Something I can never understand - can anyone help?

[Winepress777]

All I need to disprove the assertion you're advocating here is to be aware of at least one person for whom the existence of Yahweh is not 'obvious'. As it happens, I am aware of at least one such person - me.

By predicating the assertion on information accessible only to me, this verse provides me with 100% certainty that the Bible is false, and consequently, that your 'god' Yahweh doesn't exist. Thanks for sharing.

You are welcome to attempt it. You can't disprove anything and haven't of course. Only proving a hard heart publicly... wow, good luck with that

 

[Archaeopteryx]

My heart is not hardened toward God is the point here.

So you're a Muslim then? Remember, the Quran says you are without excuse.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

You are welcome to attempt it. You can't disprove anything and haven't of course. Only proving a hard heart publicly... wow, good luck with that

Why is your heart hardened, Winepress?

 

[Winepress777]

Now all I see is foolish postings. Ignore button...

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

You are welcome to attempt it. You can't disprove anything and haven't of course.

I just did, actually.

You have predicated your assertion on information you have no access to - my thoughts. You can't actually know whether the existence of Yahweh is obvious to me, but I can. I do have access to that information, and am therefor in a position to know, with 100% certainty, that you are wrong.

 

[Winepress777]

I just did, actually.

You have predicated your assertion on information you have no access to - my thoughts. You can't actually know whether the existence of Yahweh is obvious to me, but I can. I do have access to that information, and am therefor in a position to know, with 100% certainty, that you are wrong.

You are so clever, my my!
(Mat 13:15) For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them.

 

[Resha Caner]

Why? The assumption that half a lifetime of careful study can be undone by one silly video about creationism is not reasonable. My God is not a deceiver; what evidence he gives us in creation is the truth because God cannot lie. Lies come from the other place.

I wasn't referring specifically to the video, but to the attitude that nothing will change your mind. You don't know much of what the person had to say or what the video has to say, yet you're very quick to dismiss it all.

I agree God doesn't lie, but whereas you correctly asserted we can't know God unless he reveals himself, you've now flipped that on it's head and assumed you know something about God's part in creation based on the investigative activities of people.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

You are so clever, my my!

It doesn't exactly take a philosophical genius to point out the obvious fact that you can't read my mind.

Do you have an actual response to my critique of your asinine non-argument, or are you done making an example of yourself?

 

[Moral Orel]

Eternity is outside time, not part of it. It is not endless today and the next day and the next. It is an endless now with no beginning and no end. In eternity concepts such as before, after, now and then no longer exist.

This creates problems for a sentient being though, doesn't it? I mean, before time existed, then it would be impossible to have a train of thought. You couldn't think A then B then C... Everything would have to be simultaneous. And without the concept of "after" you would be unable to predict the future and when it is going to happen. You wouldn't be able to make an ordered plan of things because the concept of things being chronologically ordered doesn't exist yet.

I understand that God would be beyond our understanding, so the answer can come from something like this. But I think if he were real, then "time" would have to be the first thing he created just so that things could make sense. So many powers of omnipotence rely on time existing it is impossible for me to fathom those powers existing without time existing.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

This creates problems for a sentient being though, doesn't it? I mean, before time existed, then it would be impossible to have a train of thought. You couldn't think A then B then C... Everything would have to be simultaneous. And without the concept of "after" you would be unable to predict the future and when it is going to happen. You wouldn't be able to make an ordered plan of things because the concept of things being chronologically ordered doesn't exist yet.

I understand that God would be beyond our understanding, so the answer can come from something like this. But I think if he were real, then "time" would have to be the first thing he created just so that things could make sense. So many powers of omnipotence rely on time existing it is impossible for me to fathom those powers existing without time existing.

But how would he be able to create time in the first place? Timeless implies changeless, but making a decision to create and then acting on it is a temporal sequence.

 

[Moral Orel]

A "hardened heart" is the one and only thing that will prevent us from seeing God and His Creation, He does say that, so then that can be the only answer if one denies the obvious. Then it is pointless to discuss to a hard hearted person.

But then you have to think about the fact that some hearts are hardened by God, and then acknowledge that it may be God who makes it impossible for those people to ever see evidence of God.

