Why is faith important?

[ThomM]

But if you consider that nearly every society in history from Jews (with Hasidic mysticism) to Christians (with the Catholics and charismatic mystics) to Muslims (they have their own mystical tradition) to Hindu's (a variety of mystical traditions) and Buddhists (also emphasize the supernatural) and animists, wicca, satanism and various other groups, shamans, has had some sort of tradition of the spiritual world.

So...the testominies of superstitious ancient people who had no/minimal understanding of science...are now valid? If so many people knew these things, wouldn't it be public knowledge by now?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/m...paranormal

The bigger problem with these "testimonies" is not that they MIGHT have existed - but what they actually were.

In the Past - and in the present - people often claimed that things they did not understand to be from the "hand of god". Today - we have lots of readily available logical and scientific explanations for events that would have been "testimonies" in the past.

Even today - when people make a claim - some religions do investigate the claims = and most turn out not to be true. THe first thing to ask is - What happened - WHat did you see - Who did YOU tell it to - WHEN did you report it - and WHen you reported it to authorities - what the investigation result was.

Example - it has already been proven that the testimony of people who go through so called "near death experiences" are largely of no use. THe problem is - in virtually every case - the person sees what his belief system says he would see. So - you see Allah if you are Muslim - and christ if you are christian - etc. So - it is just a trick of the mind.

IF EVERYONE who had such experiences came back with the SAME or VERY SIMILAR stories - that might be different.

And that fact that SO MANY people have had such testimonies that support their personal beliefs - points to the fact that it is self induced - and not the result of an outside reality.

So- the fact that so many people over the years - from so many different religions and beliefs - many of which are considered MYTH AND LEGEND today - have testified to things is actually proof that it is NOT TRUE - the opposite of what the theist here is claiming

[jstrodel]

IF EVERYONE who had such experiences came back with the SAME or VERY SIMILAR stories - that might be different.

And that fact that SO MANY people have had such testimonies that support their personal beliefs - points to the fact that it is self induced - and not the result of an outside reality.

You are basing your argument on the assumption that if people had contact with some powerful entity, there would be one entity, and it would be honest.

Do you have any evidence for this?

What about a different scenario. What if there were many different entities that were powerful and manifested themselves different ways, but their existence was not necessarily tied to being a deity but they were somewhat like human beings.

If this was true, then it is possible than the beings could lie and manipulate people.

Why believe that all spiritual beings are God?

But if you see a trend, where you see the vast majority of the world believe in one God, Yahweh, and you see human history seems to be dominated by believers of this religion, and you know the moral character of this being is pure, and you see the power of this being to do miracles, it is reasonable to believe that this being who represents himself as the one true being is.

The other beings are just other spirits that exist, but history declares that they are real and a major part of the human experience.

[FallentoReason]

But if you consider that nearly every society in history from Jews (with Hasidic mysticism) to Christians (with the Catholics and charismatic mystics) to Muslims (they have their own mystical tradition) to Hindu's (a variety of mystical traditions) and Buddhists (also emphasize the supernatural) and animists, wicca, satanism and various other groups, shamans, has had some sort of tradition of the spiritual world.

Woah, woah, hold on just a second! Are you literally saying all these different religions have experienced the spiritual world?? Let me guess then... if we were to categorise the nature of the experience it would be this:

Christianity: experience with God
every other religion: demonic possession, because you know... Christianity is the only true religion.

See, this is why testimonies are useless, because you can replace the religion that has "experienced God" with any other and find a believer of that religion that will confirm they have experienced their god.

[The Grand Nudger]

Human history isn't dominated by your silly little cult.....who the hell told you that? You don't know anything about the moral character of any such being. Please point to the next miracle that occurs so the world can witness a first. There isn't anything remotely reasonable about any of this.

[jstrodel]

But if you consider that nearly every society in history from Jews (with Hasidic mysticism) to Christians (with the Catholics and charismatic mystics) to Muslims (they have their own mystical tradition) to Hindu's (a variety of mystical traditions) and Buddhists (also emphasize the supernatural) and animists, wicca, satanism and various other groups, shamans, has had some sort of tradition of the spiritual world.

Woah, woah, hold on just a second! Are you literally saying all these different religions have experienced the spiritual world?? Let me guess then... if we were to categorise the nature of the experience it would be this:

Christianity: experience with God
every other religion: demonic possession, because you know... Christianity is the only true religion.

See, this is why testimonies are useless, because you can replace the religion that has "experienced God" with any other and find a believer of that religion that will confirm they have experienced their god.

No, there is an in-between point in the prophetic world, when you communicate with other spirits and the spirits go back to you. They are not necessarily evil spirits, they are just spirits that are related to specific judgements that release wisdom in the world. They could be demons but the demons obey God. It sounds strange but I have experienced this a lot.

