Seeking

[psychoslice]

Seeking to me is finding your true self, I discovered through seeking my true self, that is being one with all there is, we are not separate from the cosmos, and this to me is god, or as I like to call it, the Source.

[Drich]

Dirch, you are a bit lost yourself, aren't you. There are thousands upon thousands of people who are ex-Christians. People whose faith was at least as informed and as dear to them as you think yours is to you, and who believed in the same god you do. Yet you are going to dismiss their experience out of hand, feigning to understand some deep thing about god that they never grasped, that you have the un-corrupted view. Hardly the attitude of a humble person. In fact it is the utmost arrogance to presume that no one could discover that faith in your god was a mistake unless they did not actually believe in your god in the first place.

if all of these people have indeed been given what God has offered, as I have then why does their faith wane? Why does their house get washed away by the floods God sends in life to proof our faith and our beliefs, just as Christ said they would?
It can be only One of two truths for the turning of their backs on God.

One God never supported their corrupt understandings therefore they never found proof of their understanding of God, thus forcing them down the road to atheism. Or two they found proof, but do not like who God is for what ever reason and are in open rebellion such as Satan is.

If option one. There is hope if one ask seeks and knocks,
If option two.. Well then good luck.

I will grant that the very idea must be worrisome to you, and that you think there must be a way to explain it without casting doubt on your god's existence. But there isn't.

Oh, noes! The noob found my one true worry about God what will I do now?
Oh, wait. I guess I will have to repeat the fact that a bible based Christian who has received the gift of the Holy Spirit as outlined in luke 11 beliefs, are not based on blind faith but tangible and direct assureance of not only who God is but we get to see Him work in our lives daily.. I guess that is a very scary thought to so many of you.. In That you gave up because your pride told you that if their was a God, Surly He would have recognized your 'great and worthy effort' by now.

Not understanding the core concept of attonement and the H/S can not be earned. It is a gift given for those who a/s/k for it.

Honest, once deeply faithful people, with no ax to grind and no hard feelings toward anyone, with no other desire than to follow the truth where ever it may lead, have examined their faith in the Christian god and found it misplaced. They asked but the answers where not what they expected. They sought and found an unsuspected truth. They knocked, but when the door opened it led them out of your church and away from your god.

Exactly they knocked and did not find what they expected!!! Meaning when the proud knocked they thought the had complete knoweledge of who and what an infinite God is supposed to look and act like. So when they did not find what they were looking for, rather than reexamine their model of God by leaving the picture their various religions have planted, and opening their bibles and building from. they just assume they had the only picture of God possible, and because it turned out their view was not real no other version of God could exist.

How prideful is that? To assume that the version of God you were born under was correct? How is one to establish a personal relationship if he follows the faith of our fathers?

This is what is meant by "The Foolish man builds his house upon the sand, and when the rain came down the flood water came up, and the house built on the sand when splat!" (It's a song here's a link)
http://youtu.be/dkNOcr5iHP4

And that was the only point I was making.

funny thing, me too just a more complete version.

One clearly beyond the grasp of anyone so caught up in faith that they make a claim as foolish as "belief based in proof". If there was proof, belief would not be required.

I think you made a grammatical error. I am prone to them my self and will give you a chance to rephrase. I think instead of the word belief you mean to have faith...

Because the definition of belief does indeed include belief in evidence as per the merrium Webster dictionary:
1
: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2
: something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3
: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

In fact, it would not even be possible. You can know a thing. You can believe a thing. But you cannot, in honesty, do both at the same time in regard to the same thing.

maybe you should contact the good people at merrium Webster and let them know they are misinforming the public with their faulty defination.

And I am going to guess that is beyond you as well.

I absolutly love it when the self righteous are beyond wrong and yet their words are set in Internet Stone so everyone can see just how wrong they are.. That is after I provide the proper evidence that shows them to be in error.

