(October 26, 2011 at 6:33 pm)Doubting Thomas Wrote: If there really were an all-powerful god that wanted everyone on Earth to worship it, would this be such a bad thing to do? I know theists always rely on faith, but would it be such a bad thing if there were no religious faith with a visible deity? You'd still have to have faith that what he's telling you is true, however, and that he really will let you spend eternity with him if you behave in certain ways.
This is the biggest struggle that I've had concerning God. I agree in that it really wouldn't be a bad idea for God to just prove his own existence. I often wish that if God really exists that he would just appear to everyone. My viewpoint on this is that the Bible teaches free will, and that we have a choice to follow and believe in God or not. I believe that if God appeared to everyone then he would be contradicting himself making him less than perfect and not God.
Sure, we would still have the choice to follow him but knowing him would be forced amongst all people rather than being our choice.
Quote:So then why do you choose to believe he exists? Why do you choose to believe something that cannot be substantiated and may very likely not be true at all?
Even if you don't take the position of even "I believe god/jesus does exist" then why do you honestly bother?
I choose to believe in him because that belief agrees with the way i perceive the world and recognize existence. Sure, I'm one of those Christians that looks at existence and sees God's creation, but I'd never use that as an argument for God's existence because everyone perceives the world differently and in their own unique way.
Quote:there is no evidence anywhere that anything in the bible is true and in fact scientific inquiery over the past several centuries has basically been systematically proving that the bible is anything but true
Yes, more and more of the bible is disproven everyday, but its only disproven because its assumed to be literal while much of the bible is metaphorical in nature. The story of creation for instance initially wasn't taught as a literal 6 days but rather 6 huge periods of time. It was a metaphor even to the earliest Jews.