You reap what you sow. God gives wisdom to people in different ways. People sow spiritual seeds and the reap back spiritual fruit. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding

[The Grand Nudger]

Next time you speak with the almighty, tell him that bellies aren't exactly filling with all that "spiritual fruit", and that some folks think that heads and hearts are pretty empty after a heaping helping of it as well.

It sounds strange but I have experienced this a lot.

Yes..it does, and no...you haven't.

[FallentoReason]

Woah, woah, hold on just a second! Are you literally saying all these different religions have experienced the spiritual world?? Let me guess then... if we were to categorise the nature of the experience it would be this:

Christianity: experience with God
every other religion: demonic possession, because you know... Christianity is the only true religion.

See, this is why testimonies are useless, because you can replace the religion that has "experienced God" with any other and find a believer of that religion that will confirm they have experienced their god.

No, there is an in-between point in the prophetic world, when you communicate with other spirits and the spirits go back to you. They are not necessarily evil spirits, they are just spirits that are related to specific judgements that release wisdom in the world. They could be demons but the demons obey God. It sounds strange but I have experienced this a lot.

You reap what you sow. God gives wisdom to people in different ways. People sow spiritual seeds and the reap back spiritual fruit. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding

My point is that you're giving other religions credit for their claims by saying they can also interact with the spiritual world. Let me rephrase all of this differently: why should I even bother with Christianity if, according to you, I could be a e.g. Hindu and have a connection with the spiritual world?

Usually in Apologetics 101, you're meant to discredit every other religion and tell me that only you Christians have true experiences with God/the spiritual realm.

[jstrodel]

Well, I can attest to the goodness of God because God is my best friend. I feel closer to God than I think I would to my wife if I was married. He is my spirit friend. When I am with God, I feel like a little baby. God holds on to me, I can feel God's prescence. God shows me different things in my life. Sometimes I will see images of little babies and I will feel Gods love even as my Father relates to me like I am his little son!

It is awesome!

The other spirits that I have encountered have not been as friendly. They have been evil. I do not know much about Hinduism, I would stay away. I do not necessarily think that all other belief systems outside of Christianity have no spirituality behind them, I doubt that the spirits involve are related to the ultimate reality of God who is greater than what is recorded in the Bible or elsewhere.

I could not say for each religious tradition whether have contact with God or the degree of their moral knowledge. I believe, following John Wesley, Zwingli, perhaps Aquinas, some figures in the early church and many passages of scripture that people outside of the Christian faith can have some understanding of God and be saved.

I do not believe there has ever been a person in history who has not had the chance to be saved and to attain the knowledge of God. That said, there are a diversity of different competing religious truth claims which are obviously contradictory. I think there are different spiritual powers related to the different religions. The reason that religion has been such an important part of human history is that God's power is availible for all. I have had revelation of different events in my life that show me that there are processes of sowing and reaping spiritual seeds that do not necessarily create completely good or completely evil outcomes. In Samuel, it talks about how an evil spirit from the LORD went and tormented Saul. There are evil spirits in the world definately, and a lot that are not good or evil.

I do not think all the religions of the world are a satanic conspiracy though, I think it is more complicated than that, where people do have moral knowledge and sometimes propositional knowledge of God (as many faiths acknowledge Jesus, Islam and Judaism are very similar, there are other parallels, different things different religious scholars agree on).

I can promise you that Christianity is true, as for the other religions, Jesus says "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me". He wants people to come to Him. Maybe they can come to him some other way, it says the Abraham and Melchizedeck did, but Jesus has the self confidence to declare that He, above all else, is God and there is none like him.

[The Grand Nudger]

You'll probably want to keep that little tidbit about relative levels of closeness to yourself, at least in conversation with whatever female you con into spending any amount of time with you. It probably sounds nice to you, but it turns into the worst sort of declaration very quickly when faced with a hostile partner. What is it about feeling like a baby that has you enthralled? Was your father somehow deficient in your estimation, or to put it another way, what about having a father-god is so appealing?

You haven't been in contact with any spirits, evil or otherwise.

My opinion on whether or not people have had the chance to be saved diverges wildly. I don't think that anyone has ever had that opportunity, how could they? There's no-one around to do any "saving" of that kind...and it's even more nebulous as to what they're being saved from, or why they need to be saved from whatever it is anyway.

Finally found something I agree with you completely on, I don't think the worlds religions are a satanic conspiracy either, mostly because there's no satan to do any conspiring.

Your promises don't have much value to me, nor would your promises be any assurance of truth even if they did. "Jesus" would have required "self-something" to have made such a claim...confidence isn't the word I'd use.

[CleanShavenJesus]

I can promise you that Christianity is true

Yeah, my Muslim friend has promised be that Islam is true. What makes you any more correct, besides nothing?