What is "FAITH"

[MindForgedManacle]

The above (GodsChild) is another exercise in "teach the controversy" nonsense (well, unless you're okay with that as a universal principle?) and seeming to claim that one can simply go ahead and choose what they believe. How... cute.

[Godscreated]

I did not call you childish...

Ahem...

With that you proved how childish you are, how's that.

Oh...you didn't say that?

Look, to save us time in future posts, please don't call me a liar. I will catch you in the act every time. Do you understand?

Again your being dishonest, you pulled those quotes out of two different posts, the second one came before the first one above.

Yes you were dishonest, I stated the evidence I gave was tangible to me, you did twist it around to sound like I was stating I had proof of God. Most here know I would never say I have proof, I've made the statement many times that I can not prove God to anyone.

Evidence = proof. Saying that you have either is admitting to both. If you have evidence AT ALL, even it's only tangible to you, is still claiming evidence/proof.

How many times do I have to say this before it sinks into that thick head of yours. I say again I have no proof of God for you, why, because you will reject anything I say. The proof I have is between myself and God it was never intended for you, unless you decide to listen to God. Is this clear enough.

Sadly, it's also not real evidence. So...it looks like most here don't know that you say you don't have proof, because you're still claiming proof. Faith is not proof; it's just faith. It's also a dishonest feeling.

You can't prove that statement, it's trash. I never said faith was proof, that comes from you. I've stated how faith is part of the relationship with God that reveals Himself to the believer in knowing His real. You my friend need to read what's written and not what you thinks been written.

If you can't prove god to anyone, then you're contradicting what you just said by telling people to pray and read the scriptures. That's telling people there's a way that god can be proven. Do you not see it that way? If you don't, then you're delusional...again. Let's get rid of your delusions, shall we?

Anyway.

I never mentioned prayer to you, I said read and study. If you do that then God may call you to Him and prayer becomes essential. you're trying to put the horse before the cart, you wanted me to explain some of what I know yet you do not listen in the least. You're after things to argue about, go argue with God if you do not like the way He does things.
Reading, studying and prayer are the only way you will come to know God but, that's not me giving proof I'm only telling you where to go and the approach to take, the rest is between you and God. See the difference there, I hope so I'm getting tired of telling you the same thing over and over.

Let me pose a question to you. Why do you think that I and other people here are asking you for proof? I will reply only to your honest answer of this.

Moving on for a moment.

Because you just want something to argue about, you couldn't care less about what I write, but I do care enough to try, believe this or not it's all up to you.

Calm down and come off the ceiling, I did not assert that you said there was no God, please read carefully and logically reason what's been said, let's try this again. I stated,"prove to me I can't possibly believe in God. Want to try again?

...are you shitting me? This changes nothing, so don't play semantics with me.

I'm not going to prove anything to you that I never claimed, and don't be a stick in the mud about it.

Your claim. Your proof. Not mine.

Are you seriously that dense, why can't you see what was said, I did not ask you to prove there's no God, I already know you can't do that. I ask you to prove I can't believe, this is a simple request, but apparently you're finding it to difficult a task.
Yes! I've claimed God, He's proven Himself to me and you can not prove differently.

By the way, read the next quote of yours where you're asking me for proof of you being wrong. You can try to play this semantics game all day with me, but you're going to lose. Focus on what's important here, please.

I'm not playing at any of this, if you can't give me an answer just say so, forget it it's not worth going through this over and over. I've been focused on what's important, but apparently you believe it's something different, tell me what it is so we can get on with this discussion or we might as well drop the whole thing.

You think what you have to say would discourage me, someone with no proof that I'm wrong, now you're trying to be funny, right.

Bam! Now shove off about this, and don't ask me for proof of stuff I never claimed.

I did not say you claimed I had no proof, I asked you to prove I did not, just like trying to disprove God you can't, you can't do either. Like I said above forget it, it's just not worth the time.

The only ones that are cowards are those who will not open the Bible and investigate, why is it you are afraid of what the scriptures have to say to you?

