Well yes, but I asked what you thought 'met' meant. You might rightly say I have not 'met' my friends here online. You are probably right. Maybe that explains why you believe you are correct about Jesus as well. You said "No, and neither have you." You might be right. I guess I don't know what you mean about met. It isn't in the same conventional way we tend to meet, but I didn't meet you that way either. You are probably right, I've never met you.
Something still seems missing. Maybe it is just me, but I'm ever intrigued, like other atheists I've met, who claim to have been 'genuine christians' but now deny such a thing is even possible. Here is the kicker for me: They tend implicitly believe that I could be as duped as they were!!! If that isn't subjective and projecting...
It is my opinion that such things take time. We are trying to decide the veracity of a person who is not here by conventional means.
Sure, but not like you think. 1) it is as objective as the concept and idea and if you are delusional, we have already taken a step past 'conventional methods' of inquiry. While I, perhaps like you, value keeping my feet firmly planted in rational ground, I do believe, in fact, that reality must necessarily move beyond my five senses. 2) And fretting about the 'demonstrable' may indeed be grasping at air. I cannot cannot cannot prove to a blind man that color exists. The other blind men that are skeptical and telling all other blind men that I'm a blind man too and cannot see has them duped. Would I think, told often enough, that I'm actually blind too but just have a vivid imagination or something?
According to which calendar? We all are groping a bit in the dark. The trick is to see which of us has atuned their other remaining senses to what is observable. I am absolutely convinced that God has to be observable, just that it also has to be somewhat beyond or conventions and I think for obvious and reasonable expectations. Some people haven't figured out how to use all their senses but even you know nobody knows the date or hour but the Father, don't you?
Yes.
We develop over time but most of us are developed enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality by the time we come to God.
Part of the answer, only matters individually. If you had a bad marriage, for instance, or 5 bad marriages, you might be a person thoroughly convinced that marriage is an archaic and bad idea. It is my opinion we are messed up as a race and will never stop killing each other or letting each other suffer in indifference without an intervention.
I'm not sure of your consistency here. I don't think you actually can intellectually allow what you've just said because your objections are nearly an impenetrable fortress.
I did laugh at Shrek, but I got a moral point from it too...
That is fine. I personally think the book was written primarily to "Hebrews" and so gentiles read stuff into it, but I'm kind of in a minority on that view.
Kind, thank you. I'm okay or couldn't have used this for illustration, but I think it helps with a discussion like this.
It is that exact sentiment, that I believe is 'in' us. Evolution can explain a few things, but I find it lacking in describing this incredibly tenacous set of "eternality" genes of ours. Instead of 'deformity' or 'adaptation' I also, and scientifically - rightly so, see 'reason' and 'purpose.' If we have a "god" gene and an 'eternality' gene and a 'I'm here for a reason' gene. Then there is a point in which that stops being 'genetics' for me. Where that point is for me and where it is for you may be two entirely different places.
I think we already do that. Dreams are great things. It helps us set goals, etc. You and I, I'm sure would equally hate a life wasted.
It is really hard for me to say this, because it doesn't quite fit: I think I'd live the same way even if God didn't exist. Now why it doesn't fit is because the 'if' messes it all up to where I couldn't live exactly the same way nor is it really possible to entertain that 'if' toward a reality. It doesn't work for me. I mean, good and well intentioned friends could probably talk me into believing I never had a father and made it all up in my head because I was a test-tube child or something. I have no idea what would cause that, this particular is far-fetched but what I am saying is, it would be genuinely difficult for me to 'stop believing God exists.'
Yes, but if I have no vested interest in you, it might as well be as if you didn't exist, regardless. Admitting you 'might' exist when I don't want you to would only complicate matters. This, to me, seems my biggest frustration with atheists and I don't last long. Town Heretic comes from your neck of the woods
Actually, they stay out of wars. That alone is a HUGE indicator. We can look toward other causes and effects but statistics are difficult to interpret. I don't always see the "smoking gun" everybody else points to. I'd be a lousy jury member because I actually have to see ever single connection leading up to an event, idea, or statistic. I throw them around (statistics) for fun but am most highly skeptical about them.
I don't know but it is still Christians, at least in the U.S. that give the most toward needs in our world.
I'm not in what would be called a Christian area of the US (I'm up in the NW). We have less than 3% church attendance here. I've had to think pretty hard. That said, I think there is a lot in the Bible that tells you to think hard. Jesus' teachings are full of thinking challenges: "weigh carefully for a wiseman does not build his house on the sand...you have heard it said...etc."
Why is it better than dying? But thanks for pointing out the splendor and sweetness of the atheist's lot. It sings.
