(January 18, 2013 at 1:34 am)Drich Wrote: Again, Their is no "try." Either one submits or he does not.

I'm sure you're smart enough to know what I meant.

Quote:It's not about seeking Hard enough. It is about following the Path laid out before us as God illustrates.

....or maybe you're not.

Quote:I know the people I Speak with well enough to have an idea.

You're arrogant.

Quote:Petition? Or Actual Prayer?
God is not obligated to answer any petition. God always answers prayer.

So out of these hundreds of thousands of people, none of them have actually legitimately prayed to God?

(January 18, 2013 at 1:18 am)CapnAwesome Wrote:

(January 18, 2013 at 12:38 am)Brian37 Wrote: "Spiritual" is a bullshit word, I do not like it even when Sam Harris uses it.

Sam Harris strikes me as someone who has smoked a whole lot of pot in his day.

He is a great guy. A neurologist to boot. But smart people are just as capable of any evolutionary flaws we can all have.

I don't think pot had anything to do with it. I simply think while he knows his shit, he misses the perspectives others might have.

"End Of Faith" was fantastic. And "Letter To a Christian Nation" I found myself screaming with cheer. But everyone still shits and farts and has flaws.

Drich Wrote:It's not about 'believeing hard enough." It about simple obediance. For Christ tells us all we need is the Faith of a mustard seed, and God will move any mountain set before you, If you simply ask in his Name.

Oh, that's easy enough then. Been there, done that. Didn't work.

Quote:

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Understand God is not granting random wishes for you. The Kione word for mountain was used to describe an insurmountable obstical. For you it is 'proof.' In otherwords God is offering you the 'Mountain of Proof' you need to establish and maintain belief if you do as He instructs. It starts with A/S/K for a measure of the Holy Spirit. In this gift, one of the first manfestations of the Spirit will be Spiritual discernement. This often comes in the way of sin identification. In otherwords you will be able to see the sins in your own life that are keeping you from a relationship with God.

Christ Tells us All of the Laws of the prophets can be summed up in our two Greatest commands. Love the Lord your God with all of your being, and Love your neighbor as yourself. I want to focous on our Greatest command. Love your Lord God with you whole being, you Mind, Heart, Soul your Strength. This means nothing is to come between you and the God you love. This includes sin. So by giving you the ablity to identify sin God is asking that you repent or turn from what you currently hold tightly in your heart. For God can not or rather will not occupy The space in your heart that you have given over to your sin of choice.

If you are faithful to the measure of the holy Spirit God has given you, and you learn to repent or turn from this sin, You will be given greater and Greater portions of the Holy Spirit. He will continue to do so till your cup or capasity house the Holy Spirit is over flowing.

However If you are not faithful to the Measure of the Holy Spirit you have been given, then what you have will be taken from you and given to the one who was faithful. Leaving you worse off than if you never knew God at all. That said know that not being faithful to the Spiritual gifts you were once given is not the unpardonable sin. Their is forgiveness if you will simply A/S/K.
It's just (As I am sure you are all to aware) harder to go back once you left. Their is an issue of pride to now deal with on top of whatever you could not let go of to begin with.

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Yeah, I mean you can dress it up in your particular religious flavour, but what I'm really interested is in the problem I've outlined which you've ignored twice now:

FtR Wrote:

Drich Wrote:Dreams/visions

Woah, woah, slow down! You're already on a whim claiming then that God interferes in nature to produce these revelation? I'd like to know how please.

As I explained, we can think of ourselves as closed systems and anything that comes out of us was from our own brain. Anything that enters came from the environment. Now you sir are already claiming that you're receivin information from *somewhere*. I'd like to know the science behind it as your claim implicitly proposes that nature is being messed around with. Therefore I should expect to find empirical evidence.

(January 18, 2013 at 12:13 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Do you think being on acid or getting high would be much different to a dosage of DMT?

I have not taken DMT, but I have met people that did take it. I've done acid many, many times and none of those times ever came close to the descriptions I was told about what DMT does to people. So, yes, it would be much different.

(January 18, 2013 at 1:42 am)Surtr Wrote:

(January 18, 2013 at 1:34 am)Drich Wrote: Again, Their is no "try." Either one submits or he does not.

I'm sure you're smart enough to know what I meant.

Quote:It's not about seeking Hard enough. It is about following the Path laid out before us as God illustrates.

....or maybe you're not.

Their is a difference between Complete submission and 'trying hard enough' to chirstian you way into spiritual maturity.

Again simply going to the meetings and learn how to be a pop christian has little to do with Biblical Christianity.

