what being apart from the law means.

[Drich]

Because it is presented as if it is a matter of inquiry, of asking a question and receiving an answer. It is nothing of the sort. It is coming up with an answer yourself and awaiting verification. The answer is entirely dependent on what you expect to get.

Again, for some yes. And for those (as you can personally atest) Their faith peeters out because they come to the realization that they are the ones making God fit everyday situations.

For Other's God is a force completely independant of How one thinks/operates. For example I responded to one of your posts 2 or 3 different times (same post) and for whatever reason the post would not stick. I press send/post and nothing would happen. One time it posted but the whole message was lost. I thought/prayed about what I had said and realized everything I told you was wrong. I wound up telling you the oppsite.

Of course I have, and that is why the whole thing is a stupid joke. You can't ask the question honestly and ever expect an answer.

Why not?

That is precisely what I am demonstrating: you have to make assumptions for this to even work. You cannot humble yourself before God until you assume he's even there and before you assume that the Bible is correct in requiring you to humble yourself. Just a giant con for giant suckers.

actually you can. When i did all I did was admit openly to any deity listening that I did not know if anything was out there, but followed up with a desire to want to know the truth.

Fuck's sake, listen to you. I have to accept ALL of those things on that list before what "christ tells me" matters!

Or you can just admit to what you don't know, and ask for help understanding the decrepencies between how you have been taught to think and how God says He presents Himself. Faith of a mustard seed is all it takes to get this process started.

I don't think mustard seeds are capable of faith.

Now your beginning to understand..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_seed

That paragraph is full of assumptions. The biggest one is assuming that you ever got an answer.

That is why it is called exploration. Do you think humanity would have survived as long as it has, if everyone was so afraid to explore beyond what we currently can comperhend?

If you did not have the assumption that there was a personal God who cared about you, you would never have attempted to contact that specific God using a specific biblical method.

I started out just looking for the truth, and decided to follow it no matter where it lead me.

Perhaps you would have made a naked plea to whatever God listened, but that would not have gotten you an answer from Yahweh. Yahweh is not interested in answering questions from people who don't already believe in him, you've said as much yourself.

when/where?

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Yes, that you have strawmanned your way through it. It has nothing to do with trying to fit in. I've simply highlighted a very simple observation that the individual is able to feed to themselves what they require/expect of their particular belief.

Only for a short time, then like you their faiths collaps when they are honestly confronted by the lack of actual activity of God in their lives. You yourself admitted to as much.

A/S/K/ is nothing but the elaborate trick of the con man, given that any religious person can tell me about their experiences with their god.

A/S/K as Luke 11 demonstrates is not about seeking the experiences of Others. At the End of that Passage Christ promises to deliver a Measure of the Holy Spirit to the person who A/S/K for themselves. To A/S/K is to meet God for yourself. Not to listen to how someone else met God.

It's a simple concept that you can't grasp, because you won't for a second admit that you could be wrong -- that you are actually speaking to yourself like you [most likely] see people of other religions speaking to themselves because their god is false.

It's hard to accept any substitutions when you've been to the mountain yourself and seen the promise land with your own eyes. The Reason nothing can convince me other wise is because i experienced God for myself.

Put your personal beliefs aside for one second and ask yourself if you experienced God on His terms, and He Himself gave you a confirmation/proof daily. Ask yourself what 'philosphy' could anyone offer you that would replace your relationship? what religion could shake your beliefs?

Unfortunately, this doesn't buy you a special token that excludes your particular religion from the possibility of being a perfect con. Still waiting for justification as to why I should consider your variation of how to communicate with God over other religions' ways as the true way.

It's real simple. If you wish to seek and worship the God of the Bible, then it is by the bible that you will find Him.

I can give an example of a relationship with 100% faithfulness that doesn't work: your wife comes home at very irregular hours of the night. Because you're so faithful, you don't for one second ask yourself that she's sleeping with other men.

This is not what i asked. I asked for you to provide an example of a healthy relationship where one or both of the two people being in a relationship where being unfaithful.

