(March 1, 2013 at 12:02 am)Drich Wrote:

(February 27, 2013 at 11:30 pm)Question Mark Wrote: So the third step is to simply repeat the second step until it works? (correct me if I got that wrong)

That sounds about right.

Quote:Not to be argumentative, but don't you think that's rather a bad way of finding god?

Not according to God the Son.
(Remember this is a cut and paste of His words not mine)

Quote:Essentially waiting for him to come to me, and being patient with my very short (relative to eternity) life to wait for him, someone who is omniscient and omnipresent.

It's about humility. will you do as you are told?

Quote:It seems discourteous on a point as important as the state of my immortal soul to be so blasé when I ask and exert myself, when he has the power to answer me whenever it takes his fancy.

What else can you do?

Quote:Oh well. I'll always keep an eye out for something that might indicate godly presence, but the more I think about it, this really isn't all too convincing.

1Cor 1:26 Brothers and sisters, God chose you to be his. Think about that! Not many of you were wise in the way the world judges wisdom. Not many of you had great influence, and not many of you came from important families. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 And God chose what the world thinks is not important—what the world hates and thinks is nothing. He chose these to destroy what the world thinks is important. 29 God did this so that no one can stand before him and boast about anything. 30 It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. And Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is the reason we are right with God and pure enough to be in his presence. Christ is the one who set us free from sin. 31 So, as the Scriptures say, “Whoever boasts should boast only about the Lord.”[d]

...Seems to me it's all par for the course.

It all reminds me forcefully of what happened to Job. Humility, don't ask questions, accept god and worship him. I don't really find what happened to Job all too appealing.

I'm sorry Drich, but this criteria is just insane, not least because I tried it, earnestly, and god didn't do anything, but also because the answer is apparently to just try it until it works. What if I did it my whole life, and god never, ever answered me?

Also I have a nagging quote in my head whenever I think of trying it again: "Insanity is performing the same action over and over again and expecting different results" - A. Einstein.

Thanks for being direct about it though, it's nice to get some straightforward answers.

(February 28, 2013 at 2:37 am)FallentoReason Wrote:

Drich Wrote: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.

Been there, done that. Nothing.

Quote: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.

We are masters at exaggeration. Your story of having visited hell in your dreams happened ~20 years ago. That's twenty whole years of retelling the story, where with each retelling it gets that much more fantastic.

I went to a university camp before the start of my first year. Long story short, a mate and I were going to the dorm of someone we met the night before and as we walked into his room in the morning, we saw him wet his bunk bed. He had so much urine to release that it seeped through the top bunk mattress and formed a stream of water on the other side and it wet the empty bunk bed beneath. During the start of our second year, I was walking around campus with someone and I bumped into him. The first story he told my friend was of him wetting the bed... and how he wet the person below and they woke up and said "huh, what the f*%&?!".

Stories get modified Drich, whether you like it or not. Good for you that you feel warm and think you have some connection to a bipolar character in a narrative, but you'll need more than a trivial dream which happened twenty years ago to prove your beliefs.

Who said anything about the Hell story? I don't know about you, but for me "Hell" is not my promise land.

Quote:I experienced god just as much as the Muslim experiences theirs. That's the whole point... the believer isn't a trustworthy source of confirmation of a belief.

I AM NOT SAYING YOU TAKE THE BELIEVERS WORD! I Am Saying That You Set Yourself Up To Experience God For Yourself. God only offers your specific brand of 'Proof' To YOU. Nothing He can share with me will help you. So why not Get What You Need From God Himself?!?!

Quote: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.

Quote:Agreed. Prove that he exists, otherwise we're wasting our time following a particular Holy book that the Western world just so happens to be brought up with.

agreed. 'we' are waisting our time here.

Drich Wrote:Who said anything about the Hell story? I don't know about you, but for me "Hell" is not my promise land.

I used that story as an example instead because I don't know of your "promise land" story.