Meaning if you believe trying to be a christianity/faithful is the same as the broken submission required, then at Best you are mistaken.

Quote:You're arrogant.

And, you are persumptious. I have been answering the same questions Atheist Ask over and over for nearly 8 years. If one after all of that time speaking on the same subjects does not have some sort of idea as to the nature of the person asking the question by the way he asks the question and frames his follow ups, then he does not need to be doing this.

Quote:So out of these hundreds of thousands of people, none of them have actually legitimately prayed to God?

I would say out of everyone who ever lived very few people actually Pray to God, and either know what they are praying for and mean it.

Because, How have we been taught to pray? By asking for things, and with the hopes of changing God's will to suit our own desires. For God to move Heaven and earth to make our lives easier or better in some perceived way.

How has Christ Taught us to pray? By Having Us to Ask God to Change our persepective to Match His will, To bend us, to break us, to mold and Make us into who He wants us to be. This means to invite hardship, and persecution to help strip away the pride and everything else that keeps us from fully knowing God.

In your "Trying" how many times did you "Knock" on that door?

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(January 18, 2013 at 2:59 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Oh, that's easy enough then. Been there, done that. Didn't work.

Quote:From what I remember about one of our last conversations I know this not to be true. From what I remember you were a wish maker and when God did not grant your wishes in the time frame you set for Him, you decided that God was not real. For you had a list of demands you were going to trade out for the 'works' you did under the name of christianity.

That does not exactly match up with what Christ said in luke 11.

[quote][Yeah, I mean you can dress it up in your particular religious flavour, but what I'm really interested is in the problem I've outlined which you've ignored twice now:

I ignored this because it has already been addressed several times.

FtR Wrote:Woah, woah, slow down! You're already on a whim claiming then that God interferes in nature to produce these revelation? I'd like to know how please.

This is an invalid assumption. If God IS the Creator of the known universe Why does one assume He is bound by only moving outside of the Natural universe He created? Would it not be logical that if God call the Natural universe into Creation then He could also use Natural processes to carry out whatever He willed? In fact the bible points to the Natural world as 'proof' of God. God only ever works 'supernaturally' to establish himself in the eyes of man.

Quote:As I explained, we can think of ourselves as closed systems and anything that comes out of us was from our own brain. Anything that enters came from the environment. Now you sir are already claiming that you're receivin information from *somewhere*. I'd like to know the science behind it as your claim implicitly proposes that nature is being messed around with. Therefore I should expect to find empirical evidence.

To which in the Thread I responded to 3 instances where I believe God directly interveened in my life. One in a dream/vision. Google "dreams" if you want to know How the work. 2) Through a physical Messenger/Angel (One who carried a direct message from God) Look Up Messenger/Message Thread that I wrote if you want to know the details there. 3) By having one of "His Chosen people" (Who was a complete stranger to me) give me 25K and told me to start my own business.

One Dream (again google them if you want to know how they work)

Two flesh and blood people (as far as I know) One told me of my future, and how to direct my life, The other provided the means to full fill what the first said do.

How does that work? you tell me. The two events were almost 10 years apart, and the two people I interacted with could not be more different. I do not persume to speak for God here.

@Drich:

In your Message/Messenger thread, you stated that you wrote down the story of your encounter with this Angel/Messenger directly after the event. Do you still have this record? Would you be willing to share it with us? I ask this for a number of reasons. First, natural interest and relevance to the current thread. Second, it's important to examine various attributes of any supposed foretelling to determine how likely they are a result of normal processes such as cold reading and the Forer effect. It would go a long way toward establishing the credibility of your reports to have the specifics. Many "liars for Christ" tell compelling but vague stories that are made up just for the sake of persuading others to approach Christ; as always, the devil is in the details, and the lack of specifics tends to undermine the credibility of such stories.

Do you still have that record? What was the situation regarding the person who gave you $25k? And I'd still like to hear about the alleged story of you being told not to preach. Can you share that with us?

Drich Wrote:How has Christ Taught us to pray? By Having Us to Ask God to Change our persepective to Match His will, To bend us, to break us, to mold and Make us into who He wants us to be. This means to invite hardship, and persecution to help strip away the pride and everything else that keeps us from fully knowing God.

Is it just me, or does the relationship with God sound exactly like the relationship between a submissive and his mistress in BDSM play, right down to how profoundly phony it is?

