Post number 1

[Whateverist]

I remembered thinking God was the realization of what is most worthy. So my desire was to be good company for Him. Like you, I didn't feel compelled to account for every biblical detail. I think I thought the bible and the people in church and everyone else for that matter, were simply misunderstanding it all. From what I could tell, no one was any better position to know that was superior to my own. Since my self appointed mission for God was to become worthy company for Him, it was essential that I judge everything for myself. So I don't really harbor any resentment toward religion. It was like like part of the egg that fed me in becoming me. Like the chick and the egg, we incorporate and then cast religion aside. There just isn't any reason to yell through the egg shells "everyone out now". They'll be out when they're ready.

[Drich]

If he's not analogous to my father,

That is not what was said. i said Just because God is not a Father, how you yourself would choose to be a Father...

When you actually compare God to a father, and eliminate every way the analogy doesn't work, there isn't much left but a figure you claim gets the credit for my existence but won't reveal his own unless I do exactly as you say.

You are going about it backwards. God in the bible has defined our roles as "fathers" to match His role as God. Just because we in our modern greatness have decided to stray from the roles He has given us Does not make Him any less of a father. It makes your effort or anyone else who takes on the modified role of fatherhood less of a biblical based Father figure.
Your father nor how you would choose to father a child is not the standard you think it to be.

You mean in a culture where fatherhood means something different than in cultures where Christianity is predominant?

I mean to say in Judaism where The Fatherhood of God was first spelled out, and subsequently taken and reinforced in the NT. Not the bastardized version of fatherhood that has become the popular standard in these last few Generations of western culture have accepted.

Well, we're at an impasse then. It's idiotic to submit to an imaginary being, if God wants people to submit to him without knowing he's real, he wants idiots, and I'm afraid he's out of luck with me.

Perhaps it is the Other way round.

If only there were a being capable of insuring everyone got the same clear instructions.

We all start with the same clear instructions, but as you have proven over and over those instructions are often muddled up with personal interpretation and one's own brand of righteousness.

Like seeing if the person has access to verifiable information they could not otherwise have known?

Again it depends on the person and the gift.

The book so nice I read it twice. My motivation for reading it was to get closer to God, I was quite devout and idealistic. I had been taught God is loving and just.

Not by the book you weren't. you sought a proponent for that teaching. i suggested that you simply seek the God of the bible. Not seek an interpretation of that God.

The barbarism contained therein didn't make me an atheist. It did make me an agnostic theist. I still believed there was a God, I just couldn't believe it could be as violent and capricious as the God the Bible describes.

Do you want to know why?

By 'west', you mean I got my ideas of fatherhood in a predominantly Christian country, yes.

"Christian" small "c" denotes a worship of a religious method or tradition and not God. The country may be "c"hristian but the recognition of what and who a Father is not of the bible and is not of God.

Would you please name a country in which a father missing a child would not try to search for him or her if they were able? You're being very vague about these other countries where fathers don't demonstrate any love for their children.

I'll do you one better:

11 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’

20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring[b] out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.

25 “Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’

28 “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’

31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. 32 It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”

This is the CHRISTIAN view of a True Father. Not the watered down view of people living in a christian country may have of fatherhood.

Loving your children and caring enough about their fate to try to find out what happened to them and letting them know you've been looking once you know their location is serving them?

Do you think God does not know what happened to you? You didn't disappear. You told the old man He was dead to you give you your inheritance and you ran off. He knows you are spending your inheritance and He knows if He drags you home at some point you will just run off again. So He let you go till you are ready to return home.

Just like my father. Except he would lift a finger to show he cares whether I live or die. Which apparently you are saying most of the fathers in the world would not.

Not me Luke 15

You can't love a father you don't know.

Truthfully it is my hope to you that you will never know this to be true.

Again unless you humble yourself what in creation makes you think He wants to?

Repeated unsubstantiated claims that he loves me.

Read what i wrote again. I did not say He had an all encompassing love for you. Matter of fact i didn't even say He loved you. I said unless you humble yourself before Him what makes you think He is willing to do anything for you?

You're not asking me to humble myself out of sight of the master. You're asking to accept hearsay that there's a master who wants me to humble myself, and won't reveal his existence until I do. Nowhere else in life besides religion would you expect anyone with an ounce of sense to accept a proposition like that.

Nowhere outside of worship of God is a proposition like that needed.

