JUST OPEN YOUR HEART, DAMMIT!

[Athene]

I have a very simple answer for your question, believers do not need to find God they already have it's those who do not believe that need to search, they don't have to and I wasn't saying they had to it's their choice. As far as Puff goes his creator has said he is fictional and only non-believers say God is fictional, and might I add with no proof.
I noticed when you said you did Bible study you didn't mention the guidance of the Holy Spirit, didn't your church believe in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Also if you had to cherry pick it seems to me you were trying to live a life as what you believed Christians should instead of growing in a relationship with God and allowing Him to teach you. Why would you believe that the spiritual world would have to hold to the physics of the physical world, that makes no sense to me, God being the creator and being outside of nature can accomplish whatever He desires, at least Christians are taught this through the scriptures.
I also can't understand how you could not see how things in scripture tied together, what denomination did you belong to?

GC

Forgive me for being indelicate, but I've just gotten off of work and I'm not patient when I'm tired.

Why not wait awhile before posting, I'm not in any rush and wouldn't it be better than asking forgiveness before you even get started, seems to me asking forgiveness to start with doesn't bode well for the attitude of the intended reader, it put's one on the defensive before starting. That's why I waited and came back to this post, I would like to keep things calm.

 FYI, I never asked why believers need to find God, I asked why non-believers need to do so... so, please read carefully.

I know what you asked, but it seemed to me you missed the obvious, believers do not need to find God, so the only ones left are non-believers. Like I said in my earlier post, non-believers aren't required to unless they desire to find God.

I'm familiar with the concept of the Holy Spirit and I don't care. God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit......it's all the same shit, in that it's all made up.

I didn't ask if you knew the concept (even though this was the answer I expected), I asked if you were taught when you said you were a Christian that the scriptures are opened up to us by the Holy Spirit, even Christians can't gain a better understanding of the scriptures unless they allow the Holy Spirit to teach. Spiritual reality is not something physical beings can obtain on their own. I can't tell you how many Christians I've seen that try to understand the scriptures without the Holy Spirit, this is why there are so many denominations. People seeking out God's truth on their own is a selfish way of trying to make God fit into their life/life style, we are to allow God to bring us into His world, we are to conform to God's will so we can be available to help others. This is what Jesus meant when He said the first will be last and the least will be first. 

I don't believe the spiritual world is subject to the laws of the physical world, because there is no spiritual world. No one's ever observed or studied this mysterious realm... because it's not real. I can't accept something as truth, based what others feel. Why would anyone in their right mind base their entire life on crap other people claim they felt?

I do not go on what others feel or claim to feel, I don't listen to atheist because they can only say how they feel about Christianity. Christianity is not a feel good thing, it's living in a relationship with God and taking action within God's will for their lives. Sometimes that means a life with some painful things even great pain at times, why, for others. Christianity has no guarantee that life will be easy, there is no such teaching in the scriptures, the disciples were told they would suffer until their deaths, Paul was told he would suffer throughout his ministry, if these great men of God had to live such lives why should Christians today expect an easy life, what we can expect is that God will be with us through the thick and thin of our lives in His service. This is the life I desire, the rewards have been tremendous even though there have been some great difficulties. So you see I base my life on what God and His scriptures reveal, no cherry picking, I take it as I'm taught by the Holy Spirit.

The claim that non-believers need to embrace Christianity specifically is ridiculous enough, without having to listen to some garbage about why one denomination is the really, really right path to god. It's all the same bullshit.

They do if they desire salvation and eternal life, if they don't then they don't. I didn't say that one denomination or any combination of denominations is the right path to salvation, salvation comes from God and not any particular denomination. Belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and what Jesus did for mankind is the requirement for salvation, there are without doubt lost and saved in every denomination and no I'm not trying to pull the Strawman here, I'm stating what Jesus himself said, "some will come to me and say Lord didn't I do this or that in your name, I will say I never knew you." The only path is a real relationship with Christ, not the work you try to do to gain salvation.

The men who wrote the Bible blew it. Christians claim it's the infallible Word of God, but one needs to go no further than Genesis to see that the men who wrote it didn't know what the hell they were talking about. If they were inspired by God, they would've gotten that shit right. Busted. Game over. Dudes wrote it.

You're right men penned the scriptures, but not of their own accord, but by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, man could never make a work penned by many men over thousands of years to mesh together like the Bible does. I've seen nothing wrong in Genesis or any other book.

And the evil shit Christians like to gloss over, that makes people wonder "Why would a loving God do that?" 
Here's a plausible scenario.  No loving God would do that... But, a Bronze Age, tribal motherfucker would. Why is the God of the Bible so jealous, vengeful, violent and petty? Probably because the assholes who MADE HIM UP were.

You see somethings as evil and I believe it's because you never learned the greater purpose of God, I asked God about what you see as evil because I wanted to know what His real purpose was about, because I knew how non-believers looked at these things. I got my answer over time, I patiently waited on Him and was given what I asked for, so yes what you see as evil I know as love for mankind, I do not expect you to understand even if I tried to explain it to you. I didn't let what I didn't understand stand in the way of my relationship with God, I waited for Him to reveal to me His purpose, and that purpose from the beginning was to save us from ourselves. I do wish you would wait till you've gotten over work before posting to me, I can do without the unpleasant language. Why is God so jealous and vengeful, because He loves us, God isn't violent nor petty He is protective and a promise keeper, He is God and grander than we can ever imagine. 

I don't need to prove God isn't real, just as I don't need to prove that a Xenon isn't real..........until evidence is provided that they exist, I'll assume they don't.

 P.S. 'God is real because the Bible says he's real' and 'The Bible's true because the Bible says it's true' ain't evidence.

You can no more prove God is real than I or anyone else can, I know without doubt He's real because He proved it to me, He will do it for any sincere person, God knows the heart and the sincerity in the heart. It really is strange how atheist dismiss the Bible yet will accept everything the Egyptians have put down and we know they have destroyed some of their own history because prior leaders disliked previous leaders. Purposefully to deceive future generations.

GC

GC, I didn't mention the Holy Spirit in relation to my past bible study, because I didn't feel it was relevant to whatever point you were trying to make. For a believer such as yourself, I guess that is unfathomable.  I am familiar with the concept, I've heard countless sermons on the Holy Spirit, but it means nothing to me. You do understand that an atheist does'nt believe in the Holy Spirit, don't you? You keep asking these questions, operating under the premise that I have no belief in god, while assuming I accept that a Holy Spirit exists, but choose not to follow it. 
 
And, if you see nothing wrong with Genesis and  you take it to be literal Word of God..... hell, I don't know what to tell you. I even know of several fundamentalists who won't do that, because even they know ridiculous it sounds. The Creation story is nonsense, that is a fact. Why won't you accept reality?

In my mind, this feels as if you're trying to convince me that 2 + 7= 3, when I know that it equals 9. You can present all of the spiritual, philosophical, emotional arguments in the world....but, they just don't mean anything to me. I don't believe in magic, GC. Christianity requires magical thinking from beginning to end that many people are just not capable of accepting.