I think it would benefit the conversation greatly if Eli could describe indetail the characteristics of the god heexpects us to believe in.
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Well Jesus is God shown to us as a theophany in the human flesh, as shown in my last post...I think it would benefit the conversation greatly if Eli could describe indetail the characteristics of the god heexpects us to believe in.
Didn't you make all these posts, telling us that we would not listen to God, even if he did all this fancy stuff like appearing to copulating couples, because of our sexual depravity and desire to keep our sinful lifestyle?He's been doing it every moment of every day since the beginning of creation when He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the garden. Salvation has always been by faith through grace, and this is a gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast.
He is speaking to you right now my dear.
Jesus says: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone (that means you too Paradoxum) hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to them and eat with them, and they with me."
Listen for His voice my dear, and open your heart to Him, He wants you more than you could ever know.
Didn't you make all these posts, telling us that we would not listen to God, even if he did all this fancy stuff like appearing to copulating couples, because of our sexual depravity and desire to keep our sinful lifestyle?
And now you turn around and say "just listen"?
Let's try something else...
So, God wants me more than I could ever know.
And if God is God and could create the universe and us, then He most certainly can communicate with us.
And if one only listens and sincerely seeks and asks, he will certainly be answered.
And even if you as a sincere and honest person might misunderstand him, God would remedy that by revealing Himself to such a one in a clearer way.
Yet I might ignore his communication, because of my unwillingness to submit to him.
Let's accept of all the above as correct.
Now I have the following proposal:
There was something in my life, a single occurance. The only event that ever happened to me that I have found no way to explain with rational causes. (Rather, I had tested the potential rational reasons and found them to not explain this event.)
Now I ask you - as a sincere and honest person, as someone who as already submitted to God, as someone who has a most intimate relationship with God and talks to him directly - to ask God for an explanation and relate it to me.
Ask him what happened to me, ask him to give to you the explanation for this event and then tell me what you have learned.
You will have to ask him for the precise circumstances of the event yourself - this is a necessary precaution I have to take, for the answer I am looking for might be rather general, and I have to be certain that you are answering the right question.
Now before you start using the common evasions for such trials, like "God does not do parlour tricks"... this isn't a trick. I am really interested in getting an answer to the problem that has bothering me for over thirty years, and I am asking you for help in a task that I myself cannot solve.
Also, I already made this request to another Christian, who promised me to pray for an answer, and who did not seem to have any problem with approaching God with this request. It failed.
In exchange, if you can solve this little problem of mine, I promise, upon my honour, that I will start going to church and look into this God whose power you have demonstrated to me.
Ok, well, you seem to agree with what I said here.
I will restate it briefly.
An entity that creates the universe out of nothing by logical necessity cannot be either material (composed of matter) or spaciotemporal (existing in space and time prior to creation).
Notice here, I am not referring to any scriptures, holy texts, or religious writings or teachings. These terms are scientific terms. These concepts are scientific concepts with logical reasoning undergirding them.
These things I have said, which you agree with, are self-evident.
When cosmologists and astronomers speak of the universe, this term is an all-encompassing term. It takes in all matter, all space, all energy, and even time itself. If a theist believes this or not is simply not even relevant. This is what the universe is by definition. This does not change and is not dependent upon what a theist thinks about it. A theist could think that the universe is a fluffy marshmallow, the fact remains that when the word universe is used in its traditional, cosmological context, it is referring to all that is natural including natural and physical laws, matter, time, space and energy.
Well, it seems to me here that you are going back on your previous statement. You seem to have agreed that if an entity brought the universe into existence literally out of nothing, then said entity could not be made of matter and that it could not be spaciotemporal. If you agree with that then we can move on. If you think that statement is false then you must maintain that matter could have brought itself into existence before it even existed!And anyway, let's grant, just for the sake of humorous argument, that matter could bring itself into existence before it existed, how would it do that? Matter does not have any causal properties, it cannot "create" anything!
Moving on.....
Well, now lets see....
I have never said that God was unnormal, unmundane, unnatural or un-what-have-you.
What I have said is that if an entity created the universe out of nothing, that it could not be made of matter and it could not be spaciotemporal. That is all I have said here.
Prior to the dense singularity called for and required in the Big Bang cosmological model of the universe a.k.a. the Standard Model.
If God created the universe out of nothing, He, by definition is supernatural or ultramundane. The words are synonyms.
The OP is so good I am super impressed.
The burden of proof if something came from nothing is on the person who says it happened by accident, not the person who says it came from God, because if it came from God, God is the one who answerable if it was an accident, then the one who observes the accident is answerable.
Well Jesus is God shown to us as a theophany in the human flesh, as shown in my last post...
And there is numerous amounts of evidence Jesus existed (e.g., what is in my last post)...
I don't know if Eli believes Jesus is God or not (the Trinity, e.g.)
I actually think the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one person... That Jesus was walking in the Garden and was seen by Adam and Eve, that Jesus was shown to Moses, that Jesus was wrestling with Jacob in the flesh when he saw God "face to face"... That the Father and Jesus are ONE, that Jesus is the "I AM" in Exodus.
So... as seen by Jesus's own words, the scripture, and His acts. JESUS IS GOD. AND there is much evidence to prove Jesus existed (relics of the cross, roman catacombs from 30 A.D. to 313 A.D. depicting Jesus and what He did, historians seeing Christians, witnesses, ect... ect...) There is 100% proof Jesus came to earth and showed Himself to us, as a theophany, a PERFECT, sinless example to follow.