Who are you to say that I haven't? Bold claim there. Again, the proof is on you to find out whether or not I've studied the Bible to investigate.

Are you beginning to notice the trend here with our little chat?

Yep it's the same thing as with all the others here.
You've showed me no proof that you know squat about the scriptures, you're content to argue circle instead of asking questions about scripture.
There's no burden on me I know much about scripture and learn more every time I open the Bible, God is good about that, even though many times it's about how far I can get away from His will. I can take delight in that even though I see where I err, God says He disciplines those he loves.

Encourage me, really, more like give up what you believe, it's not real, forget it I know without doubt that God is real and is who He says He is. My thoughts are rational, just because you think I'm wrong doesn't make it wrong. I say what I know is the truth, you ignore it and continue to do so because you're afraid to study scripture.

Here it is. Right here. You are making your claim "that God is real and is who he says He is". That's when you are supposed to present evidence to an outrageous claim.

The claim is not outrageous, it is true for me because I know God personally, He is my savior, my counselor, my father. As I said you want to know God you will have to search Him out, I can't do it for you, God did not set it up that way.

Look at it this way: if my neighbor tells me he was abducted by aliens, and his story is corroborated by dozens of other abductees with details in their stories that match his, should I believe him in his outrageous claim, or should I remain skeptical?

Here we go again wanting to assume things, let's deal with the real, real life, is that possible for you.

The answer is to remain skeptical. It's the same thing if I tell you there's a unicorn standing behind me. You answer that you cannot see it. Then I tell you that it's because it's invisible and that you need faith to believe it's there. Not only am I being dishonest with you in making such an outrageous, unsubstantiated claim, but I'm requiring dishonesty of you when I ask for you to use faith.

Well I'm not asking you to believe in God you were the one who asked for proof. I've given you a direction to go in, if you're interested then you'll proceed, if not you want and that will probably be the end of it. I'm not nor is God twisting your arm, so make your choice, it's you who will need to live with it.

The same is with god and believers of this god. Now tell me...how is believing in invisible unicorns at all rational if the proof is simply your own?

Well in the end the truth of all this will be proven.

---

To you God is unknown, for me I know God well, I have no doubts of His existence or who He is. You see I'm so sure of what I know there is no other option for me and if there was I would not choose another option.

You know because you know because you know.

Amazing answer, after all I've written that's it, that's all you've understood about what I've stated, well I can see that you are not and probably will never be serious, so I guess were at an end to all this.

As far as Esqulax's eternal destination or your's or mine not being reversible can only come from scripture, where else is there.

And Captain Kirk said, "What does god need with a spaceship?" Your god shouldn't require anyone of anything, nor should he require anything himself if he truly is a god.

Why, because you say so, do you really think that God cares about your opinion on how he's going to handle His creation.

We hear of she-bears tearing up youth in times past for insulting the prophet, but this stuff doesn't happen now because we know enough to realize what is real and what isn't.

No prophets for the last 2000 yrs. has nothing to do with it I suppose.

Seriously, with as much blaspheming as I do here, I should have been struck by lightning ten times over. Or was that Zeus...heh, it's easy to get these Heavenly Father archtypes so mixed up since they borrow heavily from each other in the first place.

So now you're an expert on how God deals with people, never considered God loves you enough to be patient with you, now did you. Oh thanks, thanks for proving you do not know anything about scripture, see I did not have to investigate, you gave up the answer.

---

The above (GodsChild) is another exercise in "teach the controversy" nonsense (well, unless you're okay with that as a universal principle?) and seeming to claim that one can simply go ahead and choose what they believe. How... cute.

Your baby sitter dropped you on your head didn't she, thought that was it. I guess because of that I'll overlook your nonsense.

[Consilius]

An insult is used to make someone feel below you. We have 42 pagan men who were jeering at a prophet. They knew he was a prophet because he just performed a miracle in the name of God. They did not respect him for the reason that he was God's prophet. They were trying to show Elisha that their gods were more powerful and could step on his. God proved otherwise.
Does it make sense now?

