Why? ( list of questions for Christians)

[brinny]

Why do you believe? Did god suddenly come down and tell you to be Christian? Or was it your family? Why?

How do you know? I don't want any becasue the bible says so answers) how are you so sure that God exists and accually cares about you?

Why are you right and everyone else wrong? Because by saying that you believe in God with all your heart and stuff you imply that you are in some way more correct than any other religion including me (being an athiest). How do you KNOW that your God is the real one, not the Hindu Gods (Who have been around longer) Or the Roman ones or even the Mayan Gods? Who's to say that one of them or even all of them or none of them are correct??

What happened before God? Or before the earth, Because the bible suggests that God was around before Earth. Than who created God? And If you suggest that God was there since the beginning of everything than why did he wait? Or how could he wait for so long? It was eternity. Anyone who knows a bit about statistics could tell you that.

Why Is the Bible correct. It's not written by God you know, how do you know its not just a very elaborate piece of fiction?


Please respond.
Thanks

Welcome to the boards Tpt. I read your questions, and I have two for you if you don't mind:

1. Why are you asking?
2. Do you want to believe that God exists?

 

[Tpt]

Brinny> I answered those allready.

Shprdslamb (or whatever)> talkorigins.com most of my info comes from there either that or my friend who has a PHD in physis.....

But here's the cliff notes...
Mecause everything in the universe has an opposite, matter has anti-matter. Matter represents the number 1, Anti-matter -1 therefore 1-1=0so mathmatics tells us that we can reverse equations, so from 0 we can get 1 and -1. Now this can also be produced in a lab using high energy beams colliding. Now on the probability of this AND life arising is a matter of simple statistics. Now if our time=0 the impossible can happen. Because the possible can only happen when a finite amont of time is involved, therefore when the timetable is infinite the impossible can happen. Therefore matter can be created, and the timetable is irrevalent because without matter there is no time. Now you may say that earth is pefect for human life, firstly no its not, UV rays, and other things are show that our environment harms us. Secondly early life shaped our environment and allowed us to develop to these specifications. so Life gave a little and the environment molded to life alot.

(How'd I do CLAB??)

 

[LilRitt04]

TPT- you asked these questions, and I gave you honest answers. I just want to know why would someone ask these questions and not expect to get a honest blunt answer?

 

[mrnnfaber]

Why do you believe? Did god suddenly come down and tell you to be Christian? Or was it your family? Why?

Why do I have faith? Because I found this is the only way that makes sense of our world of misery.
Why don't I have faith? Because this world does not make sense even with faith. God gives so much suffering and hopelessness to huge masses of innocent people that it makes me faithless.
Why do I still have faith? Because every time when I am crying out with such painful thoughts to God, and crying that He would take away the pain from His creatures, it raises the wind, and I feel that I am filled with God's love as if He would like to say that He exists and loves me.

Even if you don't have faith you can still have faith.
Take care,
anne

 

[Reformationist]

Why do you? God? I can get into philosiphical skeptisism if you want??

Answering a question with a question is not philosophical skepticism. It's avoiding the question. My point was simply that Christians acknowledge the Gospel as the revelation of God Himself because we acknowledge it as the truth in the same way you acknowledge the truth of your existance. I don't mean to imply irrationality on the part of the Christian thought process. True faith in the Gospel is not what we have, it's who we are. A person who has truth faith in the Gospel can no more truthfully deny that the Gospel is the revelation of God than we can deny our own being.

God bless

 

[Tpt]

Anne> I feel I can make sence of the world using knowlage instead of faith, but thats just me.

Answering a question with a question is not philosophical skepticism. It's avoiding the question. My point was simply that Christians acknowledge the Gospel as the revelation of God Himself because we acknowledge it as the truth in the same way you acknowledge the truth of your existance. I don't mean to imply irrationality on the part of the Christian thought process. True faith in the Gospel is not what we have, it's who we are. A person who has truth faith in the Gospel can no more truthfully deny that the Gospel is the revelation of God than we can deny our own being.