It was a singular occurance, an event that is still identifiable for those who about know it by the simple mention of "this special thing". I'm sorry if I cannot offer additional infos beforehand - I need that to have confirmation that someone who tries to answer this problem is indeed accessing a source outside of commonplace responses.What was it, like a near death experience? Like you almost saw the light?
We are mere humans. Why don't you ask God, Jesus, directly? Go straight to the source? Many times there are answers in Jesus's words and examples as well as shown in scripture. Isaiah 30:19 says, “How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you.”
(Barring differences in how words are defined between writer and reader
Again, even if every single person on the planet believed, fervently and without reservation, there would still be no proof.
Or if all people were unable to deny that this (largely unknown) thing exists, or if one were to accuse those who point out the lack of tangibility of being mildly deluded, it would also not mean that there was proof.
Didn't you make all these posts, telling us that we would not listen to God, even if he did all this fancy stuff like appearing to copulating couples, because of our sexual depravity and desire to keep our sinful lifestyle?
And now you turn around and say "just listen"?
Let's try something else...
So, God wants me more than I could ever know.
And if God is God and could create the universe and us, then He most certainly can communicate with us.
And if one only listens and sincerely seeks and asks, he will certainly be answered.
And even if you as a sincere and honest person might misunderstand him, God would remedy that by revealing Himself to such a one in a clearer way.
Yet I might ignore his communication, because of my unwillingness to submit to him.
Let's accept of all the above as correct.
Now I have the following proposal:
There was something in my life, a single occurance. The only event that ever happened to me that I have found no way to explain with rational causes. (Rather, I had tested the potential rational reasons and found them to not explain this event.)
Now I ask you - as a sincere and honest person, as someone who as already submitted to God, as someone who has a most intimate relationship with God and talks to him directly - to ask God for an explanation and relate it to me.
Ask him what happened to me, ask him to give to you the explanation for this event and then tell me what you have learned.
You will have to ask him for the precise circumstances of the event yourself - this is a necessary precaution I have to take, for the answer I am looking for might be rather general, and I have to be certain that you are answering the right question.
Now before you start using the common evasions for such trials, like "God does not do parlour tricks"... this isn't a trick. I am really interested in getting an answer to the problem that has bothering me for over thirty years, and I am asking you for help in a task that I myself cannot solve.
Also, I already made this request to another Christian, who promised me to pray for an answer, and who did not seem to have any problem with approaching God with this request. It failed.
In exchange, if you can solve this little problem of mine, I promise, upon my honour, that I will start going to church and look into this God whose power you have demonstrated to me.
Let's suppose for a moment that God did do what many atheists here have said He has not done, and reveal Himself to mankind in a way that is undeniable.
How would you know it was God revealing Himself and not just some natural event with a natural explanation?
Let's suppose He caused a message to appear in the clouds in the sky over Israel. How would you know it was really God doing it and not just a chance, random arrangement of clouds to look like words?
Or let's suppose God appeared to you, an atheist, personally. How would you know it was really God and that you were not just hallucinating?
Let's suppose He appeared to hundreds of people at one time and did miracles. How would you know that it was not just some magician doing magic tricks with the help of people who were working secretly with the magician?
Let's suppose a booming voice from the sky cried: "I am God and Jesus Christ is my beloved Son, listen to Him!" How would you know it was not just you imagining the voice inside your head?
I keep hearing over and over again: "If God is real, then He can make His presence known." Well heck, I agree!
But if He did, how would you distinguish the supernatural from the natural?
What marks or qualities would such a revelation possess? Would you even be able to recognize it?
Belief in the existence of God is unlike belief in mathematical axiomatic expressions, or laws of nature which are subject to scientific inquiry and verification and which make no claims upon us as individuals.
But if one assents to the proposition:
"God exists"...
then this changes everything (or at least should).
Assenting to the proposition: "God exists", also means that you know God is worthy of worship and honor.
Instead of swallowing it, they deny it exists.
Ok.
What would God have to do convince you He existed?
This sort of challenge reminds me of a different, but related, challenge where a skeptic of UFO aliens that visit Earth is asked what would convince him that they are actually doing so.
After all, a skeptic may ask himself if he is dreaming or insane, if he is the victim of a hoax, etc.
My view is that he certainly could convince himself, but it would take a little time and careful observation. First, if one is insane or dreaming, one may as well assume that one is in a normal frame of mind -- after all, what could it hurt? If one is dreaming, one would wake up soon without any harm done, and if one is that insane, there's not much that one can do about that anyway.
If one feels sane, one may as well proceed to a scientific approach. If there is a Close Encounters of the Third Kind situation (a spaceship lands in front of a cadre of scientists), the odds of a hoax are very limited, and can be eliminated easily enough.
It gets trickier when an alleged god is involved, for how can one distinguish such a god from a deceptive or self-deluded powerful space alien?
But even that barrier could easily be crossed. All a god has to do is let you observe him creating a universe, along with an explanation of how it was done. Should be child's play for a god.
eudaimonia,
Mark
Your post reinforces my point. People would rather believe in space aliens as opposed to God. The explanation for something can be anything as long as its not God.
Your post and the majority of the others also prove my point which was lost on those who thought they offered an answer to my OP.
My point is that there is no proof or evidence that God could offer to anyone that could not be explained away if that person was unwilling to see it.
To be fair, space aliens seem somewhat more likely than God.
You're saying "believe and you will see"?
You see the problem with identifying a "supernatural entity" through natural evidence, right?
*Blind Post*
If God is all powerful and all knowing, he'd have the power to make his presence felt by everyone, and he'd know how to provide undeniable proof it's him.
What method would he use? I have no idea, it really doesn't matter as long as he gets the message across.
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