1984 & A/S/K revisited

[Darkstar]

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.

Oh, I thought you were going to say everyone would suddenly die. However, this sounds suspiciously close to the"they wouldn't believe my miracles anyway" excuse Mohammed gave.

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.

This cannot possibly be true. How is it that people who accept Jesus, and only give up on him much later when they can't find him, well...can't find him? If he had revealed himself once they accepted him, they would not have turned away. Unless you are going to propose that we should blindly believe anyway.

That, and your comment about science is poorly informed. What is presupposed, exactly? That science works? Well...it does. Otherwise we wouldn't be on this forum.

[Undeceived]

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.

This cannot possibly be true. How is it that people who accept Jesus, and only give up on him much later when they can't find him, well...can't find him? If he had revealed himself once they accepted him, they would not have turned away. Unless you are going to propose that we should blindly believe anyway.

The word 'accept' here is hard to pin down. I don't think either of us can know that someone who was truly repentant didn't find God.

That, and your comment about science is poorly informed. What is presupposed, exactly? That science works? Well...it does. Otherwise we wouldn't be on this forum.

Sorry for my vagueness. By 'presupposed' I mean science that uses certain outside beliefs as its premises. For example, Evolution is not a conclusion based on a mass of undeniable evidence. Evolutionists presuppose Evolution and work the evidence to match it. If you're thinking, "That's what Christians do!" you're right. My point is that much of science is like a religion. When a Naturalist says "prove to me the supernatural exists" they are presupposing Empiricism, and that everyone outside of their camp bears the burden of proof. And so on.

[Darkstar]

Sorry for my vagueness. By 'presupposed' I mean science that uses certain outside beliefs as its premises. For example, Evolution is not a conclusion based on a mass of undeniable evidence. Evolutionists presuppose Evolution and work the evidence to match it. If you're thinking, "That's what Christians do!" you're right. My point is that much of science is like a religion. When a Naturalist says "prove to me the supernatural exists" they are presupposing Empiricism, and that everyone outside of their camp bears the burden of proof. And so on.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. Evolution was not the first theory of its kind, and was widely contested when it was first proposed. People did not bend the evidence to their presuppositions, do you know how Darwin first came up with the idea of evolution?

History of evolutionary thought

By the way, science does work, in that this forum can exist because of science. So, to at least that extent, science has demonstrated its effectiveness. How many significant discoveries came about via revelation?

[FallentoReason]

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.

I still have the same problem here, and that is that God hasn't had to move one inch in the entire process. It is still you that is taking on 100% of the task to find him, but without a definite experience, for all we know, you've delved deep into the jaws of a delusional construct i.e. the Bible in this instance. I mean, think about it from a cult leader's perspective: they construct their god and give it attributes and what not. Then as long as it is the cult member finding strength within themselves to reach a non-existent being, the cult will be successful in keeping that member. The false truths of the cult are doing their job in keeping the cult member in darkness all the while they think they have found the light.

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.

Are you saying that to be skeptical of your self-created experiences, you need to deny your senses? Without a genuine experience from God though, for all we know you're in a delusional state just like [insert desired false religion].

[Godscreated]

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...

Why are you taking every thing I say and turn it around, are you not able to understand, I think you do, you're just wanting to be unreasonable, it's hard for me to believe you're a thick headed boob.

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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.

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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?

I made that clear in the other post, only the God of the Bible gave me the faith to get started. None of the rest bothered they must not care. My faith was justified by the God who showed interest in me.

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.

Actually that is not accurate, you have knowledge the material is strong, agreed, then you say from that you can form a belief the chair will hold your weight. Now that's a big leap, you do not know the craftsman that made the chair, nor do you know his level of skill, as a woodworker I know the faith you're getting ready to exhibit will land you on your fanny. So if we follow your K/B/F then we would find ourselves sitting on a pile of sturdy material and quite embarrassed.

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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 how deep we go in the relationship with God.

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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...

I did not assert what you said, and did not say the starting point was God exist, even though that is true. If we do not know for sure God exist before He gives us the faith to search Him out, then we do not know. As I said before it can't be unjustified faith, God gives us faith to justify our search. You're beginning to run out of excuses and need to use distraction and misdirection to keep you're argument going.

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

I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous, man needs faith to search out God, that is unless God was to appear in front of you as you desire. Salvation comes through faith for us, so if God were to appear in front of you...well were would that leave you? Your the one trying to make circles out of this, I've given you a straight line to follow with F/B/K. Check out what I said to Ryan, replacing faith with the seed in Matthew 13.

