Critique Time!

[robvalue]

Sorry, but if you talk like that, no one but other christians will take you seriously. Just letting you know. It makes no sense.

If you set up standards which cannot fail to be met, then you can prove god exists even if he doesn't. Hopefully you can see why that is a problem.

If you assume god is real and the bible is true, and use this to try and engage an atheist, you are utterly wasting your time from the start. You may as well read to us from Harry Potter. Just as much as us trying to debate you and assuming god doesn't exist (which is not the atheist position, but just as an example). So you could think about what you're trying to accomplish.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Occationally, I have difficulty following your threads. You tend to quote individual sentences and reply with very short answers to many people in a single post. Providing more context for your responses would help.

[Drich]

Sorry, but if you talk like that, no one but other christians will take you seriously. Just letting you know. It makes no sense.

If you set up standards which cannot fail to be met, then you can prove god exists even if he doesn't. Hopefully you can see why that is a problem.

If you were starving and you know everyone around you could potentially help you get something to eat, at what point/How many no's would you need to get before you would give up and just die of hunger?

It seems you want to make the search for God an intelectual one. This is a foolish endeavour as God does not reside in our system of data collection and logic based off of collected data. Plus God says He will indeed hide from the proud, and show himself to those who are humble enough to meet Him on His terms.

If you assume god is real and the bible is true, and use this to try and engage an atheist, you are utterly wasting your time from the start.

I think this is the assumption they use on Christians. In that you assume I have to assume anything. Again A/S/K is a method to be supplied 'proof' of God. If I used this method and am telling you it works that means I have all the proof I need to stake my whole life on the fact that God is real.

Something any one else can also receive if the humble themselves before God and allow Him to lift them up

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Occationally, I have difficulty following your threads. You tend to quote individual sentences and reply with very short answers to many people in a single post. Providing more context for your responses would help.

ok noted. I will try and provide more context.

[Cyberman]

Once she put a knife down to move some cups in the cuboard and forgot she left it on the top shelf. So when I reached up for my fav cup I almost lost an eye to a falling knife.

Sure it was an accident?

[Cyberman]

It's hard to figure how people who claim to be so smart can revert to such juvenile ways at times.

Yes, I've spotted that myself.

[Mister Agenda]

For what it's worth, I seem to recall hearing that a wise man advised Christians, or at least Christian missionaries, to be as harmless as doves and wise as serpents. Or as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves. Something like that. The (figurative) wisdom of the serpent referst to being knowledgeable, picking your battles, understanding the position of those to whom you are talking, that kind of thing, I think. The innocence or harmlessness would seem to be meekness, gentleness, humility, and empathy.

I know that's a hard standard and I don't expect perfection, but you would be more effective if you attempt to follow that advice, IMHO.

[Drich]

Once she put a knife down to move some cups in the cuboard and forgot she left it on the top shelf. So when I reached up for my fav cup I almost lost an eye to a falling knife.

Sure it was an accident?

[Mudhammam]

My only request for you, Drich, is to make sense of the Protestant contradiction that underlies every other notion in your "philosophy": simultaneously embracing sola scriptura while rejecting the Catholic tradition of prima ecclesia.

[Drich]

For what it's worth, I seem to recall hearing that a wise man advised Christians, or at least Christian missionaries, to be as harmless as doves and wise as serpents. Or as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves. Something like that. The (figurative) wisdom of the serpent referst to being knowledgeable, picking your battles, understanding the position of those to whom you are talking, that kind of thing, I think. The innocence or harmlessness would seem to be meekness, gentleness, humility, and empathy.

I know that's a hard standard and I don't expect perfection, but you would be more effective if you attempt to follow that advice, IMHO.

Picking battles is why i let certain topics go. Once people start talking past each other the conversation becomes moot.

I am working on 'meekness' that was the point of this thread.

Gentleness may work well in person, as it can be demonstrated. I find it difficult to balance what the current perception of what gentleness should be, against how Christ Himself was 'gentle' to the pharisees in a place like this.

