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To take your order of F/B/K into a scientific exercise of discovery would be an invalid procedure, would it not. Wouldn't you replace faith with assumption, belief with theory and then well knowledge is knowledge, so you would have A/T/K. Sound reasonable.
FtR Wrote:No, you still have the order backwards. Knowledge -> belief -> faith: knowledge allows me to write up an hypothesis (belief), which can then be tested and the results will allow me to produce a theory which I will put my justified faith on. This is exactly what I explained using the chair example.
Before I start to answer your statements I want to say this, Undeceived stated and I should have the beginning of faith comes from God, by the Holy Spirit, referred to as being called by the Father, so faith doesn't even begin with us, it originates with God.
I do not have it backwards where God is concerned, nor do you have it wrong where known things exist. To start with knowledge you are starting with some things known. When you start with faith you start with the unknown, concerning God even the faith is unknown at the start. If one has knowledge of something then why do you end up in faith, to me that is not logical.
GC Wrote:
You are applying your thought process to an known object, so your process of thought works.
God is the unknown to all at first, some of us see something we like about God if He exists, so we decide to have faith in God and what He is offering. We begin to follow up by reading scripture and through this we begin to learn, that is as long as we trust God and ask for His revelation of Himself, and we must do this with an open mind, this is where so many trip themselves up. When God reveals things about Himself that go against our preconceived ideas we must give them up and except God's truth, in doing this we come to belief. Through this belief we continue to ask and explore coming to the larger understanding of who God is, in other words we will come to knowledge of God. This is the point I have contention with those who say they knew God and then turned away. This is the point one sees God in a way that is inspiring, joyful, wonderful, exciting and ect. You know God and could never deny Him at this point. This is why the elect will not see the 2+2=5 of the anti-christ, instead we already know the 2+2=4 of God and thus reject all that comes against the truth of God. There will be one ruling anti-christ, but Christians understand as scripture tells us there will be many anti-christ ie. the world.
FtR Wrote:Great, so I have to first a) believe in God so that I can then b) believe in God...
I did not say that, it's not even suggested in my statement, so tell me why did you reply as if I had. I believe you are trying to bring confusion into this conversation. Did I not say F/B/K, why did you jump over faith, the whole F/B/K starts and ends with God, it's up to us to accept. God gives us these gifts it's whether we accept them or not as to hoe deep we go in the relationship wit God.
FtR Wrote:Why did you put unjustified faith into Bible god instead of Qu'ran god? You're still assuming the framework of faith -> belief -> knowledge will give you the "truth", and I say "truth" with 66 99 because we can input whatever we desire into it and you will come out believing it. That's the thrust of this entire thread -- that your methods are equivalent to those used by someone wanting to start a cult.
Again my faith was not unjustified, it began with God, It was given to me as it's given to all as my starting point. It was up to me to act upon the faith given me, I could have rejected it at this point, in my case I did not, many do, then belief comes through revelation from God and I believe most through the scriptures, at this point people will still reject God, for some reason they choose not to believe. Then comes knowledge through the belief in the relationship one has with God, and this knowledge leads to an awesome relationship in the knowledge of God. This is the point I arrived at many years ago and because I've experienced this, with an open mind by the way, I can not understand how it's possible to reject God. Having this knowledge of God is as I said before where I have contention with those who say they have come to this point and rejected God. I personally can not understand how one could get the point of knowledge and still reject God.
As far as the 66 99 you purpose I can see that, and can accept it as why many leave God at the points of faith and belief, but not when one comes to the knowledge of God.
Why haven't I accepted other gods, none of them have ever given me the Faith to get started with.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
(April 10, 2013 at 7:53 pm)Godschild Wrote: I did not say that, it's not even suggested in my statement, so tell me why did you reply as if I had. I believe you are trying to bring confusion into this conversation.
So, every time a Christian tells me that I didn't find God because I didn't look hard enough or do it correctly, that Christian is lying? Does God open himself up to those who seek him cynically, or doubting his existence and not wanting to find it?
If the answer to those two question is 'no', then indeed one must first believe in God so that one can believe in God, and when one fails to find God, it is because he does not first believe in God. You have to completely devote yourself, mind body and heart, to God before he'll open up to you and 'prove' his existence to you. Which is exactly what the likes of Drich, strodel and most of the other Christbots here repeat endlessly as if programmed to do so.