Hmmm makes one wonder how many other things the noob is flat out wrong about...
(Fear not I have pointed them out)

By the way, the reference to Noah was a kind of inside joke for those who know that the story of Noah is just that, a story. Not true, not even good allegory, just one bit of mythology in an entire religion of mythology. It was like suggesting that someone who believed the earth was flat might also believe that the sun orbits the planet. You should be embarrassed that it went right over your head, that you were actually dumb enough to call it a "straw man" argument.

oh, here's another. (Point that you are wrong)
Noah was identified as a red herring in my first post to you because noah was not in 50+pages of dialog in my orginal thread. Your use of the story was an attempt to change the dynamic of the discussion in such a way as to give you an non revelent edge.. Too bad it seems you've cut yourself with it.

Oh, and the straw man I identified was your misquotation of my work and my source material, and subsequent attack on said work and source material. It had nothing to do with Noah.. Again Noah was identified as a red herring.

But you won't be.

Someday though, you might. For here is something you can know with absolute assurance. People more Christian than you, more knowledgeable, more studied, more faithful, more loving, more Christlike, with true humility, showing more of the fruits of the spirit, better thinkers, and with more courage than you can possibly imagine, are Christians no longer.

Thankfully, as I pointed out in the beginning, out exposure to the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the quality person/Christian we are or could be. What I have received is a gift, one I can never earn, afford or payback with any thing I could offer. It was given to me for one simple reason I humbled myself enough, and I did what I was told.

If the people on your list do not have the proof of God Christ offered in luke 11, then the people on that lost of yours did not follow the most basic of instructions, and all of the Christian crap you attribute to them will not earn them what only God can give.
If you want to see what God has to offer one has to do it his way period. Being a 'better than a Drich Christian' is absolutely meaningless.

Again thankfully!
(Cause I would indeed be in lots of trouble if not for undeserved attonement and grace.)
[/quote]

There is a small chance that you might join them someday. After all, you are hanging out in this forum and attempting to defend your faith.

ive been here and places like this a long long time answering questions. I am not one to brag about the inner decisions of others to accept Christ, but let's just say far more people have been pull out of disbelief, than disbelievers have pulled me into it.

---

Why would God support a corrupt version of Himself to a potential believer?

Interesting question. One would think that finding the correct view of God would be as simple as asking a believer but sadly it's not.

Every believer has a different view of God. There are literally millions of different views of God. Which is the correct one and which is corrupt? Every believer will tell you that they have the correct view because they have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Tell me something Drippy. Do you have the correct view of God?

How can one establish and maintain a relationship with God by asking/seeking a picture from anyone else besides God?

No one has an absolute perfect/complete picture of God. We either have a picture God is willing to support, or we have one He will not. I can say to date He has supported my picture of Him in spades, and as I grow and continue to be faithful He supports me more and more. However I do know if I cease holding up my end His support will diminish.

[Lucanus]

One God never supported their corrupt understandings therefore they never found proof of their understanding of God, thus forcing them down the road to atheism. Or two they found proof, but do not like who God is for what ever reason and are in open rebellion such as Satan is.

Or three god doesn't exist and you are a delusional halfwit.

Don't you get tired of the goalpost moving you do all the time? OF COURSE it's the god of the Bible, but which one? The only one your confirmation bias can seem to support?

Even Dubya said he spoke with god. It doesn't look like his run as a president was particularly brilliant though...

[Tobie]

As far as I can tell, a bible-based christian is an illogical belief in a god from a contradictory book. Yet Drich would have us ignore all the fallacies and earnestly seek for God, whilst telling us that if we don't find him, it's our fault for not correctly picturing god, and then refusing to tell us his idea for god, which he claims to have a personal relationship with.

[Michael]

I wonder what it is people are looking for and expect to find? I come from the quiet end of Christianity, being a lay monastic. I can't say I hear any voices. I have no visions. I do have a strong, though imprecise, sense of the numinous, but nothing specific beyond that. What I do find in silence is a deep sense of peace and calm, as if I am residing in that liminal place, that thin place, between the mundane and the divine. I trust that in our conscience, whether we be atheist or theist, we find the voice of God speaking to us, calling us to do what is right and avoid what is evil. A 'blight' of modern life might be that lives are so full of noise and distraction that they may only frequently stop to listen to the quiet still voice of God in their conscience. I trust it is there today, for all.

