(January 30, 2014 at 2:52 pm)Drich Wrote: just ask for it. Simply say: God i need a mustard seeds worth of faith. You don't even need that to ask for the faith of a mustard seed. all you need is the ablity to read and a want to have this faith.

I have to have faith for that to register to me as a legitimate question. How do you not get that.

Quote:At this point in your journey belief has nothing to do with it. Your just following the bread crumbs.
Simply go where they lead you.

You seem obstinate in your insistence that I haven't.

Quote:It is the foolish things of this world God uses to confound the supposed 'wise and learned.'

Guess he doesn't want me trying to find him, then.

Quote:The 'methods' you use were created by men looking to intentionally distance themselves from God. The entire methodolgy is critically flawed. In that it is designed to always exclude God as a possiable answer to anything.

There is nothing intentional about my methodology. I don't dismiss faith in God because I don't want it, but because it has demonstrated itself to be useless to me as it has produced none of the promised results, not just for me personally, but for anything external to myself.

Quote:This is illustrated when one of you good people ask for proof, and i ask, what does 'proof' look like? No one has ever answered this in such away as to have something take away all doubt from everyone who subscribes to this method of thinking. Matter of fact none of you (except for a petition for a winning lottery ticket) has answered this question period. Why? Because your current belief system will NOT allow you consider God for anything. That my friends is a true confirmation bias.

Sufficient proof for me would be God putting in an appearance in such a way that his presence can be empirically verified by people who don't have pre-existing faith.

Quote:Why? because this 'wiring' always allows for some explaination no matter how out there to be more plausable that the truth set before you.

This is the choice I see that most of you have made. You put your faith in a method of understanding the world around you, rather than God. over looking the fact that a 'faith in facts' is still an excercise in Faith. The same faith needed to A/S/K. It's just you taken the mustard seed God has given you and planted it the 'field of science.' If this is true then simply ask for another one.

I have faith only in things that are demonstrably true or likely to be true because they depend on demonstrable evidence. That is astronomically less faith than is required to believe in something that none of my senses, logic or reason identifies as different from a fictional character.

Quote:Did you ever play any old school RPG? when ever you started you were usally given character points of some sort, and you could take these character points and personal the hero any way you like. You could distribute these points in catagories like strength, Health, Magic, depending on how you wanted to play the game. I see something simliar here with your 'mustard seed.' You have only been given mustard seed, and you put in the science catagory rather than the God catagory.. Not a big deal. Just get over your self enough to ask for another seed. If you can't just read this aloud and i'll help you:

"God give Me another Mustard seed."

then when you get it be faithful to it.

As I mentioned just before, you're mistaken. I did not choose to place my faith in science. Science works. It produces tangible results. And it does so whether or not I have faith in it.

Even so, that doesn't mean I have faith in all of science. There are plenty of hypotheses that I have no faith in, such as the multiverse hypothesis. Is it impossible? No more than God is. That isn't enough for me to make a positive statement of faith about it. I need solid results before I give it my faith.

Quote:Faith is belief without evidence as so many of you have pointed out. If you have been actually reading what I have said, I am showing and telling you that I do not have faith. God has and continues to give me evidence on a daily basis. Which means what i have is not faith.

Your faith is belief without evidence. That is the faith that is completely missing in me, the faith I literally cannot have in anything at all.

There is on thing in which I have faith without evidence, and it is the faith that makes me believe I'm on one side of the solipsistic barrier. That is faith without evidence. But, why not? For one, I have nothing to lose, and for another, it's still not the same as your faith, because I'm not going to sit here and insist that I'm certain about it. I'm not. I simply operate under the assumption because I've not been faced with a good reason not to.

Quote:Just short of God personally showing me where and what i have wrong in the bible, I will NEVER be convinced otherwise.. In this regaurd I am a saul of tarsus.

I seen too much, Experience too much and been apart of too many miraclous things to not believe in God.

It is as I suspected. You are too sure that you are correct to ever entertain the idea that you have interpreted everything incorrectly.

That is not true for me. You could be 100% correct. If you are, there should be evidence sufficient to satisfy the standards I have described. Your methods fall miserably short of that, though you appear incapable of being honest about the reasons why that is.