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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,

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Wait, so now it's not you putting faith into him, but rather him giving you the faith?!?! What is going on!

This is what I've been saying, where you been, like I said it starts with God giving faith and ends with God giving knowledge, it's gifts from God and we can either accept them or reject them our choice.

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".

That is plan crazy, what's the matter with you, I can make those statements only because God has given me the knowledge to understand to a small degree how He works with mankind.

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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.

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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.

I've smuggled nothing into this, you looking for a backdoor to leave through.

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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.

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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.

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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.

If they are there then why did they not give me faith to start on a path with them, why is it the God of the Bible beat them to the action, they had many, many years to get in touch with me, I lead a secular life open to the world. I heard plenty about many different gods back then, tell me where were they when I could have been influenced. Your problem is you gave up on God and now you're ...well I guess plain ol' mad.

[FallentoReason]

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...

Why are you taking every thing I say and turn it around, are you not able to understand, I think you do, you're just wanting to be unreasonable, it's hard for me to believe you're a thick headed boob.

I actually don't see how I'm misrepresenting your statement. I'll take you step by step to show that you're using circular reasoning:

1) To believe that God exists, I need faith in God [assumption]
2) Faith doesn't come from us
3) Faith comes from God/HS
4) In order to believe I have received this faith, I need to believe God exists
5) Therefore, if (4) is correct, I need to have faith God exists
6) Given (4) & (5) are true, I therefore need to have faith God exists so that I can believe God gave me faith so that I can believe God exists
C) There is actually no coherent conclusion as this is circular reasoning

I made that clear in the other post, only the God of the Bible gave me the faith to get started. None of the rest bothered they must not care. My faith was justified by the God who showed interest in me.

And how do you know he gave you this faith, if you previously did not believe in the entity to begin with?

Actually that is not accurate, you have knowledge the material is strong, agreed, then you say from that you can form a belief the chair will hold your weight. Now that's a big leap, you do not know the craftsman that made the chair, nor do you know his level of skill, as a woodworker I know the faith you're getting ready to exhibit will land you on your fanny. So if we follow your K/B/F then we would find ourselves sitting on a pile of sturdy material and quite embarrassed.

Err, what? The design obviously implies that it will be sturdy to achieve its function, or are you suggesting that every time you've bought a chair you've gone through the trouble of getting a hold of the maker & asking him how long he's been in the business? I find that hard to believe.

I did not assert what you said, and did not say the starting point was God exist, even though that is true. If we do not know for sure God exist before He gives us the faith to search Him out, then we do not know. As I said before it can't be unjustified faith, God gives us faith to justify our search. You're beginning to run out of excuses and need to use distraction and misdirection to keep you're argument going.

you're doing it again.

1) We do not know God exists for sure
[insert circular reasoning that I exposed further up]
2) We have to have faith God exists so that we can believe God gave us faith to know God exists
3) Therefore, our presupposed belief in God gave us faith to only just begin our search for God
C) We found God because our presupposed belief in God gave us the faith in God so that we could begin our search for God, which we found even before the search began.

...

Conclusion 2: you're being fallacious.

To receive anything from said being, you need to believe in him first... round in circles we go

I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous, man needs faith to search out God, that is unless God was to appear in front of you as you desire. Salvation comes through faith for us, so if God were to appear in front of you...well were would that leave you? Your the one trying to make circles out of this, I've given you a straight line to follow with F/B/K. Check out what I said to Ryan, replacing faith with the seed in Matthew 13.

If God were to appear right in front of me, that would change absolutely nothing in terms of my free will to believe in him. How many times has the Bible said God appeared to such and such (even the fallen angels) and yet they chose not to have faith in him? Knowledge of God does not eliminate our choice to have faith in him.

This is what I've been saying, where you been, like I said it starts with God giving faith and ends with God giving knowledge, it's gifts from God and we can either accept them or reject them our choice.

...to know that you can accept this gift, you need to have unjustified faith in God to begin with, otherwise how can you accept a gift from an entity you believe doesn't exist? Circular.

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".

That is plan crazy, what's the matter with you, I can make those statements only because God has given me the knowledge to understand to a small degree how He works with mankind.

To receive knowledge that God exists, you need to begin by believing he exists so that you can receive knowledge from him. Circular.

I've smuggled nothing into this, you looking for a backdoor to leave through.

If they are there then why did they not give me faith to start on a path with them, why is it the God of the Bible beat them to the action, they had many, many years to get in touch with me, I lead a secular life open to the world. I heard plenty about many different gods back then, tell me where were they when I could have been influenced. Your problem is you gave up on God and now you're ...well I guess plain ol' mad.

