(December 21, 2014 at 10:43 am)Chad32 Wrote: Usually when I hear about an adult conversion, it's when they were on drugs or otherwise fell on really hard times.

This. ^^^

When people become weak and can find no help or solace from humanity to better their lives, they sadly resort to the illogical emotional support of the supernatural. Believing that an imaginary being cares for them, even though there is no evidence that the imaginary being is even there, provides the it feels good effect they seek, even though they are clearly manipulating themselves into feeling that way through delusion.

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The problem with theists claiming that they have found god after rigorous seeking is that they cannot provide any proof that this rather elusive god does exist. The fact of the matter is that theists have merely deluded themselves into believing that what they have found is god because they like the emotional support believing in him provides.

One could just as easily seek spider-man and claim to have found him through the truths of a spider-man comic, but that does not mean spider-man exists if the believer cannot provide the evidence necessary to prove his claim.

A personal, illogical, experience is not evidence, after all.

(December 21, 2014 at 12:24 pm)robvalue Wrote: I see a whole ton of evidence that contradicts a powerful, loving being running the planet. What evidence? Virtually everything. This place is fucked up. You have to be a professional confirmation bias-ist to not notice.

What makes you think an Omni benevolent God runs the planet? The bible does not make this claim. Infact the bible says the opposite. That God turned it the planet over to us, and we by the bounds of sin belong to satan. So by default satan is who pulls the strings in most places.

(December 21, 2014 at 1:35 pm)Drich Wrote:

(December 21, 2014 at 12:24 pm)robvalue Wrote: I see a whole ton of evidence that contradicts a powerful, loving being running the planet. What evidence? Virtually everything. This place is fucked up. You have to be a professional confirmation bias-ist to not notice.

What makes you think an Omni benevolent God runs the planet? The bible does not make this claim. Infact the bible says the opposite. That God turned it the planet over to us, and we by the bounds of sin belong to satan. So by default satan is who pulls the strings in most places.

Satan is the god of the planet?

Can you back up with scripture that Satan by default is running the planet because I have never read that in the bible.

(December 21, 2014 at 12:49 pm)Chad32 Wrote: If you've got to hit rock bottom before he'll come to you, it isn't worth it. It isn't about him wanting to be your friend and provider. It's about him wanting you to need him, which is self serving. Not that we don't already know the god of the bible is a narcissist.

It's not that you have to hit rock bottom before He comes. It's that you have to hit rock bottom before a cold and callous heart will reach out beyond the pride that is keeping you from seeing that He has been there all along.

(December 21, 2014 at 1:40 pm)Nope Wrote: Can you back up with scripture that Satan by default is running the planet because I have never read that in the bible.

Don't try to ask for reason when all you're about to get is another bunch of unreasonable reasoning. He's believing in Adam and Eve when the reality says that humanity is just a fart on the planet's surface. We're around for about 3 to 4 million years, if that. And that's about one-tenth of a percent of the earth's existence.

(December 21, 2014 at 12:54 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(December 21, 2014 at 12:13 pm)Drich Wrote: It is completely on God to provide continuity of Scripture if He certifies continuity of scripture in the book itself (which He does.)

Which book?

(December 21, 2014 at 12:13 pm)Drich Wrote: That or He must offer forgiveness for following an incomplete or book in error, or He must confirm or make changes to scripture in an authoritiave way as per the discovery of something like the Dead Sea scrolls.

To put it simply, "we" don't have to ensure sola scriptura, that's God's job. Either that or forgive us for following sola scriptura as that is what we have been told to believe/follow per the bible itself.

Unless my version was missing a divinely inspired preface, the Bible never states, "All sixty books here included are God's words."

You're relying on humans (who first wrote the books and then later canonized them) to decide for you which books are divine and which are not. Obviously, that's all you can do as your God lacks any obligation to perform jobs for us since, you know, he's no more real than Poseidon.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...hy+3:16-17

This one set of verses answers your question.

Your objection is answered not in the philosophy of scripture but in the answer God directly gives when you a/s/k.

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

That does not say which scripture are 'god breathed'.

(December 21, 2014 at 1:41 pm)Drich Wrote: It's that you have to hit rock bottom before a cold and callous heart will reach out beyond the pride that is keeping you from seeing that He has been there all along.

Resorting to an emotional codependency on something that is not real is illogical.

They probably were never confident in their personal beliefs and easily swayed. I have a friend that has labeled himself a christian, agnostic, atheist, pagan and all sorts of things in the 15 years I've known him. Every time something bad happens in his life he's back to praying, "just incase". I don't know what he is today, but I'm sure he's still just as easily swayed and unsure of himself.

Man is a spirit he lives in a body he understands with his soul. You can never understand the things of God with your mind they have to be understood with your heart (spirit). Man is not like other animals that are body only. Man is a spirit man and God like and eternal.