Evidence God Exists

[leo-rcc]

@leo-rcc: Maybe that is because your knowledge and udnerstanding of what a soul is supposed to be is severely lacking as of now? As opposed to a soul itself being ill defined.

May very well be, but what you just placed as a definition in the other thread doesn't help.

[tackattack]

I posited several example definitions that are common, but I also included whatever your defininition of a soul is. If that's not a catch all, I don't know what is. If you can't formulate a hypothesis I'm not faulting you for it. I appreciate the obvious attempt, and maybe you could explore a definition of a soul if you see fit, but some simply didn't attempt which defeats the excercise.

[downbeatplumb]

@leo-rcc: Maybe that is because your knowledge and udnerstanding of what a soul is supposed to be is severely lacking as of now? As opposed to a soul itself being ill defined.

@downbeatplumb:

What is your objection to my use of long(ish) words when looking at your previous post you yourself used: misconception and mutually exclusive. Both reasonably long words/ phrases conveying complex meaning, or where you flaunting your college level english?

I have no objection to use of long words. And I only 'flaunted' my college level understanding of English in response to what you said. I'm glad it botehred you so much that you felt the need to respond very thoroughly, though.

As for Xenu, seems he was an 'intergalactic dictator' which does seem like gods job description to me.

Then you have a very poor understanding of God.

Look at my face do I look bovered, bovered face, face bovered.

How can I understand god poorly when I've read the source material thoroughly?

Is it because its badly written and open to many interpretations?

Or is it because what it says is not what you want it to and you're projecting you're desire onto the text without understanding its ACTUAL meaning.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Then that would be my mistake, Xenu is not a god at all. He's just a science fiction story.

And the bible isn't a fantasy?

When I said that I felt the presence of God, this was a blanket statement for several situations. It's not like I was standing on some beautiful mountain with dawn's golden sun and suddenly God's presence hit me. It's nothing corny like that. You asked me a question and I answered it as simply as I could.

But I have felt God was with me in several situations, especially when I've been in some trouble and I have prayed. How do I know it was God that I felt? I will answer you. I've confirmed that it was indeed God not only through my own experiences, but through the experiences of others. I'll give you some examples...

A few weeks ago my sister, her husband, her son and a pastor were traveling through a remote mountain. It started to rain and their car slid. It fell off a cliff and spun three times. All in the car were devout Christians, and they all prayed as the car spun down the cliff. All survived with no injuries.

I was watching Aftermath with William Shatner, and Jessica Lynch was his guest. In Iraq, she was in a Humvee with 11 other people when she got ambushed. During the skirmish, she was the only one that prayed for God to spare her life, and she was the only one out of 12 to survive.

A woman at my mother's church received a terrible back injury and was unable to walk. CAT scans revealed that disks were misaligned, and she could only walk with surgery. The entire church prayed for her, and the woman's condition improved greatly. She was able to walk, and surgery was no longer needed.

I don't know about you guys, but I can't ignore things like these. I haven't experienced anything as severe as the examples above, but I've been in situations in which I have felt that my prayers have made a difference. And that's how I know it was God.

It sounds to me like you've picked and choose particularly 'miraculous' situations in which to derieve this 'proof.' I think it ignores the thousands if not millions of times where similar situations such as these ended in disaster regardless of the faith or lack thereof of all involved.
Or, more importantly, the similar situations where the survivors or perpetraitors or whatever prayed to a different god or were atheists or agnostic.

@leo-rcc: Maybe that is because your knowledge and udnerstanding of what a soul is supposed to be is severely lacking as of now? As opposed to a soul itself being ill defined.

It would help it there were an actual definition for a soul that remained the same between individuals. Like most religious artifacts and beliefs - they seem to change from person to person or, at best, from faith to faith.

[Watson]

^Isn't that kind of what we would expect, though? That a soul would be individual to the person explaining it, and would be personally explainable only by that person?

How can I understand god poorly when I've read the source material thoroughly?

*sigh. I've been through this before...it is a fallacious question that assumes the Bible and God are somehow co-dependent on each other's existance; not so. God would exist without the Bible, but the Bible would not exist without God.

