(October 20, 2015 at 4:13 pm)lkingpinl Wrote:(October 20, 2015 at 4:02 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: And there's the rub.
People all through history of differing god beliefs claim to have had personal experienced of their god revealing itself to them, yet I'm sure you don't believe their encounters with their god are accurate, correct?
Why should Christian personal accounts of encounters with the god you believe exists, be any more compelling to us than accounts of people having personal encounters with a god you don't believe exist, be to you?
You are correct, the image of a being claiming to be the Christian god as you describe it, could vary well have natural, mundane explanations.
But you claim that your god is extremely powerful, and knowledgeable of all things (the 'omnis'). A being with those attributes would know before his 'angelic appearance' to us would not be convincing (maybe it would convince some of us), and would know that we would not be convinced. Therefore, he would do something else that would convince us.
If he thought that his 'angelic appearance' would convince us, and we were not convinced, he's not much of a god then.
First Simon, I make no such claims of 'omni' anything, you are generalizing there.
Sorry. I have only met a handful of Christians that do not believe their god is omnipotent and omniscient. I'm sure you understand that you are in the extreme minority.
Quote:Second, I also have no qualms with any personal revelations from anyone and their experience with their God. I've read stories of people saying Krishna came to them, stories of Allah coming, stories of Jesus, etc. They are everywhere, but those anecdotes are personal and nothing more. Who am I to claim them false? Those experience have no bearing on my own beliefs.
I never said you claim that they are false. Only that you are not convinced by them.
Logic 101 - not being convinced of a claim, is NOT the same thing as believing the claim is false.
Quote:I would say that he has revealed himself in history and that our mere existence and this universe speaks to the existence of something greater out there.
Yes, we are well aware of your reliance on flawed and fallacious philosophical arguments for the existence for god.
Quote:It is hard for God to reveal himself meaningfully, harder than we may think.
Not much of a god, if has such little power to reveal himself.
Quote:If we are willing to simply accept Him then yes of course He can come to us in any way.
Oh, we have to believe in order to believe.
So, not only does your version of god have difficulty revealing himself (seems he had very little problems revealing himself to a bunch of superstitious Bronze Age barbaric tribes in ancient Palestine, though) to us. But he expects us to believe based on horrible logic? It sure seems like your god only wants to hang out with the gullible and credulous.
Quote:Part of the Christian claim is that God has revealed himself in history, through fulfilled prophecy, through the resurrection, through historical events which are critically examinable.
Yes, claims that have never been proven.
Quote: simply pointing out the conundrum of a God revelation necessarily needing to be supernatural and being skeptics we find natural explanations and easily reject the supernatural.
Not much of a god if he is unable to get around this little problem.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