Well, let's start with fear then, and see where it goes. God is welcome to reveal himself by terrifying me.

Then challenge God to do so, till you get what you want.

Clearly my retorts are full enough to make you figuratively raise your typing voice.

Indeed, however that does not mean there is substance to your effort. Just a need to emphasize the empty effort.

Just like every other god in that if you believe they are real and that they can hear your thoughts, you will be able to 'hear' them or interpret their signs or whatever if you try hard enough to mentally contact them, through whatever means while having whatever the proper attitude is supposed to be. That's how other people 'hear' from their gods, same as yours. They seek, ask, and knock.

ah, no. Not even close to what i asked for. Do you want to try again? I am looking for specific scriptures found in their holy books that paralell the teaching found in luke 11.

Or would you rather i simply move to trivalize your efforts as wishful thinking and dismiss the whole premise?

You miss the point. You do not have to Convince yourself of anything (meaning complete the task) God promises to complete this task Himself.

Since I said that's how you start to convince yourself, I didn't miss the point. If you start to convince yourself 9/11 was an inside job, you will find evidence to support what you're trying to convince yourself of. That's why so much of science is about controlling biases of perception, once we start looking for evidence to support a conclusion rather than drawing a conclusion from the evidence, we have unknowingly set ourselves on a path likely to lead to the desired conclusion, no matter what that conclusion is. I gave up the idea of God reluctantly, over many years. What I want to be true has absolutely no bearing on what actually is true. Again, any god can complete the task of convincing you that it exists once you set out to believe: that's because it's all in our heads.

The same could be said of unbelief. I start out looking for reasons not to believe and will find what I am looking for.

Except bias myself in a way certain to ensure that I reach the pre-determined conclusion by filtering the evidence with confirmation bias.

Again substitute the word belief with unbelief and the statement still holds true.

If you want me to believe God doesn't want me to worship such a God, he shouldn't have made his name as the signs and wonders sort.

To you He hasn't.

Even in the NT that's how he supposedly showed Jesus was his son, and why people believed it.

"signs and wonders were only a very small part of the ministry of Christ. Matter of fact He rebuked those who wanted to see a magic show. Chirst primary efforts centered around His teachings.

That's the Jewish and Christian God, a sea-parting, water-walking, vision providing miracle machine! Are you talking about a different God?

I did not say non of these things did not happen. I said these were not the focous of the ministries of God. A means to an end not the point or purpose of His existance.

Maybe that is why you are disappointed in God. You grew up looking for the great magician and never found him. It like I said. We all start out with a very simply set of universally known prameters, and then we muck it up with what "we" think God is supposed to be, or what we think He owes us.

Whether it means anyone's life is exactly what's in question. Answer your question for yourself with Zeus as the object of the prayer, and get back to me. I expect my answer is the same as yours when it comes to how much of r we'll spare for a god we consider imaginary.

I do not "pray or seek" other God because none has offered what the God of the bible has offered. (Remember the point of me pointing out your "empty retort.")

If God will miraculously end malaria or childhood leukemia or Alzheimer's or Huntington's disease, or harlequin ichtyosis (any one of those will do), I'll pay any cost. I'll preach my whole life, I'll give everything away, whatever he wants. I don't want anything for myself, I've lived 50 years, I'll be content with dying horribly tomorrow if only God will end one of those diseases today.

What about pollio does that count? The black plague? consumption? or do you need another? What if God cured just you? what would you promise or bargin for then? What if you had nothing God wanted?
Then what would you offer as payment?
Now what if God was not looking to barter?

quote='Drich' pid='266819' dateline='1333429348']
Just want you to know what you are asking for in the "prayer" you offered. Now all you have to do is seek in the bible, in church, and with people like me (willing to study with you) and knock by repeating this process till you get what you want.

Again a recipe likely to wind up in belief whether or not the object of the belief is real. If I worked that hard at believing Voodoun or Hare Krishna, I've no doubt I'd succeed. You clearly can't offer anything distinguishable from what happens in any other people's noggins when they struggle to believe.

I can't no, but that is the beauty of it.I don't have to it is not my responsiablity to offer you anything on the behalf of God. My job ends in pointing you in the right direction. The rest is between you two to work out.

Well, I've asked for that. We'll see how it turns out.

Remember the parable. It is not just an ask thing. It is an ask, seek and knock thing meaning "asking" is only 1/3 of the formula. You must also seek and knock.