(April 10, 2013 at 7:53 pm)Godschild Wrote: I did not say that, it's not even suggested in my statement, so tell me why did you reply as if I had. I believe you are trying to bring confusion into this conversation.
So, every time a Christian tells me that I didn't find God because I didn't look hard enough or do it correctly, that Christian is lying? Does God open himself up to those who seek him cynically, or doubting his existence and not wanting to find it?
If the answer to those two question is 'no', then indeed one must first believe in God so that one can believe in God, and when one fails to find God, it is because he does not first believe in God. You have to completely devote yourself, mind body and heart, to God before he'll open up to you and 'prove' his existence to you. Which is exactly what the likes of Drich, strodel and most of the other Christbots here repeat endlessly as if programmed to do so.
Confirmation bias is what that is called.
Either you're being thick headed or you're trying to rewrite what I stated. I really do not know how you came to the conclusion you did from what I wrote, it just does not seem logical.
I said God gives the faith so one will search and accept, then faith leads to belief while walking with God. At both of these stages of relationship people believe in God, yet some walk away. It's when one reaches the knowledge of God, truly understanding who God is, that they can't, IMO, walk away from God, it is at this point a person realizes what their salvation really means, they see God in a light never experienced before. I'm not giving you confirmation bias, this is experiencing God. I'm not going to write all this out so I'll give you the passages. Read Matt. 13:1-23 and keep in mind that faith is the seed and take it through the progression of F/B/K. After you have done this and you still do not understand what I've been trying to tell you...well.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
April 11, 2013 at 4:29 am (This post was last modified: April 11, 2013 at 4:57 am by FallentoReason.)
(April 10, 2013 at 12:57 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:
(April 9, 2013 at 12:55 am)FallentoReason Wrote: #1) My senses can't detect God talking to me
#2) I'm being told A/S/K works though
#3) I'm certain God isn't talking to me according to my senses
#4) In order to effectively A/S/K, I need to ignore my senses
#5) God is there
Not big fan of A/S/K myself, since I'm not convinced that its about requesting the Holy Spirit in order to be converted. I think its more about asking to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit after accepting Jesus, as in: "Lord I believe, help me in my disbelief!"
Anyway, back to your OP argument. I think it's pretty good. I see premises 1 and 4 as problematic, as follows:
Premise 1 assumes that God communicates to the believer as sensible speech, i.e. an inner voice. God has many means of communication available to Him: visionary experience, compelling intuition, reason, scriptural revelation, contemplation of nature, or usually some combination of the above.
My objection up to this point would be that the line is now being blurred between experiencing God and "experiencing" God. Literally experiencing him (as I talked about in the OP) could arguably be said to have little room for ambiguity in the believer's mind i.e. they're pretty much convinced that what their senses picked up was in fact God (whether actually God or not.. let's not worry about that). Now, with "experiencing" God... correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the nature of the experience and the experience's content is at the mercy of the believer; "I was eating pickles, and I had 4 pickles left. Just at this moment my grandfather clock hit the new hour and struck the bell 4 times! This is a sign from God that I was meant to have 4 kids." A rather silly example, but I'm sure you get the gist of what I mean. Your presupposed world-view becomes the god of your reality.
Quote:Premise 4 calls on the person to ignore their senses in order to find God. This follows from taking premise 1 as a given. However, since multiple channels are available to God and some of these come to us by means of the senses, then 4 is not a precondition for arriving at your conclusion, 5.
This is yet to be a valid objection depending on what you think of my concerns above.
(April 10, 2013 at 1:08 pm)Undeceived Wrote:
(April 10, 2013 at 8:57 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Ok, perfect. Why are you justified in doing this for your god but not the Muslim? You need to meet me half way and understand that your convictions match your presuppositions, therefore I can't take your suggestions seriously because they are, so far, unjustified. I therefore propose a method for being able to come to truth, but you want to override it and simply urge me "to have faith". So ok... perfect... but why your god and not Baal? It seems like there's no reason at all to choose the Judeo-Christian god apart from the one thing that was out of your control: your geographical starting point on this earth.
Do you see what I'm saying? It's illogical for you to tell me "look! The evidence is all in the Bible!" because I could do the same with you: I could convert to Islam and say "hey, the Qu'ran explains everything you need to know!".