It was completly logical to answer your question wiht a question, and I never said that it was philosophical skepticism. I said that I could start a discussion about that If i want to.
Your original question was somethign along the lines of how do you know you are alive? And I answered, well how do you? Its a double edged sword, you cannot ask me a question without asking yourself first. I dunno how I know, But the fact that I am sitting here talking to you helps. If I wasn't alive, how would I know? I wouldn't because I wouldn't exist. And I couldn't know that because I never existed to thing about my non-existance. But because I can think about my existance and how I do stuff, that makes me exist.

 

[mrnnfaber]

Anne> I feel I can make sence of the world using knowlage instead of faith, but thats just me.

Tpt:
I think I have tried all to find that knowledge - please let me know what is the knowledge (rather than faith) on the basis of which you can make sense of this world? (considering all the sufferings and injustices) - thanks
anne

 

[Tpt]

Suffering and injustices, Simple
Human social nature, for us to feel secure we have to have our own personal group. And for it to be personal at all we must exclude people, then being social creatures we dislike outcasts and in extreeme cases, hate them enough to try and rid the world of the "outsider" in order to further your own peronal group.
Kinda like a lion pack thingy.

 

[brinny]

Suffering and injustices, Simple
Human social nature, for us to feel secure we have to have our own personal group. And for it to be personal at all we must exclude people, then being social creatures we dislike outcasts and in extreeme cases, hate them enough to try and rid the world of the "outsider" in order to further your own peronal group.
Kinda like a lion pack thingy.

And the comparison to a lion pack thingy surprises you? The Bible describes it perfectly, how flawed, corrupt, evil, depraved we are. We are but dust.

We're hopeless. God offers hope. I accepted His offer. Why do I believe in God? Cause if He wouldn't have been there to prevent it I'd be dead. And your unbelief ain't no biggie....many here, myself included, were at the same place. It really depends on whether you want to believe or not, doesn't it?

 

[meebs]

I cant prove or disprove there is a God. Mine is by faith. I started to reason, if a God indeed create this universe and everything in it, he put a lot of attention to detail in all his planning! That said to me that he cares (or why would he bother?), that he knows every tiny datail, in you and me. also he knows the details of every thing in history and how it happened, from the big bang, to now, to the end! also he knows the inner workings of every red gient to the inner working of the atoms - and how they are all interlinked. That gives me very good reason to worship him!

As for all suffering - most of the time, thats due to mans inhumanity to man.

 

[The Midge]

Why do you believe? Did god suddenly come down and tell you to be Christian? Or was it your family? Why?

I was told about sin and my need to deal with it. So it was through preaching. I didn't understand that by confessing it and by asking Christ to sort it out that would make me a Christian. It just did.

How do you know? I don't want any becasue the bible says so answers) how are you so sure that God exists and accually cares about you?

I had an encounter with God. By having our sin dealt with it allows us into the presence of God. Not because God can not stand the preseence of sin but sin cannot be present before a Holy God. Starting from that point you are able to expereince the Living God.

Why are you right and everyone else wrong? Because by saying that you believe in God with all your heart and stuff you imply that you are in some way more correct than any other religion including me (being an athiest). How do you KNOW that your God is the real one, not the Hindu Gods (Who have been around longer) Or the Roman ones or even the Mayan Gods? Who's to say that one of them or even all of them or none of them are correct??

I don't think I'm a hundred % right about everything and neither is every one else 100% wrong about everything. I have never encountered living Hindu or other Gods and having encountered God I can not be an athiest any more unless I reject that expereince.

What happened before God? Or before the earth, Because the bible suggests that God was around before Earth. Than who created God? And If you suggest that God was there since the beginning of everything than why did he wait? Or how could he wait for so long? It was eternity. Anyone who knows a bit about statistics could tell you that.

Does anyone know? God preexisted the universe and is to considred to have created it out of noting including time. So measuring beofre with time is not really relevent if time as we know it did not exist. If statistics have nothing to measure then they are not very helpful either.