The current soceitial understanding of Humility is a quality I also find hard to demonstrate. To be Humble in the site of God is to not speak boastfully about one's self or act that way. In our soceity to be humble is to never gain the upper hand to always yield to the proud. Gaining the upper hand is a non issue scripturally if one gives God his due. One can even boast of what God has done for or through Him. Paul did this many times. As he was proud of what God did for and with Him. I too am very proud of what God has done for and with me.

Empathy is very difficult for me personally because I was raise a different way. in that life is not about the indivisual it is about the family or the soceity as a whole. "The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few."

I do and have always done what is best for the group in given situation, despite what I personally feel. If I ignore my own personal feelings for the greater good, then how is it I am supposed to acknoweledge another person's 'feelings' if it is not also for the greater good?

I am not ready for that one yet. If I can suck it up and put my 'feelings' aside and deal with the given facts of the matter then i expect anyone wanting to be apart of a given discussion to do the same.

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My only request for you, Drich, is to make sense of the Protestant contradiction that underlies every other notion in your "philosophy": simultaneously embracing sola scriptura while rejecting the Catholic tradition of prima ecclesia.

what is my philosphy opposes the protestant notion, and how does it simultaneously embrace sola scriptura?

I can easily tell you why prima ecclesia is not valid. Because we do not have any command outside of the orginal church doctrine created hundreds of years after the NT was written that supports this notion. Meaning the church leadership want authority over what God allowed for in the bible.

[Ryantology]

All biblical Answers provide are direction for those who are looking to worship the God of the bible. This does not change anything with anyone else who is looking to worship their own version of God.

But, that poisons the well with assumptions. I have to assume there is a god that wants to be worshiped before I can get a right answer. I have to assume that the information in the Bible is reliable, and from where I stand, all I have are reasons to assume the opposite.

Well, again going to the greek and hebrew does give me a better understanding of the text. The bible was not orginally written in english. As such there are aspects lost in a literal translation, which is what most of you will read.

The nature of the book means that no language is going to make it significantly less vague and open to interpretation. You could give me the first sample of writing that eventually became the Bible, and that still wouldn't clear up the issue at all.

I look to scripture as the bible/Paul says to look to scripture. That it is God breathed and is good for establishing and maintain a working relationship with God.

According to how you interpret it, that's how you look at scripture. Poisoned with your own assumption that you're doing it the right way.

Again I accept the bible as everything I need to know about God in order to have a relationship with Him.

And, if your only intention is to have a relationship with some god, that's probably the way to go. If your intention is to get the unvarnished truth, that's precisely the wrong way to approach anything.

There is only one context in which the bible need be intrpreted.

Hear that? That's the sound of you closing every door but one to the truth because you decided, for yourself, and ahead of time, what you want to be true.

Is the bible accurate in what it says about establishing and maintaining a relationship with God?

As far as I can tell, it's not accurate in what it says about there being a god.

Can i confirm/witness such a relationship outside of the bible if I follow it's perscribed path?

If you can, we'd all love for you to do it.

If yes then it is as Paul said. The bible is complete. At which point one does not have to know whether or not there was an actual garden, an ark or understand the events plotted out in Revelation. We are only tasked to deal with what we have been given over to understand.

When you decide there's no more to learn, you've resigned yourself to ignorance, and the world moves on without you.

Perhaps, what has been deemed an 'intelectual blind spot' was so deemed because it is a requirement of God.

Of course "god" would require that. If you don't have that blind spot, you start to realize how many extreme, critical problems there are with the whole thing.

'To care for people' in this case Means to care for those who care enough to have a dialog. Most people don't. Especially in those regions.

From what I've seen here, Christian attempts at 'dialogue' have a strong tendency to confirm, for atheists, precisely why we want nothing to do with your religion.

Does God give out As for effort, or Fs for effectiveness, when you succeed more at driving people away than bringing them in?