(January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:(January 9, 2019 at 5:56 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Have you ever seen a Christian church without a cross?
Don't you think you're injecting bias when starting with god?
If you start with god, how can you end with anything different?
"God will confirm God" is circular and not a valid way to reason out if it is indeed God.
What if there was no scripture? What if you were living in a place and time where you had no access to scripture?
I'll give you the fact that God is within you... within me. The concept of god, that is.
No God has ever shown the ability to communicate with me. And I'm sure there are many many like me. And I doubt that it's just because of a lack of belief. Why would a god hide from someone who simply doesn't believe? What is the power of belief to a god?
But... what is the power of belief to your psyche?... ah... it is a very great power. One that cannot be discounted, ever.
The Church isn't the building, but rather the people. If they meet in a park without a cross, it is still Church. If someone builds a structure and calls it a "church", it is understood as such. If everybody puts a cross in those buildings, then it is symbolic, but not a requirement. Is it wrong to do so? Quite possibly, but I would probably explore the matter more before I affirm, so I dunno.
The church is the building. The churches I mentioned are buildings. Come now... no need to go on that tangent
All this to tell you that the laws of god are not and haven't been for a long long time, properly followed... Maybe because, down deep, people know that those laws were not from god, exactly?
(January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: - If I start with God, continue with God, and God is sufficient, then I won't fail.
If I start with a Leprechaun and end with a Leprechaun, then I won't fail. My computer will still be broken, and I will be certain that a Leprechaun did it.
(January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: - If God is sufficient, then why can't God confirm God?
If a Leprechaun can break my computer, then why can't it confirm that Leprechauns exist?
(January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: - I don't live in a place and time with no access to scripture. If God sets His Word equal to himself, then He is sufficient as the source even if I don't have a book with scripture written down in front of me. If God dwells in me, then I have what I need regardless.
If a Leprechaun dwells in each and every machine, and there are scriptures that affirm this, then I have all that I need to diagnose how the computer broke.
(January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: - I don't believe God is hiding from you.
I know he is. Just like that damned Leprechaun.
(January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: - Seek God, remove your own bias, and let God do it His way.
I'm sure you'll understand that, if I seek god, then I'll have that bias upon me... the bias of assuming that a god is actually there and available for being found.
When I mentioned the times when there was no scripture that was because that's the baseline from where humanity needs to start. No scripture. No stories. No miracles. No prophecies.
Why should I start off with a pre-existing belief, if mankind very likely did not?
If mankind didn't start with that belief, then how did mankind come to acquire that belief in the absence of scripture and everything else?
- You might say it's the god that dwells within...
- I'd say it's the inability to explain certain features of reality coupled with a fertile imagination... just like the Leprechaun.
How can we determine which of us is right (if any)?
(January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: - When man decided to be the determining factor, that's when the problem began. If that was the problem, then remove man as the determining factor.
Ah... so... exterminate humanity. That'll work.