Why Is the Bible correct. It's not written by God you know, how do you know its not just a very elaborate piece of fiction?

The Bible is relevant to me because of my expereince: I can relate to the teachings of the athours and say "That is what happened to me" and I can follow their teachings and see that they work. It is also possible to cross reference the expereince and accounts of others and see the same related themes being described.

The bible must be the most critically studied texts ever and arguable has the best support of any ancient text for accuracy of historical events it relates and textual integrity. And some of its teachings are in fact conveyed through elaborate pieces of fictions. You can pickout sections (prables and Job for instance) which are from the fictional genre.

The inerrencey theory has a major flaw in that the Christian Bible was not dictated down from on high but is an anthology of writings by fallible humans about God. But great care has been taken to preserve the authority of the texts. We have to trust our forefathers to and extent. I fear the biggest danger is from my interpretation rather than deception from the authors and editors and transmitors of the texts.

Please respond.
Thanks

 

[Reformationist]

It was completly logical to answer your question wiht a question, and I never said that it was philosophical skepticism. I said that I could start a discussion about that If i want to.
Your original question was somethign along the lines of how do you know you are alive? And I answered, well how do you? Its a double edged sword, you cannot ask me a question without asking yourself first. I dunno how I know, But the fact that I am sitting here talking to you helps. If I wasn't alive, how would I know? I wouldn't because I wouldn't exist. And I couldn't know that because I never existed to thing about my non-existance. But because I can think about my existance and how I do stuff, that makes me exist.

I have asked myself that question before though my answer has no relevence here. For the record, my question was rhetorical. I was trying to help you understand what true Christian faith is by equating it to something that you can relate to. Just to reiterate, the faith a true Christian has in Christ is the same inexplicable faith that you have in your own existence. Can you deny your existence? Of course. Your denial doesn't make you not exist any more than does your agreement of your existence make you exist.

It's just something that is part of who we are. God has made faith in Him something as real to us as our own existence.

God bless

 

[mrnnfaber]

Suffering and injustices, Simple
Human social nature, for us to feel secure we have to have our own personal group. And for it to be personal at all we must exclude people, then being social creatures we dislike outcasts and in extreeme cases, hate them enough to try and rid the world of the "outsider" in order to further your own peronal group.
Kinda like a lion pack thingy.

Dear Tpt,
<<Suffering and injustices>> does not explain the lack of God - if that's what you mean by the kowledge I asked you about. To me these indicate the existence of God, as a last resort for hope, though I cannot comprehend God's goals and arrangements through giving us such suffering and injustices. I understand that this is not enough reason or incentive for faith, at least not for everyone and not always. I am just trying to help a little, while I feel I need help myself.

Hugs and Blessings,
anne

 

[SparkleSpaz]

Why do you believe? Did god suddenly come down and tell you to be Christian? Or was it your family? Why?

My parents where always christians...but they never told me or my 3 other brothers to be christians they told us to be what we want to be and that its our life and to make the right choices...we read the bible and went to church and thats why im a christian but i also belive that he came down and died for all man sin...


How do you know? I don't want any becasue the bible says so answers) how are you so sure that God exists and accually cares about you?

its faith. can you see the air? no. can you touch the air? no. but you know its there dont you...just like God you have to have faith in order to belive in him.

Why are you right and everyone else wrong? Because by saying that you believe in God with all your heart and stuff you imply that you are in some way more correct than any other religion including me (being an athiest). How do you KNOW that your God is the real one, not the Hindu Gods (Who have been around longer) Or the Roman ones or even the Mayan Gods? Who's to say that one of them or even all of them or none of them are correct??

i dont try to prove any other religion wrong...for a few reasons...
1. its your life, live it how you want to live not how someone else wants you to.
2. God put us on earth with choices of our own to make. If everybody was a Christian and belived in the same god then the earth would get pretty boring after awhile....

i dont think my religion is better than anyone elses. b/c i have my faith and its very strong to me. i belive in God and i belive in the Bible...im not saying that if someone belived in the mayan gods is a bad person and is going to hell b/c they didnt belive in my God...