Are you sitting here arguing against Islam or Christianity? Christianity, because it is already apparent to you that its evidence is stronger. Again, faith goes beyond reason, but reason is still paid attention to. The Bible contains no convincing internal contradictions. The Quran does. And a loving, personal God is more consistent with the creation we see around and in us.
I don't really know what to tell you... I mean, every response of yours assumes the Christian god just because. Yeah, if I presuppose the same god, then I agree with your above statement... but this isn't just a matter of asserting proposition p because p and coz I said p. You have yet to give any formal explanation why I should grant you the liberty of being able to presuppose your god exists in order to then base your arguments off that belief. Until then, all you're doing is a) the Judeo-Christian god exists which then means b) some proposition must be true and therefore c) the Judeo-Christian god exists. I find myself standing outside your perfect circle looking for where it begins so that I can jump on board... the beginning is nowhere to be found.
Quote:'Sensory intake' generally refers to the observation of material objects through sight, touch, taste, smell or hearing. Revelation is encountered directly in the mind. Spiritual inspiration is one example. There are instances in the Bible of 'revelation' in the form of a physical appearance, but that's not what we're referring to here. We're referring to the mental realization of God's immediate presence.
Ok, thanks for clearing that up. So from the paragraph where my question came from, you say faith is the thing that will give us these revelations, correct? Well then, we're back at square one: I am putting unjustified faith into your god i.e. I am using the devious method I describe in the OP which can also be seen as faith -> belief -> knowledge(/revelation in this case) instead of the other way around, which would seem the logical way of being able to put faith into something. In other words, for all you know, you've fed yourself non-truths because you decided to put faith into something just because, rather than examining it for truth (i.e. knowledge -> belief -> faith).
Quote:If this were an argument, it would go like this:
1. The Bible could be a deception
2. Therefore, the Bible is a deception
If I were to describe what the believer is doing, it would be this:
1. The Bible could be a deception
2. I don't know, therefore I will put faith into it
3. I have formed beliefs about theology
4. I have come to know this is the truth
C. The Bible is true
Premise 2 highlights the fact that unjustified faith is going into the Bible for some reason i.e. there's actually no reason to think the Bible is true before you put faith into it. Since you have compromised yourself by jumping head first with an unjustified faith, the conclusion might seem rational to you, but whether it's because you actually found the truth OR the deception worked.. well, you're actually in no position to say! You've compromised yourself.
(April 10, 2013 at 7:53 pm)Godschild Wrote: Before I start to answer your statements I want to say this, Undeceived stated and I should have the beginning of faith comes from God, by the Holy Spirit, referred to as being called by the Father, so faith doesn't even begin with us, it originates with God.
To believe what you just said, I need to believe in God, and round we go...
Quote:I do not have it backwards where God is concerned, nor do you have it wrong where known things exist. To start with knowledge you are starting with some things known. When you start with faith you start with the unknown, concerning God even the faith is unknown at the start. If one has knowledge of something then why do you end up in faith, to me that is not logical.
Ok, if you don't have it backwards where God is concerned, then why did you pick the Christian god and not the Islamic god to begin with? At the very beginning, you don't have knowledge of either, yet you chose to put unjustified faith into one of them. Why is that?
It makes sense that knowledge leads to faith only when we're talking about an action that follows from that knowledge. I could have the knowledge that the chair is made of sturdy parts and from there I could form a belief that it can hold my weight. We could just stop there, but the moment I go sit on it, I'm putting faith into it that it won't collapse on me.
Quote:
FtR Wrote:Great, so I have to first a) believe in God so that I can then b) believe in God...
I did not say that, it's not even suggested in my statement, so tell me why did you reply as if I had. I believe you are trying to bring confusion into this conversation. Did I not say F/B/K, why did you jump over faith, the whole F/B/K starts and ends with God, it's up to us to accept. God gives us these gifts it's whether we accept them or not as to hoe deep we go in the relationship wit God.
I said what I said because you are asserting what I said. Look at my bolded bit; I need to believe in God in order to believe in God. You've in fact ditched the entire F/B/K process and just said "our starting point is that God exists". It's unjustified leaps of faith everywhere we look...
Quote:Again my faith was not unjustified, it began with God,
To receive anything from said being, you need to believe in him first... round in circles we go
Quote: It was given to me as it's given to all as my starting point. It was up to me to act upon the faith given me,
Wait, so now it's not you putting faith into him, but rather him giving you the faith?!?! What is going on!
