[quote='Minimalist' pid='348571' dateline='1350058263']
[quote]
Why would you ignore the rest of the passage even after I posted it?[/quote]

Because the rest of the section supports my point, not yours.

Give it up. This praying shit is a jerkoff exercise for the ignorant.
[/quote]

Then it should be very easy for you to go line by line and address your proclaimed victory. Yet you pause and posture hoping that I will some how forget the truth that I have already pointed out. If you still think differently then Stop talking about it and show me.

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[quote='Darkstar' pid='348572' dateline='1350058278']
[quote]Now let's think for a moment that the guy has the wrong address and spends literally his whole life knocking on the door, never realizing that the house is abandoned.[/quote]Read the story in Luke 11. The door he knocks on is a neighbor. He has a dialog with Him. He knocks because he knows there is someone home.

[quote]Yeah! Just like the guys who invented Zeus, it was the best they could come up with! or...they saw how sucussful older religions had been at controlling people and decided to try it out for themselves. Here's a thought: if this is the One True Faith™, then why isn't it the first?[/quote]It was with Adam in the Garden.

[quote] You would think that god would have chosne to reveal himself before paganism got popular. After all, worshiping him, rather than some pagan god, is one of the ten commandments (the first, in fact!). You would think it would have been a higher priority for him.[/quote]Why are their other gods? Because like you not all men want to worship The God. They want to have a say in what is right and how they worship. With The God of the bible it is not possiable. So they create their own gods.

(October 12, 2012 at 11:15 am)ronedee Wrote: When you think about it really deeply...this is the ONLY way it could happen. At least w/o us being robots.

The only way it could happen? Are you saying that god is constrained by external rules that are beyond his ability to change?

And can you prove that we're not robots?

(October 12, 2012 at 12:11 pm)Darkstar Wrote: Yeah! Just like the guys who invented Zeus, it was the best they could come up with! or...they saw how sucussful older religions had been at controlling people and decided to try it out for themselves. Here's a thought: if this is the One True Faith™, then why isn't it the first? You would think that god would have chosne to reveal himself before paganism got popular. After all, worshiping him, rather than some pagan god, is one of the ten commandments (the first, in fact!). You would think it would have been a higher priority for him.

I didn't say anything except my concepts and ideas that "seem" to make some sense of why God might have gone this route.

Believe wtf you want. At least I've invested thought and learning on both sides of the issue. Rather than throw yours/others views out the window in a bias rage! There aint much here I haven't heard from an Atheist either!

Whatever your opinion on Catholics/Chrisitians etc....If what I wrote doesn't make "some" kind of sense to a thinking person then they would be the FIRST....and in total denial of anything to do with religion and God.

And unless you can come up with an argument "about" what I said...Then ...well, you don't have an argument! Tell me WHY it doesn't make any sense...and I'll listen?

(October 11, 2012 at 9:57 pm)Drich Wrote: I have used the Term: Ask, Seek, and Knock A/S/K and the verses in Luke 11 to describe the start point of Christianity in several threads now. Does everyone understand this principle fully? Do you know what you are A/S/K for and you do you what that looks like when you get what you A/S/K for? Do you know what to do with it when you got it?

Is it kind of like squat, crap and smell?

Hey, Drippy,

Quote:If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

This is your own pile of shit. I realize that you have a bizarre interpretation of it....I attribute that to you being a complete asshole...but unless you are saying that all prayers are answered positively then your god is nothing but a fucking liar. Hell...everything for everybody...he could be Mitt Romney!

Since you have never provided a shred of evidence that your god is anything more than a figment of your own fucked up imagination I'll go with the more rational answer that you are out of your fucking mind.

(October 12, 2012 at 1:42 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

(October 12, 2012 at 11:15 am)ronedee Wrote: When you think about it really deeply...this is the ONLY way it could happen. At least w/o us being robots.

The only way it could happen? Are you saying that god is constrained by external rules that are beyond his ability to change?

And can you prove that were not robots?

As for the "ONLY" way? YES! God ultimately wants us to be like Him (through Love)!

If we were to see Him there would be "NO CHOICE" like Robots! And like the Angels...we would either worship Him, or want to take what He has!