Consilius, my friend, you have an author of a fairy tale about a god and his prophet. This author knows the script, so if he says that Elisha was a prophet, then that's who he was.

In the author's mind, Elisha is completely justified in cursing the children/men/circus clowns/village elders, and god is in his rights as Jahweh to send she-bears amongst them and rip them up for jeering at this man.

If this event even happened, and if this god is real, any outside observer will still view this as an evil act. If the crew of SNL makes a parody about Barrack Obama, then the U.S. government doesn't set a pack of hungry mountain lions loose in their changing rooms to teach them a lesson.

No matter how the scriptures justify its heinous acts, the acts are still heinous, and this god is always going to be on trial by the critical thinker.

No one said Elisha was a prophet except his actions. What he did made him a prophet, and not the Bible verse that said so.
A parody is a joke. An insult is an offense.
Also take note of the identities of the two parties. One of them works in the name of God. The other in the name of pagan gods. The offending party knows the identity of the defending party as a representative of a contradictory belief to its own, and had recently proved his belief to be true. The offending party, unprovoked, insults the defending party. Israelite pagans deliberately chose pagan gods over Yahweh because they didn't like him. The theocracy of Israel made this a political struggle as it was an ideological one. There are no grounds for harmless jokes between these two strangers. The offending party got at the defending party because of what the defending party stood for was contradictory to what the offending party stood for.
Also note that Elisha wasn't simply another Jew, he was a prophet. He pretty much had God walking alongside him on the road, because Elisha was God's diplomat. To insult a diplomat is an offense against the country the diplomat is coming from. The president of the country in this case was all-powerful and flawless, with absolute control over their very existence. The greater his power and the things they owed him, the more respect he demanded.

[Bad Writer]

No one said Elisha was a prophet except his actions. What he did made him a prophet, and not the Bible verse that said so.
A parody is a joke. An insult is an offense.
Also take note of the identities of the two parties. One of them works in the name of God. The other in the name of pagan gods. The offending party knows the identity of the defending party as a representative of a contradictory belief to its own, and had recently proved his belief to be true. The offending party, unprovoked, insults the defending party. Israelite pagans deliberately chose pagan gods over Yahweh because they didn't like him. The theocracy of Israel made this a political struggle as it was an ideological one. There are no grounds for harmless jokes between these two strangers. The offending party got at the defending party because of what the defending party stood for was contradictory to what the offending party stood for.
Also note that Elisha wasn't simply another Jew, he was a prophet. He pretty much had God walking alongside him on the road, because Elisha was God's diplomat. To insult a diplomat is an offense against the country the diplomat is coming from. The president of the country in this case was all-powerful and flawless, with absolute control over their very existence. The greater his power and the things they owed him, the more respect he demanded.

Are we done reading between the lines? Subtext is made up as easily as the penning of Jesus' resurrection. Bottom line: I don't buy it, the Bible is bogus, God is an asshole.

[Faith No More]

The greater his power and the things they owed him, the more respect he demanded.

Seems like an awfully human characteristic, doesn't it?

[Bad Writer]

...you pulled those quotes out of two different posts, the second one came before the first one above.

Are you going to dictate to me as to what I can and can't use as evidence against your weak defense?

Look, you got caught red-handed. Just say that you're sorry instead of whining that I'm not playing fair.

The proof I have is between myself and God it was never intended for you, unless you decide to listen to God. Is this clear enough.

Hey, god, I'm listening. [crickets]

Saying you have proof is not the same as presenting it. It's actually kind of funny because you have no proof of your proof, which makes it...well...not proof.

Proof is something that can be verified by someone else. I could say that I know Spinach Lasagna is the best food ever because it tasted the best in my mouth. Me saying that is not proof of anything except that I have an opinion.

With this line of reasoning, your personal "evidence" is merely an opinion of yours. Once you accept that, then you can finally stop telling people that you have proof of anything.

Something I believe we would be more accepting of is if you said, "My opinion is that God is real because of my personal experiences." Anytime you say you have proof, a skeptic will ask for it, so avoid that if you can.

