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Or that there is indeed a war on earth in the hearts of humans and infiltrators are everywhere....Yet God's followers keep telling me that said God wants their obedience/worship/belief/whatever. Claiming that God is deliberately sowing confusion runs contrary to those claims.
Which only reinforces in my view that such claims (e.g. theirs and yours) are just made up.
So you think it's OK for a system to be self-contradictory if it's been around a long time?Not at all. See post 285
That's just another fanciful story to the non-believer, but it does make my point that even angels can't necessarily distinguish a good god from an evil god...... we are told that Satan and his cohort 'waged war' with the holy angels which tells us a little more than they brushed HIS claims to be GOD off as delusions. Why would YHWH tell us HE was GOD? He is either delusional, evil or telling the truth. They decided HE was lying and therefore evil.
This ignores everything I said; not only are we not able to choose our beliefs, but there are no persuasive grounds on which to do so - just a bunch of assorted religions with a bunch of assorted deities - unless, of course, you grow up in a religious bubble. It seems to me that any rational observer, faced with a mass of competing magical claims to correctness and exclusivity supported only by ancient fables, would most reasonably conclude that they were all imaginative fictionsI know what you mean but when something new this way comes, you get to choose your belief in reality, that is, to trust YHWH or to reject HIM even though the cost is said to be high.
So the story goes - and not even all Christians believe that. It does nothing to address the issue of non-belief and non-believers.They so hated him and HIS claims they would rather go to hell than life with HIM...this is the level of sin that gets you into hell...
So you say; AFAIAA that's an assertion without even scriptural support. If defending contradictory scriptures requires making up magical stories in novel ontologies, I'd suggest it confirms that they're not rationally defensible.On earth we face this but we do not have a free will. But pre-earth when I think we made these choices with eternal consequences such ideas sprang up after HE made HIS claims...and yes, we did have to sort our whose reality we liked the best for our chance at the best future happiness and then we had to commit to it... That was the choice.
I'm afraid I can't parse that jargon. I'm looking for a rational defence of the apparent illogicalities and contradictions I pointed out in the belief system, and all I'm getting in response are excerpts of those beliefs...Of course it is no coincidence but it also is not PROOF that the sinful elect can't be found in any and every culture. The Nations are not here for them to find GOD, they are here to be the bad example to help the sinful elect of all nations come out from among their culture so they can be judged without harm to the sinful elect themselves. The ones who have it the hardest are the elect sinful Christians in a secular Christian society.
IOW, "You are either with us or against us". This is the kind of false dilemma commonly associated with fascism.I know, we all hate to hear the truth of verses like Jn 23:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son., before we are reborn into the Spirit.
Of course, it so happens that none of us remember making such a choice, and only a self-selected few know the 'true' story...Yes some are condemned already. What makes this fair is that they were given a choice about the life they wanted with full disclosure and understanding of the consequences of each option and they chose by their free uncoerced will to go against GOD even though they knew that meant if YHWH proved HIMSelf to actually be our GOD then they were doomed.This choice happened before the creation of the physical universe which we all saw as HIS proof of HIS divinity and power, Rom 1:18-20, after all choices were finalized.
Conspiracy theories are that-a-way →Or that there is indeed a war on earth in the hearts of humans and infiltrators are everywhere....
Therein lies the problem. As evidence of a God, specifically the Christian God, the Bible falls far short of being convincing. It is readily explained as the work of skilled storytellers, poets, historians and moralists. The supposition that it is the Word of God is unnecessary.The BIBLE IS EVIDENCE:
Acceptable to you or not it is the premier evidence and claim that GOD is involved with humans to redeem us from evil. The Book is there, it is real. I will give you a copy if you doubt its reality. It has been an amazing world influence out of proportion to its beginnings in the small dessert tribe from which it came.
If the term Christian had not been adopted by those who belief Jesus was divine I might very well describe myself as a Christian. His teachings, as I read them, provide sensible and compassionate advice for dealing with the world. However, they are not sound evidence of his divinity, of the existence of God, of resurrection, of eternal life, or many of the other beliefs that are central to Christianity as it exists today.THE LIFE OF CHRIST IS EVIDENCE:
Acceptable to you or not, the stories life of Christ have had a great impact upon whole cultures which proves its evidentiary status. Maybe good evidence or insufficient evidence but it is evidence.
That many people can be deceived, can misunderstand and misinterpret is well understood. We need only look at the range of conspiracy theories rampant today. Or consider the situation in the US where almost half the population are gullible enough (according to some) to think the election was stolen and almost another half are gullible enough (according to some) to think the election was largely fraud free.THE WITNESS OF PEOPLE WITH A SIMILAR EXPERIENCE IS EVIDENCE:
Acceptable to you or not, billions of people attesting to something is evidence. If they did not attest, there is no evidentiary value in their silence just like there is no evidence of a deity named HRUXIS because he has no book, no history of interaction with anyone, and no one attesting to his existence...no evidence!
Nor does it rule out Krishna, or Thor, or Allah, or any of a thousand or more other Gods. That's why my forum profile says agnostic. I have an open mind.A LACK OF EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF OF A LACK OF REALITY:
For a hundred years sailors who made it as far as Australia reported seeing black swans. They were scorned by the British Naturalist Society as liars or hallucinators because there was no evidence!...until there was. Someone finally got a carcass to Britain and this led to the the understanding of the logical fallacy that no evidence must mean no reality. This went down into history as the Black Swan fallacy.
If they cannot distinguish good from bad, how does that make GOD bad? GOD gave us all the evidence we needed to make a good choice but those who would not believe without proof chose to reject HIM...and they still are demanding HE do things their way.That's just another fanciful story to the non-believer, but it does make my point that even angels can't necessarily distinguish a good god from an evil god...
So you ignoring all I write is ok but me ignoring you is not???This ignores everything I said; not only are we not able to choose our beliefs, but there are no persuasive grounds on which to do so...
Christian theology contends that sinners do not understand the things of the spirit because they can't, their minds are clouded and overwhelmed by sinfulness.
I'm not saying it necessarily makes God bad; the point is that if a good God and a bad God cannot be distinguished (and one would suppose angels to be better judges than humans), there are no reasonable grounds for choosing. The problem of evil remains unanswered and the evidence God provided can equally well support a bad (deceptive) God.If they cannot distinguish good from bad, how does that make GOD bad? GOD gave us all the evidence we needed to make a good choice but those who would not believe without proof chose to reject HIM...and they still are demanding HE do things their way.
Apparently, we are all sinners anyway...The theology is that not to be able to know good from evil proves one is a sinner facing the consequences of sin: Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
My apologies - what part of your posts have I ignored?So you ignoring all I write is ok but me ignoring you is not???
I haven't said they are wrong or meaningless or unreal in essence; I've posited rational arguments about and against them that you have yet to refute - or even properly address.The fact that you do not find the grounds of belief to be persuasive does not mean they are wrong or meaningless or unreal in essence - it could only mean that you are disposed against them as the theology states.
This is another common elitist trope - if I am not persuaded it's not because the argument isn't persuasive but because I'm not capable of understanding it. To condemn me as a sinner for this suggests a bad God.Christian theology contends that sinners do not understand the things of the spirit because they can't, their minds are clouded and overwhelmed by sinfulness.
I thought love/hate, greed/give, self/selfless and so on were rather simple opposites; as is mans' will/God's will, regardless of who made them both up..
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