek life, and multitudes in between.
The more I learned, the less sense God made and the more sense it made that I had simply been filling in gaps in my own lack of knowledge with "God did it", in almost ever case, there has been a logical, proven answer to every question I've asked. From Science, not God.

Then I decided to reread the bible, and to be honest, I should have just done that in the first place, I got halfway through Genesis and was just like "what is wrong with these people?"
The rest, page by page put another nail in my coffin of belief in the Christian God and faith in the Christian Bible.

There's obviously much more to this story since it's over a long time, but that should cover the basics for you.

To be honest I don't know why I'm being sarcastically asked what I asked from god, that's a bit personal. But... Why shouldn't I? God is all powerful and everywhere and great etc... if this is true, he would help everyone who asked.

People tell me their child got into some university and they were thankful to God for answering their prayers.
So if he answers that, what about the rest of the prayers?

Ned,

From personal God followers you will get a variety of explanations to your questions, with the following two being quite common:

-You have to reach out to God to find him
-God works in mysterious ways (explanation for the bad things)

Obviously, this does nothing to explain anything, because if one wants to believe in anything badly enough, they will have personal experiences to convince themselves of the same and this isn't exactly advanced psychology we are talking about here.

The trouble I had (being a former christian) was reconciling the qualities assigned to God by christianity specifically with the realities of the world we live in. I see no presence, of a; all powerful, all loving God that cares about all his creation. If Jesus was meant to be the savior for mankind, why would a God only expose him to so few? Doesn't sound like a God who cares about all his creation, establishing the fact that so many people are starting out at a disadvantage.

To me, if there is a personal God, he is nowhere near what he is described as, but is much more likely that the personal God does not exist (IMO) and if there is a God, it is a completely impersonal God, who has distanced himself from our universe.

 

[AV1611VET]

Thinking God creates lightening,

Let me get this straight.

God created all the hardware (electrons, protons) and software (physical forces) that lightning uses to strike.

And yet you expect us to believe God didn't create lightning itself ... correct?

 

[Old Ned]

Ned,

From personal God followers you will get a variety of explanations to your questions, with the following two being quite common:

-You have to reach out to God to find him
-God works in mysterious ways (explanation for the bad things)

Obviously, this does nothing to explain anything, because if one wants to believe in anything badly enough, they will have personal experiences to convince themselves of the same and this isn't exactly advanced psychology we are talking about here.

The trouble I had (being a former christian) was reconciling the qualities assigned to God by christianity specifically with the realities of the world we live in. I see no presence, of a; all powerful, all loving God that cares about all his creation. If Jesus was meant to be the savior for mankind, why would a God only expose him to so few? Doesn't sound like a God who cares about all his creation, establishing the fact that so many people are starting out at a disadvantage.

To me, if there is a personal God, he is nowhere near what he is described as, but is much more likely that the personal God does not exist (IMO) and if there is a God, it is a completely impersonal God, who has distanced himself from our universe.

Yeah, that's pretty much me over the last 10 years, not enough answers.
And I always used to think that I would be around for the 2nd coming, well it's been 2000 years... I kind of get the feeling Jesus ain't coming back.

To be honest, there is no way I can post a play by play story to my loss of faith, there are thousands of reasons. I know them all, most I do not wish to share.

Lets just say, I don't believe there is a God of any kind, I cannot prove this as fact.

But again, without him I am happier, more knowledgeable, more helpful to others and overall just much better off, as are those in my life and such has been stated,.

@Av... I cannot argue your point there, I concluded with the evidence that God does not make lightening. You conclude he does.