Quote: I could have rejected it at this point, in my case I did not,
Of course you didn't, because even before your "disbelief" you in fact already believed, hence why you can make such statements as "God gave me this, God gave me that".
Quote: many do, then belief comes through revelation from God and I believe most through the scriptures, at this point people will still reject God, for some reason they choose not to believe.
Because they're at the beginning of the entire process. You dress it all up in a way which makes it seem like everything's good so far when in fact you've smuggled in your god's existence into this already.
Quote:Then comes knowledge through the belief in the relationship one has with God, and this knowledge leads to an awesome relationship in the knowledge of God. This is the point I arrived at many years ago and because I've experienced this, with an open mind by the way, I can not understand how it's possible to reject God.
Quote: Having this knowledge of God is as I said before where I have contention with those who say they have come to this point and rejected God. I personally can not understand how one could get the point of knowledge and still reject God.
As far as the 66 99 you purpose I can see that, and can accept it as why many leave God at the points of faith and belief, but not when one comes to the knowledge of God.
Why haven't I accepted other gods, none of them have ever given me the Faith to get started with.
The rest isn't really worthy of a response because it doesn't follow as a logical conclusion. Even your reasoning for not accepting any other god is not logical because you aren't treating them the same way. If you presupposed their existence, then "they" would be more than happy to "give" you faith, as long as you've compromised yourself and decided they are real for no apparent reason like you have done with the Judeo-Christian god.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
(April 11, 2013 at 4:29 am)FallentoReason Wrote: My objection up to this point would be that the line is now being blurred between experiencing God and "experiencing" God. Literally experiencing him (as I talked about in the OP) could arguably be said to have little room for ambiguity in the believer's mind i.e. they're pretty much convinced that what their senses picked up was in fact God.
I would not discount the fact that religion is a least partly experiencial. I practice a number of meditative disciplines: compassion, non-duality, mindfulness, contemplative, and the path of negation. Each of these cultivates within the practitioner a receptive metal state that improves with practice, allowing a better understanding of their own inner life. It isn't all that much different from the study in any other discipline in art or science. A deeper and more fuller understanding of your own consciousness brings you closer to the origin of that consciousness.
Or at least so it seems. Could it be a delusion? Possibly. That position requires a radical skepticism that denies the evidence of the senses, the brain being, in its own way, the most important sense organ.
April 11, 2013 at 12:43 pm (This post was last modified: April 11, 2013 at 12:50 pm by Undeceived.)
(April 10, 2013 at 9:03 pm)Ryantology Wrote: So, every time a Christian tells me that I didn't find God because I didn't look hard enough or do it correctly, that Christian is lying? Does God open himself up to those who seek him cynically, or doubting his existence and not wanting to find it?
(April 10, 2013 at 1:13 pm)Chuck Wrote:
(April 10, 2013 at 1:08 pm)Undeceived Wrote: Do you consider yourself a good person worthy of heaven?
I am a good person, therefore I can't be tempted by "heaven".
There are no places you (addressing everybody) can look for God. The belief He responds to requires a state of mind: a repentant one. You are only going to look for God if you want Him to exist. If you believe you are self-righteous, you are not giving God the chance to forgive you. You remain filled with sin and in fear of His judgment. You do not want Him to reveal Himself, because the God you know will judge you. So God will withhold from revealing Himself through revelation for two reasons: 1) He respects your desire; and 2) He wishes to give you time to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Revelation requires the entering of the Holy Spirit into your mind (which is why we say He gives you faith). The Holy Spirit can only enter if you are pure. If not, His holiness will destroy you. Therefore it is impossible to know God unless you recognize you are a hopelessly sinful person and want to change.
April 11, 2013 at 1:36 pm (This post was last modified: April 11, 2013 at 1:51 pm by Ryantology.)
(April 11, 2013 at 4:01 am)Godschild Wrote: Either you're being thick headed or you're trying to rewrite what I stated. I really do not know how you came to the conclusion you did from what I wrote, it just does not seem logical.
I didn't come to it just based on what you wrote, hence my sharing the credit with other Christbots.
Quote:I said God gives the faith so one will search and accept, then faith leads to belief while walking with God.