From what you say Drich, it seems like empirical evidence should be available to show that God intervenes. For example, with the dreams, I'd like to see some scientific journals that show the test subject was being contacted by God. Whether it be that particles materialised in his brain, sound was being produced by God and his ear drums were picking it up.... whatever it is, YOU claim that the believer is being messed with in some way, shape or form.

(January 18, 2013 at 6:20 pm)Ryantology Wrote: Is it just me, or does the relationship with God sound exactly like the relationship between a submissive and his mistress in BDSM play, right down to how profoundly phony it is?

Aw, come on, phony? Don't besmirch BDSM like that, least of all by comparing it to religion!

BDSM can often be a deeply fulfilling and meaningful experience, and it has the added bonus of being completely verifiable. So I guess what I'm saying is, put down the bible and pick up a flogger.

Now, have I revealed enough strange personal proclivities with that tangent yet, or what?

(January 18, 2013 at 6:04 pm)apophenia Wrote:


@Drich:

In your Message/Messenger thread, you stated that you wrote down the story of your encounter with this Angel/Messenger directly after the event. Do you still have this record? Would you be willing to share it with us? I ask this for a number of reasons. First, natural interest and relevance to the current thread. Second, it's important to examine various attributes of any supposed foretelling to determine how likely they are a result of normal processes such as cold reading and the Forer effect. It would go a long way toward establishing the credibility of your reports to have the specifics. Many "liars for Christ" tell compelling but vague stories that are made up just for the sake of persuading others to approach Christ; as always, the devil is in the details, and the lack of specifics tends to undermine the credibility of such stories.

Do you still have that record? What was the situation regarding the person who gave you $25k? And I'd still like to hear about the alleged story of you being told not to preach. Can you share that with us?

I have some old boxes in storage. If I still have the notebook I wrote everything down in it would be there. I'll see what I can find.

I have written about how we got our start in the past. I can fish it so here it is again.

In 01 just after 9-11 I lost my job to my boss's nephew, who had no experience. so i went to the competition and asked for a job, (I knew the GM) and as luck would have it he had just finished cleAring out his desk as well (He had been fired too.) so he asked if I wanted to go into business with him since I had the experience and an established client list. He said after 2 years he would make me a partner. 2 years came and went very quickly, and then one February he went MIA. For over a month. I kept working without pay till the credit cards and company accounts hit their limits. Then he came back 2 nd week of march, work through the month and disappeared in April for the first few weeks again. While working at a customers facility I was approached by a short fat old man who I had seen before but never spoken with. He introduced himself as the owner. Then he asked me WTF was the deal with the sparratic billing. He said he walked in this morning and their were 6 weeks of invoices on his desk all with the same bill date and consecutive invoice numbers.

He knows some of the repairs were legit because he remembers the break Downs. But they were not in the right order. I told him I did not know what was going on, but I would look into it. Then he asked if I could do a better job of billing if the company was mine. I said yes, and then he asked if I could still keep up with the work load and maintain the same level of quality control, and again I said yes. He asked how much would I need to get started and I just shot out some (what I thought were big numbers) then he said could you do it for half, I said if I had a truck to put everything instead of a shop.. then he told me to talk it over with my wife, and if could pay him back in two years it will be interest free. I spoke with her and she thought he wanted me to go on a "business trip" or something with him to some beach in the Caribbean or something Like that for the money. I asked her to come to our next meeting (at Denny's) and she asked why he was doing all of this. He said: "Dan was aman of integrity and knew this because he had others check up on my work and even tested me with some set up units, and we only fixed what was wrong even though we could have fudged a bigger bill." He went on to say that he knew my partner was circling the bowl and the current business was not going to be around much longer. He talked everything over with his wife and both felt lead to help us out. So on my second meeting with him at that dennys he wrote me a check for 25 thousand dollars, and called a few people and got me a crazy deal on a box truck from a leasing company to start out in. I paid back the loan I under a year, he set me up with another interest free loan for the second truck, paid in 6 months, and the rest is history. We as a company have literally doubled every year since the beginning despite what this economy is doing. I can't talk about details but the future looks even brighter. (Far greater than anything I could have imagined for my self.

I am not sure what you are talking about when you said you wanted to hear the story of me being told not to preach... Which time?

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(January 18, 2013 at 10:01 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: From what you say Drich, it seems like empirical evidence should be available to show that God intervenes. For example, with the dreams, I'd like to see some scientific journals that show the test subject was being contacted by God. Whether it be that particles materialised in his brain, sound was being produced by God and his ear drums were picking it up.... whatever it is, YOU claim that the believer is being messed with in some way, shape or form.

So would I.
Let me know what you come up with.