Does it make sense now why it wasn't getting through my "thick skull"? You were simply mislabling your reason for conviction. D'oh!

Sadly, it's also not real evidence. So...it looks like most here don't know that you say you don't have proof, because you're still claiming proof. Faith is not proof; it's just faith. It's also a dishonest feeling.

You can't prove that statement, it's trash.

I just did. See above. I call 'em as I see 'em. Please move on from this.

I never mentioned prayer to you,

But your Bible does, and that's the thing you want me to read and study. [facepalm]

I said read and study.

I'm hearing a broken record. You can get this track back in line by answering my follow up question of "Can you prove that I don't?"

Listen, Buster, you're the one arguing with me when I ask you simple questions. Or perhaps these questions are too hard for you. Let me know, and I'll be sure to dumb them down.

I'm here to promote rational thought processes and discussion. If there's any argument, then it's all coming about because of resistance from you. Can you tell me why you resist answering questions straight on?

Let me pose a question to you. Why do you think that I and other people here are asking you for proof? I will reply only to your honest answer of this.

Because you just want something to argue about, you couldn't care less about what I write, but I do care enough to try, believe this or not it's all up to you.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and trust that you honestly think that. As I mentioned above, proof is asked for when there is a claim to it.

Obviously, we can't ask for proof if you say that your proof is in fact merely an opinion based on your personal experiences.

There is another part to the problem though: the claim. You say that you know God exists. Excluding past references to your "personal evidence", we'll say that you know he exists because of opinion, because that's what it really comes down to. At that point, there is a claim with no real proof still, which is why people are still asking for it from you.

You can't give the proof, and that's the problem. There comes a point when a man has to realize having an opinion doesn't make something true. Imagine if someone came up to you and told you that you were guilty of stealing 20 bucks from him. Logically, the response should be a request for evidence to the claim. When he replies back that he merely feels like you were the one that stole the 20 bucks, his whole argument falls apart.

That, in simple, easy-to-understand terms, is why the argument for god falls apart every time.

I did not ask you to prove there's no God, I already know you can't do that. I ask you to prove I can't believe, this is a simple request, but apparently you're finding it to difficult a task.

And I said I don't find it necessary to do either. You know why I'm not going to try and prove that you can't believe? It's because I never claimed that you couldn't.

Remember when I made the ridiculous claim that I was Batman? That is an excellent example of a claim that needs to be disproved. In fact, it was an open invitation for disproving because I made the claim.

But...THIS? "Prove I can't believe". Because I never claimed that you couldn't, then I WILL NOT DISPROVE IT. MOTHER. FUCKING. PERIOD.

FYI, that is me getting out of an argument that you tried to instigate.

You've showed me no proof that you know squat about the scriptures, you're content to argue circle instead of asking questions about scripture.
There's no burden on me I know much about scripture and learn more every time I open the Bible, God is good about that, even though many times it's about how far I can get away from His will. I can take delight in that even though I see where I err, God says He disciplines those he loves.

And you're going to hear the same things if I don't set you straight real quick.

Your Claim: You don't read and study the scriptures
My reply: Prove that I don't.

Instead of coming up with specific, testable examples that would prove that I don't, you instead try to put the Burden of Proof on me. It doesn't work that way with claims. Would it fly in a court of law if a Prosecution tried to prove guilt without evidence?

I've made no claims that I either know or do not know the scripture. The burden of proof, by right of claim, is all on you.

If I were to say, "You don't learn Jack Squat when you read the Bible," then at that point is the Burden of Proof all on me to demonstrably show how you do not.

Actually, come to think of it, you claimed that you learn more each time you read the Bible. Am I supposed to take you at your word, or shall we, again, ask you to prove it?

For example, did you know about the two separate Creation Accounts at the beginning of Genesis? On my last read through the Bible, I saw that (though I had noticed it before, I never really thought about it till this time). The order of creation is different in the first than it is from the second.

If you learn more about the Bible everytime you read it, surely you saw something like that...maybe not in Genesis, but in other parts of the "Good Book".