(January 30, 2014 at 2:59 pm)Chuck Wrote:

(January 30, 2014 at 2:25 pm)Drich?' Wrote: what makes you think I do not receive answers? How would it be possiable to be here and do what i do and not receive answers?

Appearently you received no answer when you asked god about the proper spelling of "possible".

I stopped PETITIONING' God about Spelling a long time ago.

That is one of many 'thorns in my flesh.' (Paul was given A "thorn" to keep him humble.)

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(January 30, 2014 at 3:00 pm)rasetsu Wrote:

(January 30, 2014 at 2:52 pm)Drich Wrote: 4 you are holding up 4 fingers.

So, in other words, it isn't God answering, it's just you. Thought so.

Btw, telling someone you know doesn't have fingers that they're holding up 4 of them is even more stupid than your usual.

Come on Rasetsu, you use to be better than this or was that my imagination?

I prefaced my 'Asking God questions' To biblically based/confirmable nature of God questions. I said I wasn't going to be apart of the 'what am i/you thinking crap.' Why? Because when Jesus saw that kind of 'trap' the Pharisees laid for Him, He did not play along either. rather He made them come to terms with His lesson/what he wanted to teach. By his example so shall I. (or I will move on)

The fact that you remain in your corner lashing out, asking me to jump through hoops that I started out saying i was not going to be apart of. says that you would perfer the relitive safty of a fools arguement, (An arguement only a fool thought you won) than take a risk and ask a serious question, that may make you look foolish to everyone.

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(January 30, 2014 at 3:12 pm)Tonus Wrote:

(January 30, 2014 at 1:59 pm)Drich Wrote: Again All someone need do who does not already believe is to simply ask and keep asking for what is needed to A/S/K. When you do this know God is not going to send you an angel to sprinkle faith dust on your head while you sleep. Your life will most likly change in some way, that will place you in a position where your only way out is through devine help. Or that you will be bombarded so harshly by life that you will want mercy/help again.

I would think that there are not many scenarios a person would find himself in where the only way out is divine intervention. Would this be something that god maneuvered the person into, in order to convince him that the help could not have been anything but divine?

which makes you being there apart of the whole confirmation process does it not?

(January 30, 2014 at 4:54 pm)Drich Wrote: I prefaced my 'Asking God questions' To biblically based/confirmable nature of God questions.

And I satisfied your request. God, if he exists, knows the answer. That you do not have the answer shows that either God does not exist, or he has chosen not to share himself with you.

That was the point. And all this "you didn't give me a question that I know how to answer" is just the complaint of a carnival side show man when his "show" goes wrong.

I was asking God. And true to form, God is nowhere to be found.

That's your failure Drich, failing to see that you aren't the one being asked to answer. I asked it of God. I sought him. And I continue to knock, even in this post. And all I hear are your excuses as to why he doesn't show.

So all your complaints reduce to one sorry refrain, "I can't produce the god I claimed exists," followed by a bunch of lame excuses.

(January 30, 2014 at 8:41 pm)rasetsu Wrote: And I satisfied your request. God, if he exists, knows the answer. That you do not have the answer shows that either God does not exist, or he has chosen not to share himself with you.

Do you know what Christ said to his disciples when they wanted Jesus to perform a trick on demand? He cursed at them and said no. He essentially told them they would be too stupid to recognize what will (has) already been done.

So tell me, how or why should God treat either of us any differently?

38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law answered Jesus. They said, “Teacher, we want to see you do a miracle as a sign from God.”

39 Jesus answered, “Evil and sinful people are the ones who want to see a miracle as a sign. But no miracle will be done to prove anything to them. The only sign will be the miracle that happened to the prophet Jonah.[f] 40 Jonah was in the stomach of the big fish for three days and three nights. In the same way, the Son of Man will be in the grave three days and three nights. 41 On the judgment day, you people who live now will be compared with the people from Nineveh,[g] and they will be witnesses who show how guilty you are. Why do I say this? Because when Jonah preached to those people, they changed their lives. And you are listening to someone greater than Jonah, but you refuse to change!

Quote:Do you know what Christ said to his disciples when they wanted Jesus to perform a trick on demand? He cursed at them and said no. He essentially told them they would be too stupid to recognize what will (has) already been done.