So that's what it's come down to? I'm angry at an entity which I believe doesn't exist? The quality of your arguments is starting to sink.

Those gods didn't have to do anything, just like your god didn't do anything. The first premise of all that you're saying is that I need to believe in your god so that I can believe I received faith from him. That is unjustified faith, which therefore means, you could have believed in any god of your liking because it is you making the irrational leap of faith that that god exists so that he can give you the faith. I can only assume Bible god "got to you first" because you happen to have been born in a town/city where Christianity thrives. This is the only rational explanation for your unjustified faith in Bible god. End of story.

[pocaracas]

If God were to appear right in front of me, that would change absolutely nothing in terms of my free will to believe in him. How many times has the Bible said God appeared to such and such (even the fallen angels) and yet they chose not to have faith in him? Knowledge of God does not eliminate our choice to have faith in him.

Just a tiny correction.
If a god were to appear right in front of you, you'd cease to require faith to accept its existence.
Those people in the bible that had first-hand physical contact with the deity didn't need faith. They had proof.

Faith becomes irrelevant.

What is still your choice is whether or not you follow this entity and comply with its desires or requirements.

Now, given that the acceptance of this deity's existence is, apparently, so important that our eternal after-life depends on it and it is "well documented" to interact with humans quite easily, why would anyone require faith regarding such a being? Why doesn't it just present itself to all, just like it has been documented to do to others?
Is it shy?
Is it interested in fostering divergent opinions concerning itself? Ultimately leading to war and destruction?

[Undeceived]

Sorry for my vagueness. By 'presupposed' I mean science that uses certain outside beliefs as its premises. For example, Evolution is not a conclusion based on a mass of undeniable evidence. Evolutionists presuppose Evolution and work the evidence to match it. If you're thinking, "That's what Christians do!" you're right. My point is that much of science is like a religion. When a Naturalist says "prove to me the supernatural exists" they are presupposing Empiricism, and that everyone outside of their camp bears the burden of proof. And so on.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. Evolution was not the first theory of its kind, and was widely contested when it was first proposed. People did not bend the evidence to their presuppositions, do you know how Darwin first came up with the idea of evolution?

History of evolutionary thought

Evolution was based on physiological observations--organisms "looked" similar, so some scientists decided there must be some causal relation. Evolution died when scientists discovered that many of the organisms (Darwin's finches, for example) were entirely different species and far apart on the hypothetical Evolutionary tree. But that hasn't stopped Atheistic scientists from pursuing a new version of the theory. They began drawing causal relations from an organism's genes instead. But there remains the biggest presupposition: that similarity implies causality.

By the way, science does work, in that this forum can exist because of science. So, to at least that extent, science has demonstrated its effectiveness. How many significant discoveries came about via revelation?

I agree! God made science too. He made an entire natural world that we can explore. If one starts (presupposes) with the premise of the Bible's truth, they find that science does not contradict with Christianity either.

[downbeatplumb]

Evolution was based on physiological observations--organisms "looked" similar, so some scientists decided there must be some causal relation. Evolution died when scientists discovered that many of the organisms (Darwin's finches, for example) were entirely different species and far apart on the hypothetical Evolutionary tree. But that hasn't stopped Atheistic scientists from pursuing a new version of the theory. They began drawing causal relations from an organism's genes instead. But there remains the biggest presupposition: that similarity implies causality.

One for the hall of shame.

[Esquilax]

Evolution was based on physiological observations--organisms "looked" similar, so some scientists decided there must be some causal relation. Evolution died when scientists discovered that many of the organisms (Darwin's finches, for example) were entirely different species and far apart on the hypothetical Evolutionary tree. But that hasn't stopped Atheistic scientists from pursuing a new version of the theory. They began drawing causal relations from an organism's genes instead. But there remains the biggest presupposition: that similarity implies causality.

Similarity does imply causality, at least at the level we've discovered. We've got the indisputable genetic data, but if you want more, there's the comprehensive fossil record charting the evolutionary lineage of organisms, and the instances of speciation we can observe under laboratory conditions. When you can literally watch evolution happening, your baseless denials kind of fall by the wayside, Undeceived.

I agree! God made science too. He made an entire natural world that we can explore. If one starts (presupposes) with the premise of the Bible's truth, they find that science does not contradict with Christianity either.

Except in all the places that it does. You just gave a great example of such, what with your shrill denials of the fact of evolution.

Oh, and why on earth would I presuppose the truth of the bible to begin with? Name one other concept or idea that you would feel justified in presupposing its accuracy.