I trimmed a bit off the top here:
Well yes, but I asked what you thought 'met' meant. You might rightly say I have not 'met' my friends here online. You are probably right. Maybe that explains why you believe you are correct about Jesus as well. You said "No, and neither have you." You might be right. I guess I don't know what you mean about met. It isn't in the same conventional way we tend to meet, but I didn't meet you that way either. You are probably right, I've never met you.
I have not, in fact, met Jesus in the 'conventional' way, like I haven't met you in the conventional way, but I'm pleased to meet you just the same.
Something still seems missing. Maybe it is just me, but I'm ever intrigued, like other atheists I've met, who claim to have been 'genuine christians' but now deny such a thing is even possible. Here is the kicker for me: They tend implicitly believe that I could be as duped as they were!!! If that isn't subjective and projecting...
It is my opinion that such things take time. We are trying to decide the veracity of a person who is not here by conventional means.
He died, was buried, and rose again, so of course none of us knows much about that firsthand.
However we find what is true but hard to see by most conventions, must necessarily be then, by unconventional means, right? That isn't to say completely foreign, just different than, let's say even scientific inquiry by the numbers and conventions...
Sure, but not like you think. 1) it is as objective as the concept and idea and if you are delusional, we have already taken a step past 'conventional methods' of inquiry. While I, perhaps like you, value keeping my feet firmly planted in rational ground, I do believe, in fact, that reality must necessarily move beyond my five senses. 2) And fretting about the 'demonstrable' may indeed be grasping at air. I cannot cannot cannot prove to a blind man that color exists. The other blind men that are skeptical and telling all other blind men that I'm a blind man too and cannot see has them duped. Would I think, told often enough, that I'm actually blind too but just have a vivid imagination or something?
According to which calendar? We all are groping a bit in the dark. The trick is to see which of us has atuned their other remaining senses to what is observable. I am absolutely convinced that God has to be observable, just that it also has to be somewhat beyond or conventions and I think for obvious and reasonable expectations. Some people haven't figured out how to use all their senses but even you know nobody knows the date or hour but the Father, don't you?
Yes.
We develop over time but most of us are developed enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality by the time we come to God.
In some cases I might let this slide but I think most of us are beyond that kind of self-deception.
Part of the answer, only matters individually. If you had a bad marriage, for instance, or 5 bad marriages, you might be a person thoroughly convinced that marriage is an archaic and bad idea. It is my opinion we are messed up as a race and will never stop killing each other or letting each other suffer in indifference without an intervention.
I'm not sure of your consistency here. I don't think you actually can intellectually allow what you've just said because your objections are nearly an impenetrable fortress.
There are, in fact, several promises God says are verifiable. One that all men know of His character, inately, by what has been made. Two, that those who seek Him will find Him, if they seek, not just with your five senses, "but with all your heart." Somehow your objections have to get over a couple of specific walls to allow for these.
I did laugh at Shrek, but I got a moral point from it too...
That is fine. I personally think the book was written primarily to "Hebrews" and so gentiles read stuff into it, but I'm kind of in a minority on that view.
Kind, thank you. I'm okay or couldn't have used this for illustration, but I think it helps with a discussion like this.
It is that exact sentiment, that I believe is 'in' us. Evolution can explain a few things, but I find it lacking in describing this incredibly tenacous set of "eternality" genes of ours. Instead of 'deformity' or 'adaptation' I also, and scientifically - rightly so, see 'reason' and 'purpose.' If we have a "god" gene and an 'eternality' gene and a 'I'm here for a reason' gene. Then there is a point in which that stops being 'genetics' for me. Where that point is for me and where it is for you may be two entirely different places.
I think we already do that. Dreams are great things. It helps us set goals, etc. You and I, I'm sure would equally hate a life wasted.
It is really hard for me to say this, because it doesn't quite fit: I think I'd live the same way even if God didn't exist. Now why it doesn't fit is because the 'if' messes it all up to where I couldn't live exactly the same way nor is it really possible to entertain that 'if' toward a reality. It doesn't work for me. I mean, good and well intentioned friends could probably talk me into believing I never had a father and made it all up in my head because I was a test-tube child or something. I have no idea what would cause that, this particular is far-fetched but what I am saying is, it would be genuinely difficult for me to 'stop believing God exists.'
There is too much that says 'He exists."
Yes, but if I have no vested interest in you, it might as well be as if you didn't exist, regardless. Admitting you 'might' exist when I don't want you to would only complicate matters. This, to me, seems my biggest frustration with atheists and I don't last long. Town Heretic comes from your neck of the woods
Actually, they stay out of wars. That alone is a HUGE indicator. We can look toward other causes and effects but statistics are difficult to interpret. I don't always see the "smoking gun" everybody else points to. I'd be a lousy jury member because I actually have to see ever single connection leading up to an event, idea, or statistic. I throw them around (statistics) for fun but am most highly skeptical about them.