You assume we're looking for 'tricks'. We're looking for evidence that he's here, evidence that doesn't rely completely on subjective interpretation, because we don't hold the same conceit that you do regarding our ability to correctly interpret the meaning of subjective events (many of which have causes proven not to be divine).

You talk a lot about your faith in God, but you have even more faith in your own ability to interpret the things that go on in your mind, and you completely do not have any basis for that faith.

The 'trick' we want is for God to communicate to us his presence in a way that doesn't require us to place that much faith in ourselves. The fact that he seems to use such demonstrably faulty methods of communication exclusively is one major reason many of us don't believe your claims.

(January 30, 2014 at 9:57 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote:

Quote:Do you know what Christ said to his disciples when they wanted Jesus to perform a trick on demand? He cursed at them and said no. He essentially told them they would be too stupid to recognize what will (has) already been done.

You assume we're looking for 'tricks'.

I wasn't speaking to 'we' I was speaking to rasetsu. She wanted a parlor trick on demand just like the Pharisees did.

Quote:We're looking for evidence that he's here, evidence that doesn't rely completely on subjective interpretation, because we don't hold the same conceit that you do regarding our ability to correctly interpret the meaning of subjective events (many of which have causes proven not to be divine).

You talk a lot about your faith in God, but you have even more faith in your own ability to interpret the things that go on in your mind, and you completely do not have any basis for that faith.

The 'trick' we want is for God to communicate to us his presence in a way that doesn't require us to place that much faith in ourselves. The fact that he seems to use such demonstrably faulty methods of communication exclusively is one major reason many of us don't believe your claims.

How can you still think that any of what I said hinges on personal interpretation?

(January 30, 2014 at 10:07 pm)Drich Wrote: How can you still think that any of what I said hinges on personal interpretation?

It's the complete lack of, or your unwillingness to demonstrate, any 'evidence' that isn't entirely subjective in nature.

Drich Wrote:God does not exist, or he has chosen not to share himself with you.

Add that to the list of things I don't consider even Biblical that I'd appreciate for you to address.

(January 30, 2014 at 9:51 pm)Drich Wrote:

(January 30, 2014 at 8:41 pm)rasetsu Wrote: And I satisfied your request. God, if he exists, knows the answer. That you do not have the answer shows that either God does not exist, or he has chosen not to share himself with you.

Do you know what Christ said to his disciples when they wanted Jesus to perform a trick on demand? He cursed at them and said no. He essentially told them they would be too stupid to recognize what will (has) already been done.

So tell me, how or why should God treat either of us any differently?

38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law answered Jesus. They said, “Teacher, we want to see you do a miracle as a sign from God.”

39 Jesus answered, “Evil and sinful people are the ones who want to see a miracle as a sign. But no miracle will be done to prove anything to them. The only sign will be the miracle that happened to the prophet Jonah.[f] 40 Jonah was in the stomach of the big fish for three days and three nights. In the same way, the Son of Man will be in the grave three days and three nights. 41 On the judgment day, you people who live now will be compared with the people from Nineveh,[g] and they will be witnesses who show how guilty you are. Why do I say this? Because when Jonah preached to those people, they changed their lives. And you are listening to someone greater than Jonah, but you refuse to change!

This is from my previous reply about the Tyre prophecy. I was going to reuse the tab in my browser, but the first sentence caught my eye, and it's quite apt as a response to you.

(September 16, 2013 at 2:45 pm)rasetsu Wrote: It's a sad comment on apologetics that it is no longer at all concerned with showing themselves correct. It's all about finding new and better ways of avoiding having to admit that you are wrong.

Since you were the one claiming that God shows you signs in your life, it's rather two-faced of you to turn around and claim that Jesus said that the asking for signs is the sign of an evil man.

(January 30, 2014 at 12:56 am)Drich Wrote: https://www.apologeticspress.org/apconte...ticle=1790

Nope nope nope.

I'm not going to take an explanation from "apologetics press," dude. Seems like they might have a little bit of a bias toward defending the indefensible, rather than, you know, the truth.

Besides, I've already seen the kind of mental gymnastics your kind are willing to employ in order to make simple, direct sentences say things they don't say. That's not news, it's just embarrassing.