Does God Exist?

Are you speaking to me?

 

Matthew 13:42: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."


1:7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,



1:8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

1:9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

I spent some time looking for quotes from the bible showing violence or absurdity and honestly couldn't decide which to pick. You can probably just open the bible to any random page and decide for yourself whether its contents appear to be designed by an entity which is responsible for creating the entire universe.

Here's a mental exercise you can do: How long would it take to improve upon the bible? To write a book which did not advocate things like slavery, or the paying off of the fathers of the women you have raped, or the slaughtering of children. It would take you moments. Mere moments to compose a document which trumped the bible in all manner of knowledge, from coscmological, to ontological, to ethical. How on earth could the creator of the universe be such a poor author and thinker (he can't convince most of humanity that the bible is his work). Why did he make Shakespeare such a better writer than himself? Why did he make Einstein so much smarter and more insightful into the physical nature of the cosmos than he chose to share?



Can you see Angel Falls in Venezuela from your window? No?
Then does that make them unreal because you can’t see them or does that make them realities though not yet beheld?


I can't see it through my window, but I can hop on Google Earth, or a plane, and see it for myself. I cannot perform an equivalent action with YWHW, or Jesus, or their miracles and claims. This is a problem.

Then you have failed in this definition because there is no evident demonstration. There are copies of copies of copies of scattered and fragmentary "eyewitness accounts". Would you purchase an automobile based on copies of copies of translated and fragmented eyewitness accounts of its value? You would not. Then purchase your spirituality, your soul, for this mere trinket? You cheapen yourself.

 

"No you have not addressed it or else you would stop doing it."
What as that about you never suggesting to me to stop posting?

As far as your responding I am asking you to respond to your accusation that I post meaningless babble by proving it. Give an example. Usually in a civil conversation when someone doesn't understand what someone has said they ask questions about it. You on the other hand ridicule what you claim to not understand.

Where are your god inspired words? That is a question. Do you understand the question?

Here is another simple question, how do you reconcile the claim we are given free will with the idea there is a charge for using it or a ransom to be paid for exercising it?

I asked also, if scientific theories can be discarded on the basis of better information why can not certain propositions in the bible also be discarded on the basis of new and better information on the basis that where it touches on science it is accurate?

I asked you several simple questions that are not hard to understand and you answer none. You just keep saying it's my fault for not being understandable that you don't answer. Well I can't bridge that gap if you don't tell me what exactly you are talking about. What precisely is not understandable? What precisely constitutes babble? You make claims about what I say but don't back them up with example. You just give one excuse after the other.

Responses like, "you do like to go on don't you," are a waste of time that is valuable to us all and not up to the intelligence of this group. Stand up make a better show for god eh, as you are representing what you consider holy.

 

These are what are called eschatological claims. I do not completely understand them. For one end times implies a new beginning on a different order. My vague sense is that the lake of fire is biologic metabolism wherein we do suffer from crying and gnashing of teeth and metabolism is an all consuming fire ending in eventual decay of the organism. A single lifetime also represents the eternity of ones own experience never knowing anything else. I never had much interest in eschatology because it is not relevant to day to day challenges. Recently however I have been led to revisit this issue due to some circumstances that have emerged in my life. For one there is the increasingly polarized world of the status quo vs.lets say the ecology or gaia movement and it looks like we face a crucial point in our development going forward and violent schisms are emerging across increasingly large areas of the planet. We've got a crippled nuclear plant spewing radioactivity for many years to come as just brief examples of our potential to turn the planet into a garbage heap. It behooves us to become increasingly conscious because the whole ecosystem is rocking out. The storms in the atmosphere reflect the storms in our consciousness and vice versa.

One way to look at this is not as a warning or threat to evil doers, but as a reassurance that at some point the peace loving will not be subject to the affronts of the unscrupulous. In other words those who establish the condition of peace will no longer be subject to inhumane treatment by others.

This whole idea of wickedness being punished is common and accepted without quibble in the form of prisons and life and death sentences and on this basis many find it not at all unseemly. I do, in both instances.

As far as the idea of a cosmic contest between the forces of good and evil they present themselves quite plainly in the fact that there are a few powerful people or families that control all the money and are in cahoots with world governments through the corporatocracy, that are in control of all the military which are consolidating onto regional unions such as the european union, the asia pacific union, the african union, and the proposed american union, and all this being done for the purpose of world domination. These entities have turned the population of the world into indentured servants of their economic scheme. Obviously we the workers and consumers have a different sense of how things should go but we accept it as unavoidable and in most cases live lives of quiet desperation. Then there are those who use their creativity to claim their own integrity in and with life. So this is in effect the human contest that is described in the archaic terms of good versus evil. In fact there are quite human entities that use knowledge and secrets as a means of controlling others.

 

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

The political phrase new world order represents an eschatological view, although not theologically oriented but certainly related to a theory of human potential or the possibility of coming into a new system of things.

 

Commenting now on the video, god of the gaps, I took note how the speaker said that these men invoked god. I thought that the speaker display some hubris in suggesting that we would eventually find something to fill all those gaps as we are in a constant state of becoming so there is always something more to learn.

