To explain knowledge of God

[pocaracas]

This is turning into a Statler-Waldorf kind of reply!

I can't understand the requirement of faith.

God requires a mustard seed's worth of faith.. We place more than that in the airlines we fly with. God only requires enough faith to A/S/K

WHY? What's his problem? Why can't he just present himself as the being that you claim he is?
Why the mental charade?

Why would such a being as a god require that we believe in it without any evidence for such belief?

Pride. Rather the lack of it, is required to approach God the way He has commanded.

Not really an answer...

Why should we have to take the word of other people?

Humility/service. Once saved we are not equals. we are servants./slaves Slaves/servants get told what to do.

That's how people fall for cons... how do you know you're not a victim?

Why should we have to take the word of other people who wrote that word for future generations?

Truth is truth what does it matter when or who it came from?

Truth should bear some resemblance with reality.
The reality I observe, the reality you observe, the reality that the chinese from 4000 years ago observed.
These realities are, on average, not compatible with the existence of the entity you wish for me to believe.

Why, then, must such faith be put to any test?

to be transformed to belief. to provide proof. to have that mustardseed Grow into a productive plant... Or did you not know that the seed, gets destroyed when the plant starts to grow?

Wut?!
Faith transformed to belief?
Try to explain that without metaphors, so I can understand what you mean.

What does this entity stand to gain through faith that it couldn't get through knowledge and instilling respect?

Knoweledge commands pride and ownership of said knowlwedge. God and man's pride can not coexist.
When you truly humble yourself all that you have you understand has been given as a gift, and that you/I am not the source of said knoweledge/wisdom but just a conduit.

Sounds like a cop out.
Why can't god and man's pride coexist? Is there any logical rule that even god can't break regarding pride?
If there is, how would you know about it?

The requirement of faith, to me, makes god look like a human construct... a cunning construct, or one that has been refined throughout the millennia, but one that takes advantage of certain pitfalls of the human mind.

Again that is the reason for trials.. to help the one stuck in faith move past it and receive outside proof. lets say you contract a deadly disease that their is no cure for, and God walks you through that trial and you come out on the other side... 'Science' Will tell you that it was an anomoly or that it was miss diagnosed.. but what do you think you would think/feel when God personally walks you though the impossiable? Now what if you lead a life of walking through the impossiable everyday? How much 'faith' do you think you would need if you could see the impossiable happen day in and day out?
Not very much because you will have accumilated a life time of proof. Albeit not proof enough for everyone else but it is proof enough for you.. And that's exactly what God offers Each of us. a lifetime filled of the impossiable... But again because it is impossiable what you will be made to endure will be difficult. these difficulties are often times labled 'trials.'

Let's say you contract a non-fatal, but chronic wound, like... lose a leg. god walks thousands through that trial every day... none of them have grown a leg back.
Diseases and other things we can't actually see and fully understand how they work, due to their complexity or small scale, cannot have cures and effects attributed to any god, for it will be considered "god of the gaps".

Gaps, of which there are still many in our understanding of the world...
Gaps which fuel belief in gods by many.. including you, if I'm not mistaken.

Finally, you wish that we look for god, and yet, provide no god for us to look for.

Because God is not my pet monkey that I can simply produce.. If you want to meet God you will have to do it on His terms. His first is to check your pride and approach him not as some old grandfather, but as the Master and Commander of creation. Take off your hat, bend your knee do it right, and He has literally promised He will show up.

Then let him produce himself.
Considering how humanity has evolved from primates, at some point, if there is such a being, it must have contacted humans and relayed his message onto them.
Let him do the same with me and all, if he wishes me to acknowledge his existence.
If he does not wish it, then just carry on.

For me and mine He has time and time again.

hmmm... do you have a photo of such a "show up"?

You provide us with mental exploits which manage to convince a considerable segment of the population. But which, knowing beforehand of their exploitative nature, we logically refuse to undertake them!

