To explain knowledge of God

[Drich]

You might have guessed I'm not looking to be Mormon. . .

But how can you not see the problem here? If you use a method like A/S/K on any set of beliefs from mainline Christianity, to Mormonism, to Islam, to devil worship, chances are good, you will find what you are looking for. Since the things found are diametrically opposed, it seems to me that the seekers are not finding anything real. Certainly they can't all be finding the true god.

thats the thing though. A/S/K when broken down to it's core elements is a process used anytime we desperately are looking for something. It doesn't have to be religion specific. It is a process that God has written into our very dna. It is how we naturally go about filling need in our lives. God/Christ is telling us to seek out the Holy Spirit as we would anything else we need in life.

And it's not as if the method only works on reasonable stuff (not suggesting the Bible is reasonable). The Mormons call their version of this seeking, the truth test. And they use it to verify the truth of the Book of Mormon. Ever dipped into The Book of Mormon?

actually I have. My sister was being recruited and I supplied rebuttle for a year of all their best efforts.

It's less historical than the Bible. It contradicts what we know about North America at every turn. Yet, using the truth test, person after person accepts it as trumping the gospels.

because those people want to be Mormons... What the problem is? They have the right to justify their beliefs anyway they choose. Theirs is a religion based on community. Some people value community over God, for those who's God is based in community Mormonism is for them.
False religion serves a purpose. Not all are destined to be with God for eternity. This life was designed to sift wheat from chaff/sheep and goats. This happens while we are under our own steam, meaning it is the choices we make that seperates us from God. We have been given over to our hearts, and it is out hearts who informs our conscience selves and God whether we are sheep or goats, wheat or weed, wheat or chaff.
Mormonism and other false religion are all apart of that separating process.
Again, here if you wish to serve God one moves past Mormonism, if one wishes to serve and be apart of that specific religious community then your final destination a religion like Mormonism.
So here again A/S/K does indeed work because you are a/s/k'ing till you find what it is your heart wants, if it wants to serve God then it will keep asking and if it want to be apart of the Mormon community you will find what you have been looking for despite the Truth. That is why the 'truth test' works. Because those people value each other/community above and beyond senseable truth.

So how would an outsider know who to ask for?

because it is the job of people like me, woot, frodo, proffessor,GC to tell you.

Or if any of the gods sought exists at all? Certainly, ASK won't tell you, because it works on all the gods.

as it works on finding a mate, a job, the right shade of lip stick..

---- Except of course when it doesn't work and the seeker is told to go on knocking endlessly . . . .

You need to be prepared to spend the rest of your life looking for a God if your heart is hard, but if you are willing to follow God where ever He may lead your time seeking [/quote]will be brief.

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It is my firm belief that when you ask God for proof or a relationship and your in a toxic faith, apart of what you ask for is sheding your toxic faith. Many of you identify this is disbelief or atheism. So in essence Atheism is apart of what you asked for, only knocking will bring you back to God on the other side.

Drich, you seem to be unaware that, in order to do your ASKing, we need to believe in the existence of the being to whom we should be ASKing, in the first place.
That doesn't work.

On the other hand, you also have believers failing at implementing the auto-enhancing self-brainwashing tactic outlined in Luke... To me, that says that the methodology is not at all obvious. Why would such a full-proof method of having personal evidence for the existence of loving deity be so hard to grasp, even for believers?!
Why would the written word require your helping hand at interpreting and guiding those who failed to implement it properly, due to, apparently, a poor understanding of the text?

See the post to Jen-A

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A method that you can't say was unsuccessful if you tried for fifty years 'because you didn't try long enough' isn't much of a method.

again you are ASK'ing only as long as it takes for you to abandon your corrupt picture of God, open your bible with a open heart and begin to build a picture based on what you find there. If that takes you 50 years then may I intrest you in some Mormonism or perhaps some Allah.

However, that is not my main objection to it. My main objection to it is that it probably usually works, and it will work just as well if you're trying to 'know' if Papa Legba is real as it does for Yahweh. If you try hard enough to convince yourself of something long enough, you are likely to succeed, sooner or later, if what you're trying to believe doesn't directly contradict the evidence of your senses...and I think it would work sometimes even then. It's clearly a method of self-brainwashing. And things that are really true shouldn't require you to brainwash yourself to believe them.

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you guys love to talk circumstance and avoid detail like the plague. For instance you are padding your excuse folder with all these reason why it wouldn't be a good idea to do this, and yet at the same time use this same method in just about every other aspect of your life. See my response to Jen-A for detail.

If this were true, you should be able to show it's true.

God is not an organ grinder monkey I can produce to take a dollar for a bag of peanuts when ever someone want to see him do a trick.

God offers The Holy Spirit who humble themselves to Him and seek Him out as instructed. Your proof is avaiable but only you can claim it and only directly from God.

Becaue the Bible is true because it's from the Holy Spirit, and we know the Holy Spirit is true because it's in the Bible, which we know is true because it's in the Bible, which is from the Holy Spirit....and round and round you go.

stawman much? The bible is true because in it is a very specific set of promises that we as believers can collect on in this life. If we ABC we will receive 123. And if we are faithful to the 123 we are given we will be given much more. I did the ABC, received the 123, was faithful and have rolled it over and over into a 18, 19, 20.

A/S/K works if one follows what has been written in luke 11.
Very simple if you want the treasure you must carfully follow the map.

The 'map' works for any 'treasure' you decide you want to believe in, in advance. It works just as well for finding Krishna as it does for finding Jesus.
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Again, what the prolem is?