C'mon! Here's your chance to really put forth something demonstrable! This is an easy one for you!

Look at it this way: if my neighbor tells me he was abducted by aliens, and his story is corroborated by dozens of other abductees with details in their stories that match his, should I believe him in his outrageous claim, or should I remain skeptical?

Here we go again wanting to assume things, let's deal with the real, real life, is that possible for you.

Your very own Jesus Christ used allegories when he taught his disciples! Must you hem and haw when I do the same to prove a point? That would make you a hypocrite, and I'm sure you try hard not to get labled a such.

FYI, Alien Abduction stories are no less real than people's personal tellings of Spiritual Experiences.

Well I'm not asking you to believe in God you were the one who asked for proof.

Oh, you don't want me to believe in God? Why the fuck are you telling me all about him then? Why are you telling me that he's real?

Also, are you a magician? You try misdirection an awful lot. Try answering a question or two before attempting to sidestep it, and you'll find a lot of progress in these discussions.

Like so:

The same is with god and believers of this god. Now tell me...how is believing in invisible unicorns at all rational if the proof is simply your own?

Well in the end the truth of all this will be proven.

As can be seen, you did not answer the question. Try again.

---

To you God is unknown, for me I know God well, I have no doubts of His existence or who He is. You see I'm so sure of what I know there is no other option for me and if there was I would not choose another option.

You know because you know because you know.

Amazing answer, after all I've written that's it, that's all you've understood about what I've stated, well I can see that you are not and probably will never be serious, so I guess were at an end to all this.

You really are a magician then. You think you can make an end to your own circular reasoning. Oh, yes, that's what my reply was in regards to. I don't blame you for not understanding my quip, as it was at your expense. I'll try not to be so cryptic next time.

Seriously, with as much blaspheming as I do here, I should have been struck by lightning ten times over. Or was that Zeus...heh, it's easy to get these Heavenly Father archtypes so mixed up since they borrow heavily from each other in the first place.

So now you're an expert on how God deals with people, never considered God loves you enough to be patient with you, now did you. Oh thanks, thanks for proving you do not know anything about scripture, see I did not have to investigate, you gave up the answer.

Leave it to GC to not see the difference between a straight argument and a jest at the expense of a cross-religion blunder. Also, this remark has nothing to do with scripture itself, but of the Roman Catholic Church's borrowing of the image of Zeus for its many portrayals of Heavenly Father in many of its works throughout history. If anything, I've proven that I know Christian history.

BTW, you still claim I don't know anything, but you haven't proven it (and since I defended against your point, you still have yet to come up with a real reason as to how I don't know scripture). Go on, defend your claim.

---

The above (GodsChild) is another exercise in "teach the controversy" nonsense (well, unless you're okay with that as a universal principle?) and seeming to claim that one can simply go ahead and choose what they believe. How... cute.

Your baby sitter dropped you on your head didn't she, thought that was it. I guess because of that I'll overlook your nonsense.

You stay classy, GC.

[fr0d0]

Bottom line: I don't buy it, the Bible is bogus, God is an asshole.

If the bible is bogus, God is asshole.

I totally agree

[MikeTheInfidel]

Again your being dishonest, you pulled those quotes out of two different posts, the second one came before the first one above.

What?? Either you called him childish and then claimed you never did, or you claimed you never did and then called him childish. Those are the only orders those two events could have occurred in, and in either case, you're lying.

[Bad Writer]

Again your being dishonest, you pulled those quotes out of two different posts, the second one came before the first one above.

What?? Either you called him childish and then claimed you never did, or you claimed you never did and then called him childish. Those are the only orders those two events could have occurred in, and in either case, you're lying.

It's a common psychological concept called "Projection", where you find fault in others wherein the greatest fault for the self-same accusation actually lies in yourself.

---

Bottom line: I don't buy it, the Bible is bogus, God is an asshole.

If the bible is bogus, God is asshole.

I totally agree

I give you tentative Kudos on this one.

[fr0d0]

I give you tentative Kudos on this one.

Haha!

I shall savour it!