(December 29, 2015 at 6:41 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Your modified argument is similar to mine but not exactly. For example, I do believe God to a degree can guide people without revelations and books, or a divine guide...but this is not the guidance I am talking about. I'm talking about a greater guidance.I’m not disregarding the rest of your thoughtful post; but rather, I would like to focus on the ‘greater guidance’ that you would expect to see from God. I imagine you see greater guidance as one or more of the following: 1) general principles about Justice and the Good or 2) specific rituals and practices for everyday life that exemplify the virtue or 3) specific commands to act or admonishment to refrain from acting both of which believers must obey.
(December 29, 2015 at 6:41 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: We may have subjective opinion that some of it's teachings are evil, but in reality, there should be no clear evils in it, that is beyond doubt evil to us. This is clear.Maybe not clear enough to me as of yet. An example may help. The Torah relates many apparently historical events in which God commands the ancient Israelites to commit actions that today seem morally repugnant. Are these the kinds of teachings to which you refer? There is also a problem with setting up a circular argument. If the book serves as our moral guide, then how can we judge the goodness of its teachings without referencing the book itself.
(December 29, 2015 at 6:41 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: However if I write a book without evils, and I appear as saint and put on act of holiness, people are not allowed to take my claim to being God's representative seriously if there is no clear proof.Perhaps I think differently. If I say that all that is good comes from God, then when someone does something good they are, whether they know it or not, representing God.
(December 29, 2015 at 6:41 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: If all we have in discussion and interfaith, is that we ought to seek God and the truth, and will find it by mysterious feelings, then this to me is a joke of a Creator. He can perform clear indications that will convince the most confused, the most irrational, and bring them to clear insight but doesn't do so.There is a riddle goes like this: Can God create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it? The best answer given (by Pascal, I think) is yes. That stone is the human heart. The proofs and demonstrations are there for all to see. You have presented many of these proofs and demonstrations yourself. The problem is that no one, God, can compel love. Diffidence and obedience can be forced upon someone, but love cannot.
As for me, I do not come to you with mysterious feelings. All I am saying is that there are deep intellectual traditions within both Christianity and Islam. We cannot be experts in both and, as for me, I’ve only scratched the surface of the Patristic literature and consider myself a far cry from being an expert in it. And yet I can recognize sound reasoning, as you clearly can.
(December 29, 2015 at 6:41 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Now the fact we don't have proofs in the form physical supernatural miracles today,…I believe miracles still happen. They serve as testimony for those who experience them, but I agree that they cannot be authoritative beyond those witnesses.
(December 29, 2015 at 6:41 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: What kind of interfaith discussion is he giving people who see God and are guided by the Guide of time. Nothing. All they say is seek God, ask. Look at Drich doing this. It's a joke.That’s a bit harsh. Do you not agree that in order to attain knowledge of any kind a seeker must be adequately prepared to receive it? Why should God respond to arrogant demands from His Creations? Is it not fitting and proper that He would only reveal Himself to those who approach Him with humility?
(December 29, 2015 at 6:41 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: …when we recite it [the Koran] ourselves in the original language, we come to feel that there is this special quality.Respectfully, how is this different from the mysterious feelings that you consider a joke?