Again what if they happened to you? What I have provided is what God offers you. This is not like a museum where there is a display and a sheet of glass to keep you from what I have experienced.. You too can have cancer or aids!! and if you want i can pray that you get it!!!
(Someone let stimbo know I'm back at it)

What you have provided is not what "god offers me", but what someone wrote in the bible about that god. And you believe in the contents of the bible, hence, you believe that the god offers anything.

Don't turn things around, man.
First and foremost, thus far, you have let us know this: you believe in the bible. (specifically the NT... the OT is nasty and needs some cherry picking, am I right?)

The point being God is willing to carry you through these deep valleys/situation that we endure so that you know the only reason you came out on the other side is becaus He put you there.

And yet, all those valleys can be attributed to natural causes, as well as the climbing out of them.
Why should I even consider the option of a god, if no one had come up with that concept before me?

What you register as a opposition is us simply refusing to let our mental guard down.

That is not true because i have demonstrated that in this case A/S/K is used in everyday life for just about everything we do, EXCEPT for seeking out God.

Didn't I say something about Newton, before?

We know full well how wrong that method can be. And we've been telling you this all along and, just when I thought you had registered that... you stick with it...

What you all dont seem to get that it is not my method. That is why I keep refering to luke 11. and the story Jesus put with it to illustrat this principle. The reason He did that was to show that this principle is tied to our core existance.

I know it's not "your" method... it's a way of speaking!
But yes, you're right, it's something tied to our core existence.

Something in the way our brains work, makes the ASK method work the same for any concept of god.
If you seek the god of the Qur'an, you find the god of the Qur'an.
If you seek the god of the bible, you find the god of the bible.
If you seek anything spiritual, you find something spiritual.

Look at what he said: A man was looking for food/bread to feed some hungry guests.. Again, the primal need to eat spawned this A/S/K instinct. This wasn't some manufactured will plotted out plan this guy used to get bread. He simply did what he would naturally do when the need was great enough.

This is ALL God wants us to do. Is to be spiritually hungry enough to seek him as we would seek to feed ourselves when a little oppsition comes our way.

And yet, I'm not spiritually hungry.
I feel no spiritual hunger whatsoever. Never have... likely, never will. What now?

It is one of the latest "true" interactions of the divine with mankind... it should be even more "true" than the christian bible... and yet, you don't see it that way... why?

Because God did not support what was contained in that book.

But god does support it for many many people...
They will claim the same thing you claim, but for their god.

Come on, man. Think out of the box.... China, 4000 years ago. Which prophets?

If 4000 years ago the chinese were sent prophets and they have no record now, then thoses people did not want to have God in their lives. The point being God will rightly judge them based on what they were exposed to, just like everyone else.

Then I will be judged based on my perception of what I was exposed to.
My perception is that all notions of god are attempted cons, so the big guy will take that into consideration.

[

Are you sure those are the only two options?

yup

How about the third where nothing happens nor exists after death? You just get turned off and returned to being as you were before you were conceived: a bunch of scattered particles with no collective impetus.

Can't you yet see how flawed the method is?

no, I honestly can not.
maybe if you considered all that I have said to you, rather than defaulting to an old dawkins tactic of trying to establish the inablity of falsification, by creating a string of sterotypical strawmen, and knocking them down rather than speaking to what i have said, you would be hard pressed in seeing any flaws either.

strawmen, huh? I apologize if that's how they look. They are my best attempt at understanding your position. If they are flawed, it may be because of my limited reading capability.... it may be because of your limited writing capability... it may be because I bring to the table a different set of tools to look at what you write and we end up trying to pass on a message that never reaches the other side in full.

I keep attempting to provide you with the information about how the mind can be tricked into believing in something that isn't necessarily true, if it uses the ASK method.
I, too, must be failing at this task. I am sorry.
I am no psychologist, nor neurologist... perhaps humanity's accumulated knowledge about the way the mind works is still too limited for me to properly convey that notion to you.