(March 28, 2013 at 1:23 am)jstrodel Wrote: I couldn't live without God. God is my best friend. I can assure you that God is real. Seek and you will find, knock and the door will opened to you. God is real, if you have any questions, PM me. I will write 25 pages if you want. It isn't a problem. Send me what you are curious about.yeah... you keep telling yourself that. Say it enough times and you'll become convinced of it....wait, you've done it already!!
(March 28, 2013 at 1:23 am)jstrodel Wrote: The Christian faith is true, I want all of it to be true, the mercy, the judgement, the person of Christ. I love God. God saved me and gave me hope that there was more in the world than money and getting a job and pleasure and living an empty life. God has given me meaning and opened my eyes to the wisdom of God. It is really amazing how many good things have come to me through God's agency.hmmm, how many have? and which?
(March 28, 2013 at 1:23 am)jstrodel Wrote: Seek and you will find. It is not wrong to long to be with God. God puts that in people.Or people put that in people and then think it was some extra-terrestrial divinity.
(March 28, 2013 at 1:23 am)jstrodel Wrote: But you must respond. Don't be weak. Don't let anyone talk you out of it.I won't let anyone talk me out of it... if your god does exist and has presented itself to other people (not through wanting, but presented in a physical form), as is recorded in your holy book, then I expect the same treatment. Is it too much to expect?
Why must must I delude myself before I accept the existence of the delusion?
(March 28, 2013 at 1:23 am)jstrodel Wrote: As for the wars and problem of evil, the world is in a state of evil because people have resisted God. They are no longer under the blessing of God, so that now sin affects the course of the world. That is why there are wars, because people fight to control the world. God did not cause all the bad things to happen, but now that they happen, God does punish sin. God is not more severe in God's ways than most governments in history, who have punished some crimes severely, but nevertheless are just and fair.The wars... god itself helps win some wars, according to your holy book. If the guy's involved in wars, why would the evil of wars in the world be solved by this god?
I wouldn't expect it to be so...
(March 28, 2013 at 1:23 am)jstrodel Wrote: There really is no philosophical problem of evil. God simply is not required to act in history the way that people would want God to, and if God did, what would happen is the end of the world, because so many things would change that people would cease to have free will and the kingdom of God would come.How do you account for the free will of the people in the holy book's stories? Moses?... he met god, hence had no free will, so.... no kingdom of heaven for him. The same goes for Abraham, the apostles... heck, everyone!
Now, why must I believe the stories that were written about these people, instead of having equivalent experiences?
Why is it all done in such a way that, were the stories man-made/imagined, nothing would be required to change in the physical world we have around us?
Why must I delude myself that god exists before I have any experience of this god?
Why are all current "experiences" of the divine so camouflaged and mental that the only rational explanation for them is "man-made/imagined"?
Why, if god presented itself to some humans, can't it present itself to all humans?
Why, if god presented itself to some humans in one way (J.C, for example), did it present itself to other humans in a different way (e.g. Mohamed), giving rise to different religions and all the hardship and war those have brought on the world?