It's theatre if you know the grenade is a prop that can't really kill you.

The first question you asked, was "What I was on about?" The short answer is this. "Death" was not the total sum of the sacerfice of Christ. Therefore even if the Real gernade did not kill Christ it did open Him up a bit. Which by all definations of the word still is a sacerfice.

[Granted. You were very clear that I am not worthy of receiving a revelation because it's a greater crime to not follow any God than it is to have Christians killed, apparently.

Why you ask?? Because Death is our birth into eternity and unbelief leads to eternal seperation.

You mean with the means to pay a scribe like Paul did?

Not just pay a scribe but for the materials as well. This was an extremely expensive process back then. you had parpirus and partchment to work with and neither was a luxuary that the common made could afford. How ever teaching the gospel was free, even if you were not remembered for it.

I've never been to Africa, all I ever do for Africans is send money to Camfed every few months and tutor refugee children and help their families. I could do more. Africa is on my list of places to go for purely selfish reasons, as clearly I can do more good by donating the cost of the trip than I can do with what little help I am capable of giving with my presence. I struggle with the idea of keeping anything above what I need to stay housed and clothed and fed in the face of the suffering that happens there.

If money is all you have to give then God bless you for it.

How many times have you?

When your life has change to live the example you teach, there is no way to count that sort of thing.
You are aware because it is your life.

I wouldn't say someone is worthless because they're poor, but I understand you meant it very literally as in they don't have income or financial assets.

Not worthless because they are poor, they are poor because they are worthless. I can understand the confusion if you never worked with anyone like this.

I've been very patient with you, Drich.

Appearently except for the "zinngers." Your patients is appreciated, but not required.

You don't know me or what I do or don't do or what my life is like.

That is why i asked you a series of questions that inquired about your personal involvement.

You've judged me based on nothing and expect me to trust you when you claim to be in touch with the divine. Whatever you're in touch with, I want no part of it if contemptible accusatons like that are an example of its fruits.

What are you on about? do you have an Ipad?

I don't even own any kind of smart phone.

Then How could I even possiably be talking about you? IF Nothing that I said even applies... Was this your plan all along? push and plot till you find a sore spot and then unload of your selfrighteousness on me for not living up to your idea of what I am supposed to be doing here? How is this any Different that What you just accused me of doing?

I don't own a new car, I drove my last one until the engine gave out, just like the one before it (a sixteen year-old Toyota Corolla I paid $400 for and drove four years). I'm paying the mortage on a $50,000 home. My laptop is on its last legs and is the only computer I own. My neighborhood was plagued with crack so bad a few years ago that children I knew were selling it to their mothers. Someone I love was hooked on it and nothing I was able to do or the God she desperately prayed to was able to free her. You don't know me,

I may not know you personally but i know your pain more than you will ever know. Matter of fact i could add some things to your list if I wanted to compare battle wounds, but i am not here for that. Just know there is Absolutly nothing on your list that has not been apart of my life to some degree or another for a long time.

Drich, and your facile assumptions about me reveal you as just another jerk who thinks they know someone because you argued with him on the internet. The word for that isn't humility, it's arrogance.

The word i was think of was Hyprocrite. Just because someone has a tough time in life does not mean you get to hide behind your self pitty when ever things do not go as you would like them to. I am not a respecter of tough luck stories, you can't be and effect real change in people's lives if you are afraid of offending them. (You would know this is you spent any amount of time doing what you claim to have done)

That means i will not srink away simply because your peers see you as a pittiable man for having lived what they consider to be a tough life. Why? Because I see all of the oppertunity you are pissing away in anger and resentment when God did not swoop in and save you from your self. I have been broken and beaten more times than i could even possiably hope to count, and I am better for it. DESPITE My finincal situation. Why? because in my darkest hours I learnd to turn to God rather than run from Him when this did not work out my way. I sought His will rathe than insisting on my own.. I want to go on and smash your effort here into peices because your efforts really angers me, I want to brag of all of the stuff that I have been made to endure, and have been delivered from, but the point has been made.

God may take as He did with Job, as He did with you, but if one is simply faithful to what He has been given/taken then as with Job as with me He will give back far more than what was taken. When will you decide to reap the benfit of your deep personal sacerfice?