The Point being if 'we' do not value/honor relationships where one is unfaithful to the other, then why should God? More over if you are not faithful to what God has given you in the way of a relationship, then why should He stay and enable you to be a wicked person?

The fallacy has to do with excluding someone from a particular group as having never been a "true" member of that group. You do the exact same thing, but with theological methods such as A/S/K. People continually keep telling you they have tried when they were a Christian, but you keep telling them they were doing it all wrong i.e. they never tried out the method properly. Not only are you being fallacious, but you're being arrogant by claiming that YOU know the way and we don't. You are literally stripping the former believer of everything they used to stand for and discrediting the sincere faith they used to have. That's low.

Do i need to beat you with the no true scotsman fallacy before you let this one go?

The No True Scotsmam fallacy Centers around the Idea that their aren't any prerequsites to be a 'true scotsman' and someone just randomly makes up rules to being a 'true scots man.'

How does that differ from Christianity? There are a written set of prerequsites of being a Christian. Meaning one can legitmatly discern a Christian from someone claiming to be one.

All anyone has to do is open the bible and compare what is written to what the person has done. If that person has not followed what is written, then it is pretty easy to discern whether or not that person fit the biblical defination of a Christian.

Your assumption here is that people are thirsty to begin with.

A non thirsty person would not argue as to how to operate the fountain. They would simply ignore the instruction and move on. No one would spend hours debating the operation of the fountain if he were not a little parched.

I can tell you right now the only one thirsty is yourself. I don't know your past, but I do know of more people than I can count who are Christian because they have had a traumatic experience/mental issues/lost a loved one... basically it's a crutch they need and they thirst for a resolution -- an answer to their suffering. I personally thirst for truth, but what you offer is too vague, too mysterious, too ambiguous for it to be called a self-evident truth.

Has the whole universe always revolved around how your understanding of it? I mean wow.. What I offer is a starting line and a direction. i wish I could give you more, but this is all God offers any of us to begin with. either you will take him up on what He has offered or you will not.

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[quote='Drich' pid='406824' dateline='1361940600']
I am having the same conversation with Ryan right now, do I honestly need to have it with you at the same time? or can't you just read what I wrote to Him and you respond to what has already been said?

Well then let me get to the point.

On the advice of several people years ago when I was first questioning the accuracy of the christian belief system, I tried asking god for guidance int he same manner as is described in Matthew, and a few other ways such as outright praying, reading some scripture, etc., and none of it worked.

Why would you say that god did not reveal himself to me when I A/S/Ked?

How does your version Compare to what the Neighbor did in the Parable?

I can see one huge difference right off the bat.

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If there were people literally dying of thirst, and they were all standing before a water fountain that only works if the knob is turned clockwise, but the person in front dying of thirst will only turn it counter clock wise, and as a result get no water. Angered, he turns to the crowd and say to move on, the water fountain is broken..

I like how your analogy combines "sour grapes" and "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Or you can lead an atheist to the Living Water, but you can't make him believe.

This is actually the second encarnation of this line of reasoning. The first time through it was about chocolate, and a vending machine.. (Something about pushing A2 over and over again when the Chocolate was under B1, but stll expecting Chocolate, simply because they went through the motions of putting money in the machine and pushing buttons.)

The water bit just seem to be easier to explain, I did not even think about the horse/living water bit till after I read it. I guess it's true that even a broken clock is right two times each day.

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I like how your analogy combines "sour grapes" and "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Or you can lead an atheist to the Living Water, but you can't make him accept.

Such a loose argument cuts both ways; you can lead a religious person to reasons why they're irrational, but you can't make them accept those reasons.

'Rational' is subjective. For what is rational in a given culture at a given point in time, can be deem irrational by following generations or even other cultures (Just ask: The Germans are Comming)

So to be deem irrational by irrational people isn't as worry some as you think it to be.

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Whether he is right or wrong is besides the point.

Indeed! For our only Charge is to be Faithful to what we are given. Being 'right' has little to do with anything, for the same Grace that covers us when we willfully sin also covers us when we are doing our best to repersent what we understand of the bible/God. Which subsequently allows for some many different expressions/'denominations' of this one faith.