Quote:I AM NOT SAYING YOU TAKE THE BELIEVERS WORD! I Am Saying That You Set Yourself Up To Experience God For Yourself. God only offers your specific brand of 'Proof' To YOU. Nothing He can share with me will help you. So why not Get What You Need From God Himself?!?!

*sigh*

We can sit down a Muslim, Christian, Zoroastrian, Jew & Hindu and ask them "have you encountered your god"? They will all nod in unison. Moral of the story? We have liars sitting in front of us, so even before we begin your religion's particular method of contacting God, we need to sort out who believes in the right religion. How do we proceed? Prove that the Bible is the truth of the Cosmos, otherwise I could be setting myself up for a re-enactment of 1984 with a fraudulent belief system.

(March 1, 2013 at 12:16 am)Question Mark Wrote: It all reminds me forcefully of what happened to Job. Humility, don't ask questions, accept god and worship him. I don't really find what happened to Job all too appealing.

http://www.lyricshall.com/lyrics/Laura+Story/Blessings/
This is THE first time I have ever differed to a song to answer a question, but the person who wrote this song has very strong understanding of the purpose of hardships and trials. Please take the time to click on the link and read the lyrics of this song.

That said know God has no problem answering questions. There has not been a question (mine or any of yours) I have humbly asked God that He has not provide me with an answer to. The reason He was upset with Job was because Job did not asked God questions, He questioned God. Do you understand what I mean here?

Quote:I'm sorry Drich, but this criteria is just insane, not least because I tried it, earnestly,

But according to what you told me you didn't. you did things your own way "X" when God instructed you to do "Y." Then when you were fully exposed to "Y" you said that leaves you too vurnable to God. (which is a bit ironic, because you are anyway.)

Quote: and god didn't do anything, but also because the answer is apparently to just try it until it works.

It is to 'try' it till you leave your pride at the door and come to the understanding that God is in control (always was) and nothing will happen until you let go, and Let God.

Quote:What if I did it my whole life, and god never, ever answered me?

What if God has answered you your whole life and you never took time to listen. Read that quote from 1 corth 1 again (what I ended with in my last post)

Quote:Also I have a nagging quote in my head whenever I think of trying it again: "Insanity is performing the same action over and over again and expecting different results" - A. Einstein.

Two question have you looked into how Einstein came up with that little revelation? and did it make him change course?

Quote:Thanks for being direct about it though, it's nice to get some straightforward answers.

answers are meaningless, unless you take the information provided and apply it to your life.

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(March 1, 2013 at 12:29 am)FallentoReason Wrote: I used that story as an example instead because I don't know of your "promise land" story.

There is nothing to tell or rather nothing I can say. I am living it. What I can offer is that you have an oppertunity to live it yourself. To see it for yourself.

Drich Wrote:There is nothing to tell or rather nothing I can say. I am living it. What I can offer is that you have an oppertunity to live it yourself. To see it for yourself.

No thanks. Your beliefs lack the solid foundations that are found in anything that is true. The necessary starting point has to be "the Bible is true" so that we can go through all sorts of motions and emotions to come to the conclusion that "the Bible is true".

Drich, I'm sorry, but I've had enough. The process doesn't work, or is so badly formed that it has a very low success rate. I tried it as you put it down (since you put it down), and every problem faced is answered with "You simply didn't do it right" or "You must be ignoring god's answer". You can't tell me that's what's happening when you're not here, seeing and experiencing what I'm seeing and experiencing, which is nothing.

I don't know how it worked for you, if it worked for you, and if it did, why it worked for you, but at the end of this and every previous attempt to somehow connect with whatever god is out there, nothing has happened. I would have thought that given that god is all powerful/knowing/present, it'd be remarkably easy to connect to it, but every time I fail, it's just dancing around and telling me that I must have done it wrong.

Well put it this way: Until god can come up with an actually reasonable means of discerning himself to me, I'm not going to keep looking only to find nothing, or to find a sign so inscrutable from the background of reality, that god must simply be taking the piss. I'm just not. Especially when there's about 50 other faiths all saying the exact same thing about their own individual gods as distinct from yours.