This is obviously untrue. If it was, Christianity would have appeared spontaneously throughout the world. Instead, it spread in one tiny and irrelevant backwater and all growth can be traced back to it.
Quote:At both of these stages of relationship people believe in God, yet some walk away. It's when one reaches the knowledge of God, truly understanding who God is, that they can't, IMO, walk away from God, it is at this point a person realizes what their salvation really means, they see God in a light never experienced before. I'm not giving you confirmation bias, this is experiencing God.
More Christbot programming, the pretentious yammering about how one can magically know something is true merely by wanting to think it is really really hard.
Quote:I'm not going to write all this out so I'll give you the passages. Read Matt. 13:1-23 and keep in mind that faith is the seed and take it through the progression of F/B/K. After you have done this and you still do not understand what I've been trying to tell you...well.
I have never not understood you. You're just full of shit.
(April 11, 2013 at 12:43 pm)Undeceived Wrote: Therefore it is impossible to know God unless you recognize you are a hopelessly sinful person and want to change.
Thank you for demonstrating the necessity of confirmation bias in order to 'know' God, because Godschild is apparently not paying any attention to what other Christbots are programmed to repeat.
(April 11, 2013 at 12:43 pm)Undeceived Wrote: The belief He responds to requires a state of mind: a repentant one. You are only going to look for God if you want Him to exist. If you believe you are self-righteous, you are not giving God the chance to forgive you. You remain filled with sin and in fear of His judgment. You do not want Him to reveal Himself, because the God you know will judge you. So God will withhold from revealing Himself through revelation for two reasons: 1) He respects your desire; and 2) He wishes to give you time to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Revelation requires the entering of the Holy Spirit into your mind (which is why we say He gives you faith). The Holy Spirit can only enter if you are pure. If not, His holiness will destroy you. Therefore it is impossible to know God unless you recognize you are a hopelessly sinful person and want to change.
But to whom would we desire to repent, and why would we recognize the authority of "sin", if we did not already believe in god? He revealed himself plenty in the OT, why did he disappear before cameras (and significant scientific knowledge) came about?
John Adams Wrote:The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
April 11, 2013 at 6:05 pm (This post was last modified: April 11, 2013 at 6:15 pm by Undeceived.)
(April 11, 2013 at 2:41 pm)Darkstar Wrote:
(April 11, 2013 at 12:43 pm)Undeceived Wrote: The belief He responds to requires a state of mind: a repentant one. You are only going to look for God if you want Him to exist. If you believe you are self-righteous, you are not giving God the chance to forgive you. You remain filled with sin and in fear of His judgment. You do not want Him to reveal Himself, because the God you know will judge you. So God will withhold from revealing Himself through revelation for two reasons: 1) He respects your desire; and 2) He wishes to give you time to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Revelation requires the entering of the Holy Spirit into your mind (which is why we say He gives you faith). The Holy Spirit can only enter if you are pure. If not, His holiness will destroy you. Therefore it is impossible to know God unless you recognize you are a hopelessly sinful person and want to change.
But to whom would we desire to repent, and why would we recognize the authority of "sin", if we did not already believe in god?
Once one realizes their guilty sinful state, they see that the Bible describes exactly their predicament. Sin need not have authority. All the person needs to do is be disgusted by it and to see the flip-side--love, which is demonstrated perfectly in Christ.
(April 11, 2013 at 2:41 pm)Darkstar Wrote: He revealed himself plenty in the OT, why did he disappear before cameras (and significant scientific knowledge) came about?
If God revealed Himself physically today, unrepentant people's hearts would still be unrepentant. Half the Hebrews saw the Pillar of Fire and the parting of the Red Sea and turned right back around and crafted golden idols. The Old Testament is partly a record of what doesn't work. Hebrews with repentant hearts followed God, but the others didn't. Today we have a new way to receive revelations: Jesus speaking, "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (John 14:26). With the Holy Spirit, repentant people learn the Message of Christ, while unrepentant people (who would reject it anyway) are left in the dark. Yes, there is a suspicious division. But God has always allowed unbelievers a "way out" of learning His mystery. In OT times, demons were more active, and so were the number of fake "gods". People (like half the Hebrews) could choose to follow another divinity. Today, unbelievers decide to follow presupposed science religiously. They are mirror images of each other. But the truth remains.