What happened before God? Or before the earth, Because the bible suggests that God was around before Earth. Than who created God? And If you suggest that God was there since the beginning of everything than why did he wait? Or how could he wait for so long? It was eternity. Anyone who knows a bit about statistics could tell you that.

no one truly knows...like i said before it is faith and love that tells me that God is my God.

Why Is the Bible correct. It's not written by God you know, how do you know its not just a very elaborate piece of fiction?

well you have to belive since there is really no evidence that the Bible is true then you have to think that God gave the men who wrote the Bible the right minds to make everything correct....we may never know if the Bible is true but you amy belive it just like i do...or anyone else who does...

 

[Theofilus]

Why Is the Bible correct. It's not written by God you know, how do you know its not just a very elaborate piece of fiction?

The Bible does something no other sacred book does. It accurately predicts the future. Even if you believe that many of those prophecies were written after their fulfillment, there are still many prophecies that were written in the Old Testament that weren't fulfilled until well after we know that the whole OT was already written. The chances of all of them coming true by chance are so small it's unbelievable. To me, that shows that there is something more behind the Bible than just another book.

 

[Vi]

I've found that people ask questions like yours for a couple of possible reasons.

One is to start an arguement to make their belief known, or to verbally bash people they dislike for their faith. The other is that they really fear that they may be wrong in their disbelief. It takes courage to realize that you might really believe already, or want to make sure you are right in your disbelief.

We can't make you believe through logical or emotional talk. It just isn't going to happen. I don't see you reading all we write and saying... oh yeah, now I believe.

We can pray for you to experience what we've experienced. We can share our life stories and our walk of faith with you. In a way, we can expose you to things that will seem foreign or even ridiculous to you, but you'll see soooo many of us with the same basic experiences and you'll have to wonder how people can feel faith in the way we do. It may eat at you or aggravate you, but one day it may serve as a way to guide you to ask the Lord to come into your life. Hey, I've seen it happen many times before.


Faith is sooo personal, I mean I know people who chuck down medicine without even knowing what it will do to them, no questions. But belief in God? not without proof they say. And then the paradoxes begin when you receive CHrist, because he's not about thie personal mentality, he's about society. And yet He has a personal relationship with each of us. It's awesome, that's all I can say, hokey as it sounds, I am loved and it is wonderful.

 

[sug160489]

Why do you believe? Did god suddenly come down and tell you to be Christian? Or was it your family? Why?

How do you know? I don't want any becasue the bible says so answers) how are you so sure that God exists and accually cares about you?

Why are you right and everyone else wrong? Because by saying that you believe in God with all your heart and stuff you imply that you are in some way more correct than any other religion including me (being an athiest). How do you KNOW that your God is the real one, not the Hindu Gods (Who have been around longer) Or the Roman ones or even the Mayan Gods? Who's to say that one of them or even all of them or none of them are correct??

What happened before God? Or before the earth, Because the bible suggests that God was around before Earth. Than who created God? And If you suggest that God was there since the beginning of everything than why did he wait? Or how could he wait for so long? It was eternity. Anyone who knows a bit about statistics could tell you that.

Why Is the Bible correct. It's not written by God you know, how do you know its not just a very elaborate piece of fiction?