I don't know but it is still Christians, at least in the U.S. that give the most toward needs in our world.
I'm not in what would be called a Christian area of the US (I'm up in the NW). We have less than 3% church attendance here. I've had to think pretty hard. That said, I think there is a lot in the Bible that tells you to think hard. Jesus' teachings are full of thinking challenges: "weigh carefully for a wiseman does not build his house on the sand...you have heard it said...etc."
The same reason people take up any post, however directed, because I had an answer. I didn't tackle the purely personal, only the sort of thing that went as readily to our discussion.
The sort of trust required of the Christian. The rest is an expression of probability. I set out as much when I noted the rich young ruler's failing. I also noted the mutually exclusive nature of trust and doubt.
You aren't really discussing what trust is, but what it might be founded upon. Evidence? Certainly. And there's more than one sort of that.
You already noted that God didn't fail you. If your faith was founded in something else then it was misplaced.
Interesting. I find the entirety of creation extraordinary. So far as man knows it remains unique in the universe, speculation aside.
Interesting questions. In order: I don't know, but I suspect that time not being the pointing arrow we perceive it to be (at least I think that's where the math is pointing us, along with certain curious biological experiments in causality) then it doesn't particularly matter; of course they do; I don't know why they would. And life is a mixture of both shading and absolutes.
:chuckle: I meet Him daily. And I find my life wonderfully fulfilling, abundant. But beyond the selfish, there are people in need here, work to be done.
Authentically you? What does that mean? What is it you imagine would be denied you that is worth having?
I not only think it, I set out why.
I'll leave off revisiting the law and its instruction absent fulfillment because it would consume a thread on it own and I've already given you the broader answer.
You mean accepting the consequence of being separated from the seat of the good, the light you receive at present just as the rain falls on the just and unjust alike but errantly assert that you generate yourself.
The research by Gregory S. Paul is quite illuminating. I recommend you read it.[/QUOTE
Just trying to get a handle on where you were going with this.
We don't either. Neither do American Muslims.
Not necessarily? Not rationally. And I answered you on your second mistake as well.
You can find it easily enough. I posted links to a number of serious studies on point. This is an old issue. I'll hunt the down again if you're interested.
So is knowledge, now an again.
The pseudo science of memes aside, of course you would. It's a superior context for the enjoyment of your life. And what's more, it's as likely a context as your own. Which is to say there's no factoring probability on origin, etc.
Great for me, as were the advantages of wealth, both culturally and educationally, but none of those determined my path. They only increased the likelihood of it being the road I actually traveled. At any rate, you seemed interested, so I obliged.
No. But the one was all I needed to undo your declaration.
That's funny, given he went as a boy to study with learned men and chose a fairly bright fellow for his work among the Gentiles--not to mention being the source and seat of all wisdom/knowledge.
As previously noted, not everything of value is empirically derived. Look how many very learned men of our day are rather missing the point of existence.
I am. But I've read the Koran and much of the Upanishads, the Book of Mormon and a great deal of Buddhist teachings. If you want to lay the charge at their feet you're going to have to cite. I'm not an expert in any of them, but I'll do my best to answer.
There's an opening for a line you could drive a truck through, but I'll refrain and say simply, enjoy what I hope is a holiday and I'll see you on the other side...either.
You may indeed. And a very merry sound and fury signifying to you. :chuckle:
:e4e:
Define what a Christian "experience" is here.
How do you know, since you say you don't believe now?
Not really, we are just trying to get you to define your 'experience'
Who have you asked what they believe and why and they refused you?
No, from what ive seen "they' along with myself are trying to determine what you 'experienced' and what kind of church you went to, so we can determine what kind of experience you had and what kind of beliefs the church you attended taught, which you refuse to share and told me directly you wouldnt basically.
spetrox war said:
If you think that talking snakes and donkeys or even crickets have a place in the wonder and vastness of the universe then why not?
I trimmed a bit off the top here:
Well yes, but I asked what you thought 'met' meant. You might rightly say I have not 'met' my friends here online. You are probably right. Maybe that explains why you believe you are correct about Jesus as well. You said "No, and neither have you." You might be right. I guess I don't know what you mean about met. It isn't in the same conventional way we tend to meet, but I didn't meet you that way either. You are probably right, I've never met you.
I have not, in fact, met Jesus in the 'conventional' way, like I haven't met you in the conventional way, but I'm pleased to meet you just the same.
Something still seems missing. Maybe it is just me, but I'm ever intrigued, like other atheists I've met, who claim to have been 'genuine christians' but now deny such a thing is even possible. Here is the kicker for me: They tend implicitly believe that I could be as duped as they were!!! If that isn't subjective and projecting...
It is my opinion that such things take time. We are trying to decide the veracity of a person who is not here by conventional means.