Lucifer wanted to "be" God! When cast into Hell, the angel Micheal said: "Who is like God?"

You, and me have the ability to be like GOD! But it has to be attained, NOT given to us for no other reason than being here, or taken from Him.

HUMAN is the vehicle. But there is/was a price for both us and God!

(October 11, 2012 at 9:57 pm)Drich Wrote: I have used the Term: Ask, Seek, and Knock A/S/K and the verses in Luke 11 to describe the start point of Christianity in several threads now. Does everyone understand this principle fully? Do you know what you are A/S/K for and you do you what that looks like when you get what you A/S/K for? Do you know what to do with it when you got it?

I am open to PM's if you do not wish to openly discuss.

Do you understand the concept of "You are so full of crap you can't imagine there are things in the world that is not part of your crap"? Do you know that your crap actually makes you crap, and what crap like you, and yours, looks like to people with brains and sense? Do you know what you can do with your crap?

I am open to PM's if you do not wish to openly discuss.

(October 12, 2012 at 2:09 pm)Minimalist Wrote: .but unless you are saying that all prayers are answered positively then your god is nothing but a fucking liar.

What I am saying is God always answers His children in the positive when they A/S/K. However that does not mean a non believe is to be considered a child of God. As the story points out even just a 'neighbor' out of sheer persistence can Also obtain a measure of the Holy Spirit to find the 'proof' of God he is looking for.

What I have offered here in this thread is a way to identify what God is offered you and an explaination as to how to be faithful to what has been given to you so you may be given more.

(October 12, 2012 at 2:10 pm)ronedee Wrote: As for the "ONLY" way? YES! God ultimately wants us to be like Him (through Love)!

If we were to see Him there would be "NO CHOICE" like Robots! And like the Angels...we would either worship Him, or want to take what He has!

Lucifer wanted to "be" God! When cast into Hell, the angel Micheal said: "Who is like God?"

You, and me have the ability to be like GOD! But it has to be attained, NOT given to us for no other reason than being here, or taken from Him.

HUMAN is the vehicle. But there is/was a price for both us and God!

So, god is constrained by outside rules rendering him less than omnipotent. Now that we have that out in the open, do you have any proof that we are not robots?

Quote:What I am saying is God always answers His children in the positive when they A/S/K.

Absolute horse shit.

There was a point in my life where, having been scared away from questioning the God I'd been brought up to accept as real, I was guided by a Christian friend (who was entirely sincere and remains my friend) to seek God anew, as I saw that he was happy and fulfilled in his life and I wanted that for myself. I've battled serious problems with depression and a negative self-image my entire life, so the idea that the greatest being in the universe might love and accept me in spite of all that was of enormous appeal to me in my early 20s. I tried attending various churches. I studied scripture and tried to understand it (my Christian upbringing had been of the lazy variety). I sought fellowship. And I was as sincere about the whole thing as I could have been.

In the end, I got nothing from it. I was never any happier than I was before, and in spite of the message of salvation and love from my co-religionists and contemporaries, the book by which I was supposed to draw inspiration I found to be full of the same exact sort of negative reinforcement which made me a self-hating and depressed wreck in the first place. I am unworthy. I am a bad person. I live in sin. I can never measure up to my Heavenly father's greatness just as I could never live up to my earthly father's expectations. The more I read, the less I liked what I read.

That's what I got when I ASKed. I got a Sky Daddy who held me in perhaps worse contempt than my actual father did, with the added insult that my actual father apologized to me in my adulthood without demanding anything further from me.

A significant (though probably not the largest) part of what has transformed me from a sincere, if failed, Christian in my early 20s all the way into the vitriolic antitheist I am at 30 is a matter of understanding (in retrospect) out how much of a waste it was to try ASKing for love from a deity whose entire history is one of blood-soaked hatred and sadism. I feel as if I was badly suckered by the modern PR campaign which paints this monster as the goodest of good guys. The God of Scripture is not a god of love, but a god of divisiveness, hatred and monumental pain for humanity as a whole and crushing destruction of self-esteem for the individual.

If I did not meet this supposed standard of sincerity, it is sure as hell not for want of my trying.