No offense meant by this, really, but I'm just tired of people pushing back the goalposts every time I try to get to their level.

(March 1, 2013 at 12:52 am)Question Mark Wrote: Drich, I'm sorry, but I've had enough. The process doesn't work, or is so badly formed that it has a very low success rate. I tried it as you put it down (since you put it down), and every problem faced is answered with "You simply didn't do it right" or "You must be ignoring god's answer". You can't tell me that's what's happening when you're not here, seeing and experiencing what I'm seeing and experiencing, which is nothing.

I don't know how it worked for you, if it worked for you, and if it did, why it worked for you, but at the end of this and every previous attempt to somehow connect with whatever god is out there, nothing has happened. I would have thought that given that god is all powerful/knowing/present, it'd be remarkably easy to connect to it, but every time I fail, it's just dancing around and telling me that I must have done it wrong.

Well put it this way: Until god can come up with an actually reasonable means of discerning himself to me, I'm not going to keep looking only to find nothing, or to find a sign so inscrutable from the background of reality, that god must simply be taking the piss. I'm just not. Especially when there's about 50 other faiths all saying the exact same thing about their own individual gods as distinct from yours.

No offense meant by this, really, but I'm just tired of people pushing back the goalposts every time I try to get to their level.

^THIS.

You see Drich, it's simply too mysterious and indistinguishable from your god's non-existence.

Quote:Especially when there's about 50 other faiths all saying the exact same thing about their own individual gods as distinct from yours.

Hell, there are 39,999 other versions of Christianity who say different things about the same God. Drich seems to take it for granted that his interpretation of his faith is more accurate then theirs, though in fairness to our crusader, most Christians feel exactly the same way about their interpretations.

(March 1, 2013 at 12:52 am)Question Mark Wrote: Drich, I'm sorry, but I've had enough. The process doesn't work, or is so badly formed that it has a very low success rate. I tried it as you put it down (since you put it down), and every problem faced is answered with "You simply didn't do it right" or "You must be ignoring god's answer". You can't tell me that's what's happening when you're not here, seeing and experiencing what I'm seeing and experiencing, which is nothing.

I don't know how it worked for you, if it worked for you, and if it did, why it worked for you, but at the end of this and every previous attempt to somehow connect with whatever god is out there, nothing has happened. I would have thought that given that god is all powerful/knowing/present, it'd be remarkably easy to connect to it, but every time I fail, it's just dancing around and telling me that I must have done it wrong.

Well put it this way: Until god can come up with an actually reasonable means of discerning himself to me, I'm not going to keep looking only to find nothing, or to find a sign so inscrutable from the background of reality, that god must simply be taking the piss. I'm just not. Especially when there's about 50 other faiths all saying the exact same thing about their own individual gods as distinct from yours.

No offense meant by this, really, but I'm just tired of people pushing back the goalposts every time I try to get to their level.

The goal posts have not moved. Again by your own admission you never set out to reach them. When this was brought to your attention your story changed so you can claim mine did. Read Luke 11 again nothing I have said has changed from what was written 2000 yeas ago. The command is ask seek knock. Not ask. Ask seek. Or seek knock or ask knock.. We have been given only three things to do to meet God. Either you do them or you find a reason not to. That is between you and God.

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(March 1, 2013 at 1:30 am)Ryantology Wrote:

Quote:Especially when there's about 50 other faiths all saying the exact same thing about their own individual gods as distinct from yours.

Hell, there are 39,999 other versions of Christianity who say different things about the same God. Drich seems to take it for granted that his interpretation of his faith is more accurate then theirs, though in fairness to our crusader, most Christians feel exactly the same way about their interpretations.

Who says they are all wrong?

(March 1, 2013 at 1:47 am)Drich Wrote: Who says they are all wrong?

I don't know, because that isn't what I just said.