He died, was buried, and rose again, so of course none of us knows much about that firsthand.
However we find what is true but hard to see by most conventions, must necessarily be then, by unconventional means, right? That isn't to say completely foreign, just different than, let's say even scientific inquiry by the numbers and conventions...
Sure, but not like you think. 1) it is as objective as the concept and idea and if you are delusional, we have already taken a step past 'conventional methods' of inquiry. While I, perhaps like you, value keeping my feet firmly planted in rational ground, I do believe, in fact, that reality must necessarily move beyond my five senses. 2) And fretting about the 'demonstrable' may indeed be grasping at air. I cannot cannot cannot prove to a blind man that color exists. The other blind men that are skeptical and telling all other blind men that I'm a blind man too and cannot see has them duped. Would I think, told often enough, that I'm actually blind too but just have a vivid imagination or something?
According to which calendar? We all are groping a bit in the dark. The trick is to see which of us has atuned their other remaining senses to what is observable. I am absolutely convinced that God has to be observable, just that it also has to be somewhat beyond or conventions and I think for obvious and reasonable expectations. Some people haven't figured out how to use all their senses but even you know nobody knows the date or hour but the Father, don't you?
Yes.
We develop over time but most of us are developed enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality by the time we come to God.
In some cases I might let this slide but I think most of us are beyond that kind of self-deception.
Part of the answer, only matters individually. If you had a bad marriage, for instance, or 5 bad marriages, you might be a person thoroughly convinced that marriage is an archaic and bad idea. It is my opinion we are messed up as a race and will never stop killing each other or letting each other suffer in indifference without an intervention.
I'm not sure of your consistency here. I don't think you actually can intellectually allow what you've just said because your objections are nearly an impenetrable fortress.
There are, in fact, several promises God says are verifiable. One that all men know of His character, inately, by what has been made. Two, that those who seek Him will find Him, if they seek, not just with your five senses, "but with all your heart." Somehow your objections have to get over a couple of specific walls to allow for these.
I did laugh at Shrek, but I got a moral point from it too...
That is fine. I personally think the book was written primarily to "Hebrews" and so gentiles read stuff into it, but I'm kind of in a minority on that view.
Kind, thank you. I'm okay or couldn't have used this for illustration, but I think it helps with a discussion like this.
It is that exact sentiment, that I believe is 'in' us. Evolution can explain a few things, but I find it lacking in describing this incredibly tenacous set of "eternality" genes of ours. Instead of 'deformity' or 'adaptation' I also, and scientifically - rightly so, see 'reason' and 'purpose.' If we have a "god" gene and an 'eternality' gene and a 'I'm here for a reason' gene. Then there is a point in which that stops being 'genetics' for me. Where that point is for me and where it is for you may be two entirely different places.
I think we already do that. Dreams are great things. It helps us set goals, etc. You and I, I'm sure would equally hate a life wasted.
It is really hard for me to say this, because it doesn't quite fit: I think I'd live the same way even if God didn't exist. Now why it doesn't fit is because the 'if' messes it all up to where I couldn't live exactly the same way nor is it really possible to entertain that 'if' toward a reality. It doesn't work for me. I mean, good and well intentioned friends could probably talk me into believing I never had a father and made it all up in my head because I was a test-tube child or something. I have no idea what would cause that, this particular is far-fetched but what I am saying is, it would be genuinely difficult for me to 'stop believing God exists.'
There is too much that says 'He exists."
Yes, but if I have no vested interest in you, it might as well be as if you didn't exist, regardless. Admitting you 'might' exist when I don't want you to would only complicate matters. This, to me, seems my biggest frustration with atheists and I don't last long. Town Heretic comes from your neck of the woods
Actually, they stay out of wars. That alone is a HUGE indicator. We can look toward other causes and effects but statistics are difficult to interpret. I don't always see the "smoking gun" everybody else points to. I'd be a lousy jury member because I actually have to see ever single connection leading up to an event, idea, or statistic. I throw them around (statistics) for fun but am most highly skeptical about them.
I don't know but it is still Christians, at least in the U.S. that give the most toward needs in our world.
I'm not in what would be called a Christian area of the US (I'm up in the NW). We have less than 3% church attendance here. I've had to think pretty hard. That said, I think there is a lot in the Bible that tells you to think hard. Jesus' teachings are full of thinking challenges: "weigh carefully for a wiseman does not build his house on the sand...you have heard it said...etc."
If you think that talking snakes and donkeys or even crickets have a place in the wonder and vastness of the universe then why not?
That's a very nice bit of reasoning, there, my friend.
There's an opening for a line you could drive a truck through, but I'll refrain and say simply, enjoy what I hope is a holiday and I'll see you on the other side...either.
You may indeed. And a very merry sound and fury signifying to you. :chuckle:
:e4e: