Post number 1

[Mister Agenda]

Why do you believe the sum total of the sacrifice God gave resulted in His son's death?

I have no recollection of saying that I believe the sum total of the sacrifice God gave resulted in his son's death. What are you on about?

So because God is not a parent as you would be a parent then He can not be your God?

If he's not analogous to my father, maybe Christians should find a better analogy. When you actually compare God to a father, and eliminate every way the analogy doesn't work, there isn't much left but a figure you claim gets the credit for my existence but won't reveal his own unless I do exactly as you say.

What if you grew up in a different culture? Would your standard parenting still be based in the western culture or would you demand God parent as you would parent in your new culture?

You mean in a culture where fatherhood means something different than in cultures where Christianity is predominant?

When does worship of God stop being about you?

When I start worshiping him.

Until you dial the right number you indeed hear what He wants to to hear.. Absolutely nothing. and you will continue to hear nothing till you sub mit yourself as He has commanded every other living soul.

Well, we're at an impasse then. It's idiotic to submit to an imaginary being, if God wants people to submit to him without knowing he's real, he wants idiots, and I'm afraid he's out of luck with me.

No. They tend to dial the religious efforts prescribed their tradition of Choice.

If only there were a being capable of insuring everyone got the same clear instructions.

It's really easy to discern if one does or does not have a Spiritual gift. Test the gift as given (as not all can communicate)

Like seeing if the person has access to verifiable information they could not otherwise have known?

Then why seek a proponent? Why not open your own bible and seek God for yourself?

The book so nice I read it twice. My motivation for reading it was to get closer to God, I was quite devout and idealistic. I had been taught God is loving and just. The barbarism contained therein didn't make me an atheist. It did make me an agnostic theist. I still believed there was a God, I just couldn't believe it could be as violent and capricious as the God the Bible describes.

Again only if you need someone to think for you.

The process you seem to be using does not closely resemble 'thinking' as it is commonly understood. It looks more like a way of avoiding thinking.

Growing up in the west I am sure you think the rest of the world's fathers think as you do.

By 'west', you mean I got my ideas of fatherhood in a predominantly Christian country, yes.

And you probably think if they do not think as you do, they are wrong in some way. When/if you decide to look past your comfortable life style to the rest of the world you will note quickly that you and your standards of parenting are in the minority.

Would you please name a country in which a father missing a child would not try to search for him or her if they were able? You're being very vague about these other countries where fathers don't demonstrate any love for their children.

Meaning that not all have adopted the proud child philosophy where the parents are to serve the children.

Loving your children and caring enough about their fate to try to find out what happened to them and letting them know you've been looking once you know their location is serving them?

The rest of the world has their children obeying their parents, learning from them and working with them to strengthen the family.

Just like my father. Except he would lift a finger to show he cares whether I live or die. Which apparently you are saying most of the fathers in the world would not.

Like wise if you are a loving child you will return home to your father..

You can't love a father you don't know. At best, you can hope that wherever they are, they have a good reason for not being present in your life that you would understand if you knew, and that if you met them, they would turn out to be someone worthy of love rather than a sperm donor who took off because he didn't want to be a father and still doesn't.

Again unless you humble yourself what in creation makes you think He wants to?

Repeated unsubstantiated claims that he loves me.

You do not understand the term. Humility only in the sight of the master is false humility. Genuine humility permeates the individual no matter what the situation. If you were a humble man you would be a humble man in or out of the presents of God.

You're not asking me to humble myself out of sight of the master. You're asking to accept hearsay that there's a master who wants me to humble myself, and won't reveal his existence until I do. Nowhere else in life besides religion would you expect anyone with an ounce of sense to accept a proposition like that.

If you are a humble man only in the site of God then know you are simply submissive to the authority and power of God.. The difference? Humble means you give of your heart. Submissive is a showing of fear. While fear is the beginning of the knowledge of God Love is the completion of it.

Well, let's start with fear then, and see where it goes. God is welcome to reveal himself by terrifying me.

Show Me The Religious Text Of Every Other God that Offers what The God Of The Bible Offers. Or is this just ANOTHER empty retort?

Clearly my retorts are full enough to make you figuratively raise your typing voice.

Just like every other god in that if you believe they are real and that they can hear your thoughts, you will be able to 'hear' them or interpret their signs or whatever if you try hard enough to mentally contact them, through whatever means while having whatever the proper attitude is supposed to be. That's how other people 'hear' from their gods, same as yours. They seek, ask, and knock.

You miss the point. You do not have to Convince yourself of anything (meaning complete the task) God promises to complete this task Himself.

Since I said that's how you start to convince yourself, I didn't miss the point. If you start to convince yourself 9/11 was an inside job, you will find evidence to support what you're trying to convince yourself of. That's why so much of science is about controlling biases of perception, once we start looking for evidence to support a conclusion rather than drawing a conclusion from the evidence, we have unknowingly set ourselves on a path likely to lead to the desired conclusion, no matter what that conclusion is. I gave up the idea of God reluctantly, over many years. What I want to be true has absolutely no bearing on what actually is true. Again, any god can complete the task of convincing you that it exists once you set out to believe: that's because it's all in our heads.

Meaning again you will not have done anything except follow where the evidence leads.

Except bias myself in a way certain to ensure that I reach the pre-determined conclusion by filtering the evidence with confirmation bias.

What if God does not want you to worship a signs and wonders magician you have just made him out to be? wouldn't this be counterproductive if He were to answer your request the way you just framed it?

If you want me to believe God doesn't want me to worship such a God, he shouldn't have made his name as the signs and wonders sort. Even in the NT that's how he supposedly showed Jesus was his son, and why people believed it. That's the Jewish and Christian God, a sea-parting, water-walking, vision providing miracle machine! Are you talking about a different God?

What if this meant your life or the life of someone you love? would you still pray this prayer?

Whether it means anyone's life is exactly what's in question. Answer your question for yourself with Zeus as the object of the prayer, and get back to me. I expect my answer is the same as yours when it comes to how much of a prayer we'll spare for a god we consider imaginary.

I prayed this prayer with the attitude "no matter the cost" and I got what i prayed for. I was diagnosed with over 200 skin lesions due to a viral infection that people with healthy immune systems can easily fight off. This lead the doctors to suspect that i had HIV. They did a test and two weeks later confirmed the initial diagnosis, upon which I was given another test to confirm. I prayed for my life initially then found a great peace. It wasn't until I humbled myself that I did find what I was looking for. Not in a church not in a religious denomination, but in God. the doctor had me return for my second test results and another round of treatment for my lesions. Where upon I was tested negative for HIV. Again another blood sample was taken and a revisit scheduled. When I returned the remaining lesions had healed themselves. I still have over 100 small scars where the lesions were treated to remind me of my answered prayer. (even still this was not enough for me to completely change, but it was enough to break my hard heart, and point me in the right direction.)

If God will miraculously end malaria or childhood leukemia or Alzheimer's or Huntington's disease, or harlequin ichtyosis (any one of those will do), I'll pay any cost. I'll preach my whole life, I'll give everything away, whatever he wants. I don't want anything for myself, I've lived 50 years, I'll be content with dying horribly tomorrow if only God will end one of those diseases today.

If you want to know God then offer all that you have to give. Give Him what is most valuable in your life. Money, job, life whatever you will not put a price on, offer all of it. Know you may not get it back but you will have your "proof" before you die. (you just don't know how soon that will be)

Again a recipe likely to wind up in belief whether or not the object of the belief is real.

Just want you to know what you are asking for in the "prayer" you offered. Now all you have to do is seek in the bible, in church, and with people like me (willing to study with you) and knock by repeating this process till you get what you want.

Again a recipe likely to wind up in belief whether or not the object of the belief is real. If I worked that hard at believing Voodoun or Hare Krishna, I've no doubt I'd succeed. You clearly can't offer anything distinguishable from what happens in any other people's noggins when they struggle to believe.

It a metaphor for humbling yourself to the point of asking for help to get what you need to eventually physically kneel.

Well, I've asked for that. We'll see how it turns out.

Is it righteousness to throw yourself on a grenade for those you love?

It's theatre if you know the grenade is a prop that can't really kill you.

You do not have to assume anything. i explained in detail what i meant.

Granted. You were very clear that I am not worthy of receiving a revelation because it's a greater crime to not follow any God than it is to have Christians killed, apparently.

How do you know that He didn't?

Um, because of all the people who murdered and oppressed in his name with impunity.

Perhaps Paul was the only one with the means and ability to write it all down.

You mean with the means to pay a scribe like Paul did?

How many times have you been to Africa, and what have you told them?

I've never been to Africa, all I ever do for Africans is send money to Camfed every few months and tutor refugee children and help their families. I could do more. Africa is on my list of places to go for purely selfish reasons, as clearly I can do more good by donating the cost of the trip than I can do with what little help I am capable of giving with my presence. I struggle with the idea of keeping anything above what I need to stay housed and clothed and fed in the face of the suffering that happens there.

Matter of fact how many times have you been to you local inner city and helped the homeless, the addicts, the working poor, the worthless poor? how many times have you reach out and made an effective change in just one persons life?

I've never counted the number of times I've tried to do some small good in the world. It never occurred to me to track it. How many times have you? I wouldn't say someone is worthless because they're poor, but I understand you meant it very literally as in they don't have income or financial assets.

It is alot easier to judge what you hear goes on in Africa from the comfort of your ipad than actually getting up and out to effect change in your own community.

I've been very patient with you, Drich. You don't know me or what I do or don't do or what my life is like. You've judged me based on nothing and expect me to trust you when you claim to be in touch with the divine. Whatever you're in touch with, I want no part of it if contemptible accusatons like that are an example of its fruits.

Why should I listen to anything you say if you're fine with taking potshots at me based on your imaginary image of what I must be like? I don't even own any kind of smart phone. I don't own a new car, I drove my last one until the engine gave out, just like the one before it (a sixteen year-old Toyota Corolla I paid $400 for and drove four years). I'm paying the mortage on a $50,000 home. My laptop is on its last legs and is the only computer I own. My neighborhood was plagued with crack so bad a few years ago that children I knew were selling it to their mothers. Someone I love was hooked on it and nothing I was able to do or the God she desperately prayed to was able to free her. You don't know me, Drich, and your facile assumptions about me reveal you as just another jerk who thinks they know someone because you argued with him on the internet. The word for that isn't humility, it's arrogance.