The Beginning of the End

[daws101]

I can be very foolish. But then I don't feel the need to presume others are fools simply because they disagree with me.

Ironic, aren't you the one who claimed you had to do away with human wisdom and education to NOT believe in God?

Nothing ironic about it. And yes, i would have to completely ignore reason and education to not believe in God. There is nothing logical about atheism. In order for anyone to know there is no God, one would have to be everywhere in the Universe (and outside it) at the same time and at all times. In essense, in order to know there is no God, one would have to be God.

Logically, there is only two rational conclusions about the existence of God. 1) I don't know if there is a God. and 2) I know there is a God.

So agnosticism could be a logical belief system. The problem comes when people illogically conclude that "because I don't know that there is a God, no one does."

It seems you've adopted that position. However, I don't think you are a fool because you have. I just think you haven't thought it through enough yet.

In other words, you don't become a fool because you disagree with me. You become a fool when you've decided you aren't going to even try to learn more on a topic.




Then I would argue you haven't truly studied it. I don't believe it is prudent to completely ignore the wisdom of thousands of years of human history by just writing it off. Even if I didn't believe the Bible to be the Word of God, I have a hard time denying much of it's wisdom. I don't believe the Quran to be the word of God, but I see wisdom in some of it's pages. There is great wisdom in Buddhist and Hindu texts as well.

I would invite you to make it a habit of studying the scriptures. I would also invite you to do it prayerfully. This may be a difficult concept for you, but I can promise you that if you study the scriptures and seek the Lord's understanding through prayer that you can come to know God for yourself.

If God created this mess, he is hardly perfect. The Bible certainly is a tool, but not for the spiritual purposes you suggest. If God is all good, then he must be fair, and if the Bible were the word of God he could not possibly be fair; It would require he give some the comfort of undeniable evidence and others the form of hearsay. God didn't talk to any ancient men, they just made it up.

God is fair. He gives gifts to all men liberally. We simply have to ask. You want to obtain knowledge without any effort. The Lord says "ask and ye shall recieve. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you." The scriptures teach us how to know Him.

God talks to men today just as He did in Ancient times. Come to Him. seek him out. Humble yourself and be sincere. I didn't always know there was a God. However, I reached the conclusion that if He was there and answered prayers He would answer mine as well and He would make sure I knew. I made a promise to Him and to myself that if I recieved the witness I was looking for I would try to live His Gospel and follow Him to the best of my abilities. I wanted to know not just to say I know. But so I could recieve His guidence. And when the time was right the Spirit was clearly manifest. It was a very humbling experience.

There is nothing special about me. Anyone can know that He is there if they follow His counsels. But faith precedes the miracle. You have to have enough faith to experiment on the Word.

At which point did I claim to know anything about God? Nobody does, He does not interact with us. If you yourself pretend you know anything about Him then you are little more than a liar. What I do know is Earthly religion and human beings, both are full of shit.

You are claiming to know something about God right now. You are trying to claim that no one knows anything about Him. You are triyng to claim He doesn't interact with Him.

I know that our Heavenly Father lives and loves us. I know He loves you because the Spirit tells me He does. He is waiting for you to reach out to Him. Try it. I mean sincerely. Be honest with Him. Sincerely experiment on the Word. What do you have to lose? If I am wrong and if you sincerely seek Him, then nothing happens. But If I am right and you sincerely seek Him, you will know for yourself that He is there. You will have more joy in your life that you can currently comprehend. Believe me, it's an amazing experience. But you have to be humble. You have to be sincere. And when you learn the truth, you have to be willing to act on it.

Study the word. It's true. Experiment on the the doctrines.

wrong! the word is totally and completely subjective...any truth it contains is also subjective.
real experimentation has to be objective, your suggestion to study it is anything but that.
you make the claim it's true but you have no evidence to support that claim.
an experiment is to discover if some thing or idea is viable or fact.
claiming that the "doctrines" are true is a bias that would skew the results of any experimentation making them invalid and false.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Daws, consider this offer that Jesus made to anyone who wanted to know the truth. He said if you are willing to do the will of God then God would reveal it to you. As you are questioning whether it is true or not why not ask him? Why not say, alright Jesus. If you are the Son of God sent to earth to redeem my soul from certain damnation.. if you are who you say you are and God sent you then reveal this to me and I will follow you all the days of my life. Would you be willing to say that?

John 7:17 If any man will to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether it I speak of myelf. - Jesus

Why not find out, Daws?