Believe me it is there if you simply claim it. Understand and know your suffering was for a purpose and will yeild fruit in your life if you simply culitivate what you have been given. If you want to know how then just ask.
If you want me to feel sorry for you then pour on the pittiful stories.

[Drich]

[quote='whateverist' pid='267342' dateline='1333481796']
[quote]I remembered thinking God was the realization of what is most worthy. So my desire was to be good company for Him. Like you, I didn't feel compelled to account for every biblical detail. [/quote]Which biblical details did you not account for? Do you want to go back over them? i would be happy to help fill in the blanks!!

[quote]I think I thought the bible and the people in church and everyone else for that matter, were simply misunderstanding it all. [/quote]That's was a big mistake on your part because in truth not even the pope understands enough to be considered righteous before God. So someone like you or i doesn't even have a chance on our own. all we can do is be faithful to what we have been given to understand, and have mercy on those who do not have the same understanding as you do. we do this by answering questions and providing clarity when asked or challenged.

[quote]From what I could tell, no one was any better position to know that was superior to my own. Since my self appointed mission for God was to become worthy company for Him, it was essential that I judge everything for myself.[/quote]Again a giant misnomer. "No one is worthy no not one." We are told by Jesus Himself that John the baptist was the most righteous man born to woman, and even he openly admitted that he was not even worthy to untie Jesus' sandals. Given that pedigree and then being faced with the reality of what the "Best born of woman" could be, how can any of us hope to be worthy of God?

[quote] So I don't really harbor any resentment toward religion. It was like like part of the egg that fed me in becoming me.[/quote]My first 20 or so years i was an Atheist and I think as you do." I do not resent my ex-brethren, i see them as being part of the egg that feed me in becoming me too!!"

[quote]Like the chick and the egg, we incorporate and then cast religion aside. There just isn't any reason to yell through the egg shells "everyone out now". They'll be out when they're ready.[/quote]
YES!! I couldn't agree more! Unless a brother asks for help removing his shell then i see absolutely no need to disturb his personal progress.

[Mister Agenda]

I think I'll bow out of this discussion. I believe Drich's posts speak for themselves and don't require any further highlighting from me.

[Cinjin]

Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.

You say this:

You grew up looking for the great magician and never found him. It like I said. We all start out with a very simply set of universally known prameters, and then we muck it up with what "we" think God is supposed to be, or what we think He owes us.

First you make a claim you cannot possibly back up: There is no way that you can know if someone grew up looking for a great magician as their god.
Then you go on to claim that we all start with a very simple universally known set of parameters about who god is ... Again a statement you cannot possibly prove.
Finally, to really slap us in the face with stupidity, and after you have basically admitted that "we" as a human race can't know who God is supposed to be, you contradict yourself by saying that you DO know who god is and that not only do you know, but that you can point the rest of us in the right direction to meet him.

Why you ask?? Because Death is our birth into eternity and unbelief leads to eternal separation.

I can't no, but that is the beauty of it. I don't have to it is not my responsiablity to offer you anything on the behalf of God. My job ends in pointing you in the right direction. The rest is between you two to work out.

So somewhere along the path, you figured it all out and you actually didn't muck it up, as you say, and YOU (in all your intellectual genius) DO KNOW who god is and who he is supposed to be.

How nice for you. What sucks for us, is that you won't see this point I'm making. You won't understand why the verbal diarrhea that pours out of your mouth is so infuriating to the rest of the world who doesn't believe in your silly version of god. Like all the rest of the sheep, you are a massive hypocrite.

[Epimethean]

"Death is our birth into eternity and unbelief leads to eternal separation."

You got that confused a bit.

Both death and unbelief lead to separation: The former to separation from the state of being alive, and the latter to separation from the state of being gullible.

[Drich]

Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.

If I admit that I am a hypocrite then my Hypocrisy indeed has a beginning, therefore a boundary.
Which means my "hypocrisy" does indeed have boundries.

First you make a claim you cannot possibly back up: There is no way that you can know if someone grew up looking for a great magician as their god.

Ok, so this is not an example of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is if we both lived our lives growing up looking for "the great magician," and i condemn that man for doing what i too was guilty of doing.

Which if you continue reading the person's original post, in whom that comment was originally addressed, he confirms his life long quest by the scope of his actions. So.. your arguement does not work anyway you want to look at it. However I can see why me being right would make you angery. Especially, if this is how you looked at God and was going to be your trump card on the day of your judgement.

Then you go on to claim that we all start with a very simple universally known set of parameters about who god is ... Again a statement you cannot possibly prove.

Perhaps it would have been more productive if you asked how could i possibly say that?
These are not my words. this is What God tells all of us, so we are without excuse. If you do not like the assessment then simply take it up with God when you see Him.

Finally, to really slap us in the face with stupidity, and after you have basically admitted that "we" as a human race can't know who God is supposed to be, you contradict yourself by saying that you DO know who god is and that not only do you know, but that you can point the rest of us in the right direction to meet him.

If you take the time to read what has actually been written.. I have said multiple times "We Being finite can not know (completely) an infinite God. However that does not mean we can not know the revealed aspects of God recorded in scripture." Maybe you have noticed and maybe you haven't but this is all i have been doing here since my first post, is pointing you all to the scripture rather than some obscurely believed religious doctrinal principle. Why? because this is what "we" can be sure and know of an Infinite God. To go off reservation and speak about the stuff you all and sometimes religious men wish to speak about is foolishness. especially when we have known aspects of God recorded for us.

So somewhere along the path, you figured it all out and you actually didn't muck it up,

I never said I did not muck anything up. i muck up stuff alot.

as you say, and YOU (in all your intellectual genius) DO KNOW who god is and who he is supposed to be.

Fortunately for me knowing the reveled nature of God is not something muckable if one stays in the bible. Because It's all written down for anyone to read. However if you are not a good reader then God will help you by breaking things down is real easy and simply to understand fragments played out in your life (usually in a series of trials) if you simply ask seek and knock for guidance by the Holy Spirit.

The difference between what I have done here and what others do is when i don't know I turn to God for the answer. If there is no response then I say I don't know. (thus minimizing my personal muck)

How nice for you. What sucks for us, is that you won't see this point I'm making. You won't understand why the verbal diarrhea that pours out of your mouth is so infuriating to the rest of the world who doesn't believe in your silly version of god.

Understand nothing I have was earned or deserved. I should not have even graduated High school. I left there on a 5th grade reading level, and still struggle with basic comprehension and sentence structure (as so many of you have pointed out) I did not grow up in church nor did I have religious teachers or classes. The only thing that separates my understanding of God and yours is i poured my self out to God asking for help understanding no matter what the cost.(and I have been asked to give up certain things, and did for this understanding)

He started me with basic reading with comic books (which is probably why i still write in a boxed format, and not in proper paragraphs using established sentence structure) then moved on to the NT of the bible. I didn't seriously started studying till maybe 10 years ago, which was all heavily slanted to a specific denomination. It wasn't till after I was married and all of the trials that came through helping someone kick a 10 year heroin, smoking and drinking addiction that I found God, apart from an organized religious system of belief. Again which is why i strictly look to and point to the bible.

4 years ago i started taking what I learned and sharing it with others start with all of the standard basics like: How can a loving God allow good things to happen to bad people and how can there be free will if God knows everything and on and on...

I didn't learn this stuff, it was given to me (most of the time as it was being written.) I know this scoffs at the normal pedigree you all demand when speculating with other men's thoughts and theories, so i challenge you address the work. Find a fault in the supporting scriptures or find a suspect precept and ask for Book chapter and verse to support what has been expressed. Test my work and the words I write for the Lord, and hold on to what is good. If I can not represent God accurately or correctly then I should be subject to any and all scrutiny that you can bring to bear. However if you try and fail (Which you will know in your heart) then also know you are now responsible for the principles and precepts that have been broken down and delivered to you. Meaning you will be without excuse.

Like all the rest of the sheep, you are a massive hypocrite.

one of the things i learned early on (being on a 5th grade reading level and all) is to look up words you do are not sure of, just to make sure you are using it correctly, or some big DB will point out how foolish you look misusing the word.

---

"Death is our birth into eternity and unbelief leads to eternal separation."

You got that confused a bit.

Both death and unbelief lead to separation: The former to separation from the state of being alive, and the latter to separation from the state of being gullible.

We shall see

[Cyberman]

"Death is our birth into eternity and unbelief leads to eternal separation."

You got that confused a bit.

Both death and unbelief lead to separation: The former to separation from the state of being alive, and the latter to separation from the state of being gullible.

We shall see

No we shan't; that's the point.

[Drich]

I guess then we will see if we shant.

[Epimethean]

Y tu, ox y moron.