In short: God is indepedent of the Bible. Perhaps you read the Bible wrong, did not absord the contents, or simply didn't make the proper connections to the Bible's parables and real life situations that the Bible intends to be made. I don't know you, so I'm not sure.

Is it because its badly written and open to many interpretations?

No, it is not. It is written quite beautifully, IMHO, and depicts a being which is observable i nthe real world; you just have to understand that being first before you can understand the Bible.

Or is it because what it says is not what you want it to and you're projecting you're desire onto the text without understanding its ACTUAL meaning.

Or maybe you are projecting the meaning you think 'proves your point' onto the Bible because you don't understand enough about the being it is depicting to read it and analyze it accurately?

[Skipper]

But I have felt God was with me in several situations, especially when I've been in some trouble and I have prayed. How do I know it was God that I felt? I will answer you. I've confirmed that it was indeed God not only through my own experiences, but through the experiences of others. I'll give you some examples...

A few weeks ago my sister, her husband, her son and a pastor were traveling through a remote mountain. It started to rain and their car slid. It fell off a cliff and spun three times. All in the car were devout Christians, and they all prayed as the car spun down the cliff. All survived with no injuries.

I was watching Aftermath with William Shatner, and Jessica Lynch was his guest. In Iraq, she was in a Humvee with 11 other people when she got ambushed. During the skirmish, she was the only one that prayed for God to spare her life, and she was the only one out of 12 to survive.

A woman at my mother's church received a terrible back injury and was unable to walk. CAT scans revealed that disks were misaligned, and she could only walk with surgery. The entire church prayed for her, and the woman's condition improved greatly. She was able to walk, and surgery was no longer needed.

I don't know about you guys, but I can't ignore things like these. I haven't experienced anything as severe as the examples above, but I've been in situations in which I have felt that my prayers have made a difference. And that's how I know it was God.

All them things can and do happen without people having a belief or disbelief in god...they just happen.

Example one, a personal one. I was recently on my way to a music festival with 3 friends to take part in a long weekend of doing a hell of a lot of things that god would not approve of. All 4 of us were un religious but we were involved in a massive car accident, I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, none of us prayed...nothing....but we all still managed to get out of the car, walk away from the accident and still manage to get to our weekend of sin, albeit a little late and via using another car that hadn't been completely written off.

Example two, There are plenty of conflicts going on around the world today, and plenty of service men and women fighting in them all, all of different faiths and probably a shit load with no faith at all. All of them get killed. People who have prayed have died equally as people who have survived have not prayed. In your example, how does she know no others were praying? I guess you could say her faith saved her because while she kept her head down praying the others were in the line of fire fighting but who knows the whole situation there.

Example three. My mother works with terminal cancer patients. Many are religious, many are not. They all die. (side note: the Catholics are apparently the ones who are the most terrified...shit scared of what awaits them). Why dosen't god cure any of these illnesses? It's amazing how he only helps cure the ones that can get better naturally or via treatment. God never brings back lost limbs or rids people of debilitating terminal disease...no, he helps peoples back problems. What a load of shit!

[solja247]

I do think miracles happen, but rarely...

[Skipper]

Can you define what you see as a miracle? To me it would have to be something that breaks the laws of all that we know as possible. Something that is extremely unlikely to happen is not a miracle. Something that we would consider impossible to happen then does, I guess you could call a miracle.

[Entropist]

For every person you can give a "miraculous" result from prayer, I can give you 25 who aren't so fortunate-- including those who are Christian. I work in the ER and gawd ain't got nuthin' to do with it. I suppose you could cop out and say "well, THOSE people weren't true Christians," eh?

Why are you dismissing the existance of God because some horrid things are happening? Why are you making assumptions about a God that you dont even believe exists? What makes you think our God isnt the kind of person to allow such things?

Well, I was responding to a post saying that a Christian says that his god answers their prayers, miraculously makes things better. I call bullshit. Simple.

[solja247]

Can you define what you see as a miracle? To me it would have to be something that breaks the laws of all that we know as possible. Something that is extremely unlikely to happen is not a miracle. Something that we would consider impossible to happen then does, I guess you could call a miracle.

A being manipulates our dimension (universe) to do His/its will. Thats what a miracle is. Jesus rising from the dead is a miracle...