Does God Exist?

So you regard it as a private conversation?

 

no i want you to enjoy it and come back and thank me for an excellent movie recomendation.

 

According to the bible, he made us in his image. Of course like most statements in there, it's so generic as to be utterly devoid of meaning.

Also, if God is to mysterious that I cannot understand his will, then why is he so simple to understand that you can liken him to a monday morning commuter? Interesting double standard.

When God does or says something we like, we say "He does that because He Is Good and He Is Just", but when there is something that leaves a bad taste in our mouth, we say "God is mysterious and his ways are unfathomable".

Same inconsistency as the "context is everything".

Jesus: Love your neighbours

Christians: See! Jesus is a good person and christianity is good and real!

Jesus: Sell all your belongings and live the way I did your entire life, or else you are as mud under the heel of satan and will not enter heaven, ever.

Christians: That's taken out of context! You need to understand the times it was written in and cultural blah blah blah

"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" John 20:29

Of course you can pull out a quote from some other book which was chosen to be included in what you call "the bible", and it will directly contradict that quote, and you will think "Now I've shown him!" instead of realizing that you just read two contradictory statements from a book which is supposed to be the holy text of the creator of the universe on how to live your life.

I don't expect you to change your mind, so don't expend effort in replying if you don't want to.

 

God told Ma to give me a Gitar . It is golden . I wish I'd had it when God
told Hashee to give me a sandwich . I couldn't thank her songfully enough .

 

Sorry this "movie" is old news, it was okay as entertainment at one time but little else, thanx anyway.

 

what? its brand new, 2014!

 

Whatever.

You've got the wrong person, I've never said God is mysterious, although his thinking is way ahead of ours. As for understanding God that is up to you, if you keep trying to think of him as just another human, then you will never understand. As for likening him to a Monday morning commuter, no I wasn't. I was merely pointing out that even if another human being can see things you can't and aren't aware of then even more so.

Maybe that is what you say, I do not. All of God's ways can be understandable but a little effort on your part might be necessary.

It is not inconsistant and the context is important.

Well I would have to say that it is especially taken of context when you begin to quoting Jesus as saying something he never said.

Yes and the problem is?

See the problem is you see the Bible as a book of contradictions and it is not. It is at the very point of these seeming "contradictions" that people are separated; they are the "koans" of the Bible. For those who learn how to reconcile these seeming "contradictions" the Bible and knowledge of God continues to open for them but for those who don't, the Bible and knowledge of God become a closed book for them.

Nor do I expect you to change yours, you can if you wish but I don't expect it.

 

The concept, although not the exact wording, goes back to Henry Drummond, a 19th-century evangelist lecturer, from his Lowell Lectures on The Ascent of Man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

 

I must say your cognitive acrobatics are impressively incoherent, even for these parts. I won't bother quoting anymore from your holy book because obviously its' interpretations are as fluid as can be, not even limited to its own religious traditions (koans of the bible LOL 10/10)

 

That's rather vague, things we don't know doesn't equate to things we can never know.

 

It's okay. I understand when someone is feeling overwelmed and can't continue the conversation. May you go in peace.

 

So---this has been going for a year and one day. You guys figure this out yet?

 

You want it figured out? My, aren't you demanding.

 

Oh. Sorry 'bout that. I was expecting too much, I guess. Carry on.

 

Paul, he went to visit the Greeks in Athens of 2000 years ago. The Greeks sought after wisdom and it was always said they would even argue how many "angels" could fit on the tip of a pin. They were very superstitious, much like today as we are in the Image of Greco Roman culture. IMO, the key to understanding this passage is knowing that like Athens of 2000 our culture is the same today being in its image. This was Alexander the Great's dream. To Hellenize the world to Greek culture. This succeeded.

The same problems then are being surfaced today and even in this thread. Today the gods are Quantum Mechanics, Evolution, Science (so called), The Dollar, Celebrity worship, the Big Bang, The Universe, Dark Matter, Nature, Mother Earth and even the Western Christian religion recreated the real Jesus into a Greco Roman idol etc...these are the Gods of today....

Now read in context:

16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
18 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, (These are philosophical camps or parties) encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them

 

This is actually more how the conversation goes:

 

Since john 20;29 was posited as a basis for argument i would like to offer my own.

At advantage are those who are willing to consider on the basis of expert testimony what they have not yet seen.

By virtue of this saying we might see the relative wisdom of having your child vaccinated for measles.

 

Oh, bejeezuz. Reconciling contradictions you see is one thing. Building a case that allows for them is another. You deceive yourself into the closed book understanding you wish to prevail against. For example you telling me "that is not what the bible says" ad nauseum. Contradictions cancel each other out is the net effect. If you want to get the consistent premise throughout you have to throw out those conflicting ideas because they produce a dead end meandering of one excuse or divine mysterious trick after another to make sense of things. Fact is you don't have to be a bible scholar to understand principles that are espoused in parables or allegories of experience. You comprehend the words based on their relationship to your own experience. The idea that there is a hierarchical theology that must be comprehended or that there is a plan for salvation beyond personal recognizance or relationship is false. Out of the mouths of babes the truth comes, not from regurgitating scripture.

You don't recognize the bible for what it is and therefor don't understand what it's usefulness might be. For one we have to recognize the political manipulation which is egotistical manipulation in assembling the tract we know as the bible instead of believing that the material is somehow magically protected from distortion over time. We must always take what we see with a grain of salt, i.e. we are the salt of the world. We must test it for experiential flavor which is the meaning of we know them by their fruit. Them are the fundamental ideas you have about the world, not them as in the behavior of others. If them is the behavior of others then you suddenly have license to judge others which is contrary to the idea of not judging others.

The idea of loving your neighbor appeals to the sensible person as means of lessening to brutality of our personal relations but when you say things like jesus sacrificed himself for your sins, which by the way is post script evangelizing and theological theory, then the credulity factor goes way down.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliolatry

 

i just want some kind of reasonable proof that jesus had magic powers to:
-heal
-walk on water
-die and then come back to life

any reasonable proof at all will convert me to a christian.