 

What I'm I talking about? This is about what you are talking about. You said this:

And I said Jesus never said that. You then provided the above scripture which talks about belief in Jesus but where does it say anything about going to heaven? It talks about alot of things but heaven is not one of them.

 

Really? When "science" talks about "observation" what do you think they are talking about? Darwin based his whole "On the Origin of Species" on "observation" and those "observations" changed the minds of a lot of people, perhaps even you.

 

Talk about nit picking, you made a statement, a plain and simple statement; "which is true because there are a few quotes where jesus basically says the only way to go to heaven is to believe in him."

If it is such a "minor irrelevant detail" we should be able to leave out such a "minor irrelevant detail" from your statement and it should be able to stand alone without it. Here goes: "which is true because there are a few quotes where jesus basically says the only way to go to ...... is to believe in him." Some how it doesn't seem to mean much with out the "minor irrelevant detail".

You even said you that you knew of a few quotes where Jesus said the only way to go to heaven is to believe in him. All I'm asking for is one quote where Jesus made a connection between belief in him and a trip to heaven. Since in the Scripture you quoted Jesus does not at any time mention heaven it does not seem to fit the bill

 

^You are correct it is written of having eternal life, not specifically entry into heaven.

What is heaven?

 

Sure what would you like to know?

As for being nitpicking, I'm only speaking to the level of the "comments" made.

And speaking to your "that is the only leg you have to stand on"; here is a whole thread where I mention almost all the legs I stand on, that is if you are really interreted.
http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/348571-why-do-you-believe-the-bible-is-the-word-of-god/

 

To the dope: Yeah, it's all about regaining the sensitivity to God and not allowing the intellect dominate. Then the realities not beheld can be experienced.

 

ok lets clarify this whole issue.

according to the bible, the way to get to god, or have salvation, or have everlasting life, or what some people might call "heaven", you have to believe in jesus.

here are some quotes from the bible that show what im talking about:

-John 11:25, “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
-John 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
-Mark 1:15, “And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the good news.”

im pretty sure thats like a standard concept of christianity.

so for an issue as important as saving my soul, and everlasting life and what not, im supposed to go by eye witness accounts, that happened thousands of years ago?

now ill grant you i dont know about these eye witness accounts, but common sense just tells you that they are going to be in poor conditions, ancient languages that were probably transcribed more than once, and who knows if they were even original or some kind of hand made copy which was common back then.

here you are clearly committing a "false analogy" fallacy.

when science talks about observations, they are observations that can be repeated and generate the same result for other scientist to observe for peer review.

if you apply this to Darwin, you can repeat what he did anywhere in the world and observe the animals there and see if his theories hold up. obviously we have been able to make those observations else where and his theory is confirmed.

 

Wisdom is justified by her deeds. By, "allowing the intellect to dominate," I can only take it to mean something along the lines of denying possibility or having a closed mind. We are creatures with a function which is both to taste, emotional body, and know, mind of god or the mind that invokes authority. There is no conflict between the heart and the mind, there is only the way you use your mind and the way your emotional body responds. By our words, or through our own conceptions we feel justified. What you posit is a degree of conflict which is simply self defeating or creates unnecessary struggle or at least that is the appearance created by your terms. Success builds confidence to the point that you actually develop dexterity and move completely beyond faith in an ideal. My suggestion here is do not posit unnecessary internal conflict. Where our treasure lies there is our heart also. The thoughtful conviction or invocation comes first and the emotional body keeps pace with that treasure we are devoted to in a biofeedback loop of becoming familiar. Be a happy learner.

This phrase realities not beheld means things we have yet to learn or experience.

 

I like how in Mark 1:15 Jesus describes the kingdom being at hand and describes himself as life. If you think about it life isn't in the past, it's not in the future, it's now and will never not be now.

 

To thedope: What I meant by the intellect dominating is we can get stuck in our heads and live life through concepts instead of seeing and experiencing life as it really is. Jesus said to love God with all our heart, mind, body, soul and strength. That's really sounds like a holistic approach and not just an intellectual one.

 

Actually those are standard terms, what is your concept? I think you posit that salvation shall we say relies on belief.

Now we have a fact to contend with and that is on any terms we rely on personal conviction to organize our lives so it is at that fundamental level any new paradigm emerges.

The apparent effect of these particular quotes can be moderated in the context of other related statements.

For example,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.

Keep my saying is practice my teaching.

What is the teaching, become one with the source of life and love each other to have more abundant life. This is a fundamental curriculum cutting across religious and political boundaries appealing to our common sense. Is there another way to come to amicable terms with each other and our environment?

What is seeing death? Perhaps imagining that it is somehow relevant to the abundance of the living estate.

 

I understand my point is that the intellect and the emotion are not inherently in conflict but rely on each other in informing our relationship to experience. Stuck in concepts equals close minded habit.

 

yes specifically jesus christ, which the bible claims:
-son of god
-can walk on water
-can heal in an "unorthodox" way lol
-can die and come back to life

as for the teachings of the bible, it does have some great stuff in there. its got some great concepts and is definitely fundamental literature, but should stay out of the realm of science.