[Tobie]

I wonder what it is people are looking for and expect to find? I come from the quiet end of Christianity, being a lay monastic. I can't say I hear any voices. I have no visions. I do have a strong, though imprecise, sense of the numinous, but nothing specific beyond that. What I do find in silence is a deep sense of peace and calm, as if I am residing in that liminal place, that thin place, between the mundane and the divine. I trust that in our conscience, whether we be atheist or theist, we find the voice of God speaking to us, calling us to do what is right and avoid what is evil. A 'blight' of modern life might be that lives are so full of noise and distraction that they may only frequently stop to listen to the quiet still voice of God in their conscience. I trust it is there today, for all.

Are you saying that our morals are a god's voice?

[Michael]

Well, specifically, I was talking about conscience. I would describe morals as our understanding of right and wrong, which is perhaps a wider, but related, subject. Sorry if that seems overly pedantic but it is perhaps possible for someone to have strongly held ideas on morality without actually ever stopping to listen to one's conscience.

[Drich]

As far as I can tell, a bible-based christian is an illogical belief in a god from a contradictory book. Yet Drich would have us ignore all the fallacies and earnestly seek for God, whilst telling us that if we don't find him, it's our fault for not correctly picturing god, and then refusing to tell us his idea for god, which he claims to have a personal relationship with.

Please if you have a contradiction crucial to salvation please post it and I can resolve it for you.

[Tobie]

As far as I can tell, a bible-based christian is an illogical belief in a god from a contradictory book. Yet Drich would have us ignore all the fallacies and earnestly seek for God, whilst telling us that if we don't find him, it's our fault for not correctly picturing god, and then refusing to tell us his idea for god, which he claims to have a personal relationship with.

Please if you have a contradiction crucial to salvation please post it and I can resolve it for you.

If you really want to get into trying to explain away biblical contradictions, start a new thread.

Why does it have to be "crucial to salvation" to matter? There are plenty of contradictions in even the basic stuff.

Example; John 10:30; I and my father are one and John 14:28; I go unto the father, for my father is greater than I

[tjakey]

I wonder what it is people are looking for and expect to find? I come from the quiet end of Christianity, being a lay monastic. I can't say I hear any voices. I have no visions. I do have a strong, though imprecise, sense of the numinous, but nothing specific beyond that. What I do find in silence is a deep sense of peace and calm, as if I am residing in that liminal place, that thin place, between the mundane and the divine. I trust that in our conscience, whether we be atheist or theist, we find the voice of God speaking to us, calling us to do what is right and avoid what is evil. A 'blight' of modern life might be that lives are so full of noise and distraction that they may only frequently stop to listen to the quiet still voice of God in their conscience. I trust it is there today, for all.

Michael, I have similar experiences on a regular basis, yet find no impulse to credit a "god" in them. Particularly any god so clearly created in the image of man as is the god of the various sects of the Abrahamic religions.

The cosmos is a vast and mysterious place. We are members of a species of barely intelligent tribal apes just recently climbed down from the trees. Our religions were and are badly misinformed and early attempts at trying to place ourselves in that cosmos; and are mostly illusion. People like Dirch are perfect examples of the damage those illusions do to the mind, his inability to follow even the simplest of ideas beyond the end of his faith evidence of a person completely shriveled up.

You seem to have come to a different fate, and likely the difference between us is more semantics than ideology. What you think of as a mystical experience with a god is, for me, a time of resting in the acknowledgement of how far we are from being adults, evidence of how little our young species has learned. It serves as a warning that our moral codes and nascent intelligence are not yet developed enough, not keeping pace with our tool making (read as war making) capabilities or the tribal emotions built into us by evolution.

My guess is we are going to be a dead end branch in the evolution of intelligence in the cosmos. (I offer Dirch as Exhibit A.) The good news is evolution doesn't stop and we are not the end of the chain.