 

[daws101]

Daws, consider this offer that Jesus made to anyone who wanted to know the truth. He said if you are willing to do the will of God then God would reveal it to you. As you are questioning whether it is true or not why not ask him? Why not say, alright Jesus. If you are the Son of God sent to earth to redeem my soul from certain damnation.. if you are who you say you are and God sent you then reveal this to me and I will follow you all the days of my life. Would you be willing to say that?

John 7:17 If any man will to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether it I speak of myelf. - Jesus

Why not find out, Daws?

been there, done that, and found it wanting..

 

[uhkilleez]

Nothing ironic about it. And yes, i would have to completely ignore reason and education to not believe in God. There is nothing logical about atheism. In order for anyone to know there is no God, one would have to be everywhere in the Universe (and outside it) at the same time and at all times. In essense, in order to know there is no God, one would have to be God.

Or, in essence, in order to know that there is no God one must use simple logic.

1.) I have never seen God.
2.) Only MAN tells me there is God, and men are liars.

Logically, there is only two rational conclusions about the existence of God. 1) I don't know if there is a God. and 2) I know there is a God.

In order to know there is a God, one must be able to see God; One would have to be everywhere in the Universe (and outside it) at the same time and at all times. In essence, in order to know there is a God, one would have to be God. You can not have your cake and eat it too, if one is illogical for the same logic, its counterpart must follow suit. God does not communicate with man, and those whom claim to have interacted with God are either delusional or lying with no inbetween. The human perception is imperfect, and as such we may not always rely on our experiences to show us what is true. In conclusion, using your logic the only logical position is agnosticism.

So agnosticism could be a logical belief system. The problem comes when people illogically conclude that "because I don't know that there is a God, no one does."

It seems you've adopted that position. However, I don't think you are a fool because you have. I just think you haven't thought it through enough yet.

In other words, you don't become a fool because you disagree with me. You become a fool when you've decided you aren't going to even try to learn more on a topic.

It would be impossible to know in either direction, you can not rely on experience to show you something supernatural exists. God does not interact with this world, and the faults in human perception are all that lead us to believe otherwise. One can not have a conversation with God, it would be a very one-sided talk.

Then I would argue you haven't truly studied it. I don't believe it is prudent to completely ignore the wisdom of thousands of years of human history by just writing it off. Even if I didn't believe the Bible to be the Word of God, I have a hard time denying much of it's wisdom. I don't believe the Quran to be the word of God, but I see wisdom in some of it's pages. There is great wisdom in Buddhist and Hindu texts as well.

Surrounding that wisdom, in each of those texts up to and including the Bible, are lies and amorality. It is illogical to say all of man came from Adam and Eve. For this to be possible, we would ALL be incest. The effects of incestuous activity have been studied, and though there are many out there clutching their holy texts who fit the bill, the majority of us are not mentally and physically mutated. Noah did not build an ark and fit two of each species on it. It would be difficult to tell sex in many of these animals, and the amount of time it would take to achieve these goals would be astounding. It is an impossibility.

When the Bible teaches us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, I see the wisdom in it, however the Bible has much to say that is not moral and not true. In the majority of cases, it tends to be these teachings other follow as opposed to those which are truly good and make this world a better place. A great example would be the Westboro Baptist Church, who take literally the most atrocious parts of the Bible and judge others as though they were proxy for God himself. You may claim that the majority of Christians do not think the way WBC does, but you would be wrong; The major difference between the average Christian and the WBC is extreme behavior, the mindset is still similar.

I have also studied holy texts which predate Christianity, such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead. In it, there is a character born of a virgin on December 25th, died for three days and resurrected. That character is named Horus, and he is the Egyptian Jesus long before Jesus was a twinkle in the eye of Constantine. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD is the real truth about religion. All of this "word of God" was written and organized by men. There are small amounts of wisdom in these texts, but a greater portion of evil is in the recipe.

I would invite you to make it a habit of studying the scriptures. I would also invite you to do it prayerfully. This may be a difficult concept for you, but I can promise you that if you study the scriptures and seek the Lord's understanding through prayer that you can come to know God for yourself.

Your mistake is to assume because I do not believe, that I am simply uneducated in the scriptures. I have never read the Bible cover to cover, but I come from a highly religious family and have not been so lucky to go through life without being exposed to scripture. I have read enough of the Bible to not believe it, and I can reference many verses of pure evil to prove it. Deuteronomy, Exodus, and Leviticus are full of the evil side of the Christian God, he approves of slavery of his own chosen people, he approves of selling your daughters into slavery, and he approves of stoning disobedient children in the streets. He is anything but all good.