Please respond.
Thanks

Answer to Q1- i believe because one night when a call came forward for people to turn their lives to jesus i felt an awesome feeling that i had never felt before in my life and i know in my heart was God- no one made me it was purely out of belief

Answer to Q2- I m not going to lie to u, there is no proof that 100% God exists however there is no proof that he doesn't and i go purely on feeling, faith, beauty, love and miracles that God exists nothing else

Answer to Q3- Why am i right and everyone else wrong? I can honestly say the only reason i believe i m right is because of the answer i gave above also i m not going to say that everyone else is wrong because there are certain parts of religions that are in common with Christians beliefs particularly out of Judaism and Islam

Answer to Q4- We dont know what was around before the earth because it is too complex for us to comprehend as they are Godly matters therefore i cannot tell u

Answer to Q5- The bible has actually been authenticated in many places for eg Noah and the Flood (Genisis 6:9- 9:17). At the time that that was supposed to have happened there was a major flood in the area and as the writer would not have known about the whole world at the time the whole world that was in exsistence was covered as far as the eye could see so to the people the whole world was covered by flood

 

[mrs.sandi]

i believe because god rescued me from a world of sin, he changed my life, and contiues to do miracles in my life. the things i have overcome i could not have done without him, my life is far different than i would have imagined, i never could have picked out a better life for me.the whole right and wrong thing is not me. i believe in god because i know him, he teaches me, he loves me, he protects me. i have not come to the point to say my religoin or church is the only way, because i do not spend my time trying to figure out everyone else's life. i worry about mine and i am where i am supposed to be because when i am wrong god does stop bugging me until i change whatever it is he wants me to change. it is much easier to believe in the bible and god when you see or experience the miracles he performs. i could go on and on...

 

[Tpt]

Answer to Q5- The bible has actually been authenticated in many places for eg Noah and the Flood (Genisis 6:9- 9:17). At the time that that was supposed to have happened there was a major flood in the area and as the writer would not have known about the whole world at the time the whole world that was in exsistence was covered as far as the eye could see so to the people the whole world was covered by flood

I don't know why everyone on this site is so flood happy....
Noah's flood never occured. You state as far as the eye can see. Well our eyes can be decieving, we can only see something like 10 miles or so on a good day. After the Hurricanes the flood was "as far as the eye could see" Does this make it a recurrance of Noah's flood? I don't think so. People also use the flood as reasoning for there being seashells and fish fossils on the top of high mountains. It's called teutonic plate shift. Even IF there was a earth wide flood, the seas would be incredibly empty, and there is no way that a stationary creature like an oyser or somethign could live out its entire life cycle, die AND be completly fossilized in 40 days. Impossible.
Also, How did the population rebound so fast? Teh bible implyes that approx. 150 years after the flood teh tower of bable was built. Along with non-biblicly mentioned things such as the Pyramids and Stonehenge and stuff. Now Im gonna do some quick calculations.
It take 9 months for a baby to mature inside the womb. then an additional 12-15 for that person to reach puberty. How could millions of people be born in 150 years?

 

[Rafael]

I don't know why everyone on this site is so flood happy....
Noah's flood never occured. You state as far as the eye can see. Well our eyes can be decieving, we can only see something like 10 miles or so on a good day. After the Hurricanes the flood was "as far as the eye could see" Does this make it a recurrance of Noah's flood? I don't think so. People also use the flood as reasoning for there being seashells and fish fossils on the top of high mountains. It's called teutonic plate shift. Even IF there was a earth wide flood, the seas would be incredibly empty, and there is no way that a stationary creature like an oyser or somethign could live out its entire life cycle, die AND be completly fossilized in 40 days. Impossible.
Also, How did the population rebound so fast? Teh bible implyes that approx. 150 years after the flood teh tower of bable was built. Along with non-biblicly mentioned things such as the Pyramids and Stonehenge and stuff. Now Im gonna do some quick calculations.
It take 9 months for a baby to mature inside the womb. then an additional 12-15 for that person to reach puberty. How could millions of people be born in 150 years?

This is not a debate forum, but you have to know that many Christians believe that the flood did happen exactly the way the Bible says. I do, and I also am a Scientific enthusiast that believes it scientifically possible. If you go and check out the Christian apologetic sites concerning this, you may get a the scientific truth from a Christian perspective.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/flood.asp

http://www.icr.org/cgi-bin/search/search.cgi?Realm=Entire+ICR+Website&Terms=flood