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. Romans 9:18​

 

[Winepress777]

But then you have to think about the fact that some hearts are hardened by God, and then acknowledge that it may be God who makes it impossible for those people to ever see evidence of God.

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. Romans 9:18​

Yes. The hard hearted have their role to play as "dishonorable vessels". They are unwitting participants in a scenario much greater than their comprehension, simply put here to "try" the honorable believers in their stedfast faith.

(Rom 9:22) What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction:


(Rom 9:23) and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory,

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Yes. The hard hearted have their role to play as "dishonorable vessels". They are unwitting participants in a scenario much greater than their comprehension, simply put here to "try" the honorable believers in their stedfast faith.

Why are you "trying" people, Winepress?

 

[whois]

What I can't understand is where did this God come from?

that's an easy question to answer, god has always existed.
the much harder questions are where is this god, what form does it take, and how on earth could it "create" anything.

 

[4reel]

I did not read everything that has been said. Let's start with where did God from, a logical question. If God can give us life ever lasting then he exists without time. There for he was not created. We continue to attach everything to time.
Why Jesus and Christianity. Jesus filled all the prophecies in the old testament a rose from the dead. that is what made Christianity the correct religion.

 

[LynnC]

Christians, well in fact Muslims and Jews and for all I know many other religions "explain" the existence of the universe, the solar system, humanity etc by the fact it was created by a God (maybe the same god, maybe not?), and some justify this by saying that the chances of intelligent life are near impossible without a creator.

What I can't understand is where did this God come from? If the chances of intelligent life evolving over billions of years are very remote, then what are the chances of a being existing who is capable of making the heavens and everything in them just by willing it to happen. Where did he/ she/ it come from, who made God?

in my atheist, logical mind, the existence of this all powerful, all pervading being seems much more unlikely than natural forces evolving in tiny steps over billions of years, resulting in where we are now. What do Christians think about the origins of God, and if the answer is that God "just exists", why can't the universe "just exist"?

Greetings Dave,
It is a question I have pondered my whole life...
but I say, how can the world be, without there being a Creator?
Maybe it's the artist in me, but I see the hand of a Creator behind the design.
Things don't just create themselves. Could a computer have come into being without the hand of man?
No. I say there has to be a Divine Creator... something we do not understand... but then we are beings that live in the 3 dimensional world, and I am sure that there is much more beyond that.
Have you ever watched the effect of sound on water?
I tend to think the universe came into being in this way... that the Creator 'moved upon the face of the void' (as sound moves upon water). I think of the Creator as an energy force....
'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'
It is 'the Word' that created what we experience as our reality.

 

[Catherineanne]

No one has an excuse to not believe the obvious;

What is even less excusable is to assume that what is obvious to us is obvious to everyone.

It isn't. Not even close.

 

[Catherineanne]

A "hardened heart" is the one and only thing that will prevent us from seeing God and His Creation, He does say that, so then that can be the only answer if one denies the obvious. Then it is pointless to discuss to a hard hearted person.

I am afraid you are out of step with Christian thinking on this one.

We believe by Grace, not by deciding to soften our own hearts. If someone else does not yet believe then it is not for us to berate that person, to accuse them of having a hard heart or any other unpleasantness. It is for the Holy Spirit to work in his own way and in his own time, and in the meantime it is for us to answer questions politely and with respect.

Kindly remember that Christians on this site are the hosts, and anyone who is not a Christian is our guest, and behave accordingly. Thank you.

 

[whois]

Things don't just create themselves. Could a computer have come into being without the hand of man?
No.

incorrect analogy.
computers lack the ability to automatically link together like atoms can.

I say there has to be a Divine Creator... something we do not understand...

this is the only answer when it comes to a god.
something totally outside the grasp of our puny imagination.

I think of the Creator as an energy force....

another incorrect analogy, this moves god into the physical universe, and so far no such thing has been detected.
if god does exist, then it must exist outside normal space-time, and it must possess some kind of creation ability.
there are a few interesting scenarios:
god is some type of transdimensional entity, or there might be some type of time-life conservation like there is with matter-energy.

 

[Catherineanne]

Did you know that the Quran has a very similar line in it? It claims that you are without excuse for not accepting the doctrines of Islam.

I don't need any excuse for that one. : )