God is fair. He gives gifts to all men liberally. We simply have to ask. You want to obtain knowledge without any effort. The Lord says "ask and ye shall recieve. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you." The scriptures teach us how to know Him.

God talks to men today just as He did in Ancient times. Come to Him. seek him out. Humble yourself and be sincere. I didn't always know there was a God. However, I reached the conclusion that if He was there and answered prayers He would answer mine as well and He would make sure I knew. I made a promise to Him and to myself that if I recieved the witness I was looking for I would try to live His Gospel and follow Him to the best of my abilities. I wanted to know not just to say I know. But so I could recieve His guidence. And when the time was right the Spirit was clearly manifest. It was a very humbling experience.

There is nothing special about me. Anyone can know that He is there if they follow His counsels. But faith precedes the miracle. You have to have enough faith to experiment on the Word.

If God were fair, we would already be in the afterlife. Our existence would be utopian, there would be no pain and no evil. No one would be born rich and beautiful, next to the poor and ugly. It just simply isn't true.

The idea that there may be no God came to me at six years old, shortly after the birth of my sister. Prior to this, I was simply too young to use reason on the subject; I believed in Santa, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and God all equally. For the next six years of my life, I struggled with the epiphany I had at six years old, and I wanted to know whether or not He existed. I found myself making deals with God as well, praying for him to reach out to me. It simply never happened, the first time I prayed for His intervention, it never happened. The second or third time I cut him a deal, my prayer was finally answer, and I found myself wondering what took Him so long.

Up until the end of my sixth grade year in public school, I had a wishy-washy faith in God. I prayed over many things, from knowledge of Him to the outcome of football games. Over time, I began to realize that no matter the magnitude of my prayers, from the simplistic prayers to those seeking His guidance, all were answered at random. My prayers were being answered by chance, not by God. It was at the lunch table at school I finally solidified my lack in faith in God, and put my faith into a power greater than God... chaos. Everything in this world comes to us by chance, we simply exist within a realm of total chaos.

Over time, my interest in Earthly religion never went away. As should be evident in my username, I had a fascination with Greek mythology for quite a long time. I have also studied Norse mythology, I studied the polytheistic culture of the Mayans when the 2012 hysteria started, I've studied the Egyptians and Hindus, et al. I need no more education on religion to know to myself there is no God, and I use logic and reason to reach this conclusion. God is a human concept, and that is the true reason "He created us in His image." Man created God in his image, and that is why no matter the religion, God behaves much like the people of the time those texts were written. That's why Exodus excuses slavery as though it's perfectly normal and moral, in those times it was. That's why Odin is a warlord, that's why Zeus was a trickster and a whore.

The God I believe in is Chaos. God is a force of nature, He is gravity, He is evolution, He is the singularity in the pit of a black hole. God is chance. He doesn't care about love and worship, and we will never meet Him. There is no afterlife, the concept is simply the product of man's inability to cope with death.

You are claiming to know something about God right now. You are trying to claim that no one knows anything about Him. You are triyng to claim He doesn't interact with Him.

I know that our Heavenly Father lives and loves us. I know He loves you because the Spirit tells me He does. He is waiting for you to reach out to Him. Try it. I mean sincerely. Be honest with Him. Sincerely experiment on the Word. What do you have to lose? If I am wrong and if you sincerely seek Him, then nothing happens. But If I am right and you sincerely seek Him, you will know for yourself that He is there. You will have more joy in your life that you can currently comprehend. Believe me, it's an amazing experience. But you have to be humble. You have to be sincere. And when you learn the truth, you have to be willing to act on it.

Study the word. It's true. Experiment on the the doctrines.

I don't claim to know anything about God, I have my own beliefs on what God might be. I know that your God doesn't exist, and I have laid the reasons and my experience out in this post. I do not need to know anything about God in order to know yours doesn't exist, I only need to know something about man. I know about man, he is a liar and manipulator; I know about the history of man, and I know how religion has evolved with the wisdom of man. I have sincerely sought out your God, I believed in Him too at one point. I have studied His word, as well as the words of others. I am no expert on any one document, what I am is a "Jack of All Trades". I know enough about enough religions to fit the puzzle pieces together, and when that puzzle is finished the image is of man.