Are you for or against the separation of church and state?

[ThomM]

Okay, we'll settle this matter once and for all, right here and right now:

You believe God exists and is actively interested in the human struggle.

I don't.

With that, we can now agree to terms that will settle this difference. You claim to have great confidence in your position that god is active and personal. I am equally confident that neither of those contentions are true.

So, I hereby issue an official challenge. If a personal god exists, and he's active and personal, let him prove your position on this matter by providing some kind of supernatural, yet undeniable proof of his existence and purpose to both you, me, and anyone who's reading this challenge. This proof should be something clearly verifiable, and something that all experiencing parties can discuss on this forum without encountering any significant inconsistencies.

Now we get to find out how strongly you really feel about your position. Because I'm all in. How about you? How's that faith holding up right about now?

Jesus said thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, who are you that you believe you can demand something from the God of creation. You want proof of God then don't be so lazy and find it as scripture says possible. I'm not going to fall into this little selfish trap that has been tried here numerous times.

Sorry - but YOU are quoting the fairy tales of the bible -Jesus is a religious myth created by the religion - not an actual person -

And being fairy tales - your statement in no way provides and answer to the request. IT is A con man who says - believe me =- without proof =-you do not have the right to request proof.

BUT -- we DO have the right to request undeniable proof - and none has ever materialized from you

SO - your god remains a fiction of yours - nothing more

[Tonus]

It wouldn't have to be a demand, or a request for a parlor trick. Why couldn't it be a sincere prayer to god to demonstrate himself to all, and thus give many people hope and a path to salvation? Why would god consider that an attempt to tempt him, or a "trap???" Would it truly be selfish of you to ask god to reveal himself and provide a path to heaven for all who would believe?

Scripture tells us this is against the will of God, knowing this I would not be able to pray for that, and since you do not believe you most certainly can not. God's laid out a plan from before time and he's not changing things up for your petty and selfish ways.

So it's "petty and selfish" to make a sincere plea to god to reveal himself, because it's against his will? And you don't see how transparent your claim is?

Doesn't it feel frustrating to realize that you have to make up so many excuses for why god won't reveal himself, to the extent of considering it petty and selfish to want it? You've made up a shy, miserable little god who won't show himself, and who resents so much as a request that he stand up for his believers and save the lives of billions. And then you try to convince yourself that he's 'good' and 'loving,' even though he created a "plan from before time" that won't save more than a relative handful of people that he condemned.

[smax]

Scripture tells us this is against the will of God, knowing this I would not be able to pray for that, and since you do not believe you most certainly can not. God's laid out a plan from before time and he's not changing things up for your petty and selfish ways.

So it's "petty and selfish" to make a sincere plea to god to reveal himself, because it's against his will? And you don't see how transparent your claim is?

Doesn't it feel frustrating to realize that you have to make up so many excuses for why god won't reveal himself, to the extent of considering it petty and selfish to want it? You've made up a shy, miserable little god who won't show himself, and who resents so much as a request that he stand up for his believers and save the lives of billions. And then you try to convince yourself that he's 'good' and 'loving,' even though he created a "plan from before time" that won't save more than a relative handful of people that he condemned.

The Bible, as with many subjects, contradicts itself. GC made reference to a scripture in Luke 4 (and Matthew) where the devil was tempting Jesus to prove himself. Jesus then quotes Dueteronomy, saying "It is said, "Do not put the Lord thy God to the test".

However, in Matthew 14, Peter asks Jesus to prove himself, and Jesus does:

25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

29 “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

Besides this contradiction, I provided 3 carefully selected scripture for GC to negate his reasoning for not agreeing to my terms:

The first one was to show that people of faith are supposed to be able to tap into the power of god on command.

The second one was to demonstrate a man of faith calling on god to reveal him in order to prove his claims about god.

The third one showed god encouraging his follower to make claims about him that he would then support with a demonstration of power.

At the end of the day, GC has no good reason to refuse my terms other than the fact that both he and I know that god doesn't exist, and that he will be made to look foolish even trying to verify god's existence.

As I said, GC is an Atheist. He won't admit it, but when it comes to the supernatural, he believes the same things you and I do. He knows that god doesn't exist. In short, his claims are empty, and he knows it.

[Darkstar]

It wouldn't have to be a demand, or a request for a parlor trick. Why couldn't it be a sincere prayer to god to demonstrate himself to all, and thus give many people hope and a path to salvation? Why would god consider that an attempt to tempt him, or a "trap???" Would it truly be selfish of you to ask god to reveal himself and provide a path to heaven for all who would believe?

Scripture tells us this is against the will of God, knowing this I would not be able to pray for that, and since you do not believe you most certainly can not. God's laid out a plan from before time and he's not changing things up for your petty and selfish ways.

1 Kings 18:36-39
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

---

Why did he stop making bold appearances like this (and on command, even) once people had a proper grasp on science?

[Ryantology]

Come on, Darkstar, that's Old Testament, Jesus said all that doesn't matter now.

How is it selfish to ask for God to show himself to the world? That would, in theory, benefit some two and a half billion of his followers to know that, for the first time in human history, faith in some god led to actual knowledge.

[Darkstar]

How is it selfish to ask for God to show himself to the world? That would, in theory, benefit some two and a half billion of his followers to know that, for the first time in human history, faith in some god led to actual knowledge.

Oh, but people would (somehow) lose their free will if he did that (although they somehow didn't in this passage, or did they, and god just cares more now than he did then?).

An omnipotent being can't reveal himself without (somehow) destroying people's ability to disobey him (despite doing it all the time in the OT)...I guess they have a different definition for omnipotent too, huh?

[Ryantology]

I just love the contradiction. It's a splendidly elegant demonstration of how fraudulent the Christian faith is. If everyone knows God exists because he reveals himself to everyone in a public display, that erases free will, but if YOU know God exists because he reveals himself to YOU through private revelation, this somehow allows you to retain free will. How does that even make sense? Thinking that you know something to be true will determine how you act on it (if it is important enough to determine your thoughts and behavior). How you come to that conclusion is not important (to you). Christians treat their truths the same way atheists treat actual truths. Neither has any more or less 'free will'.

It exposes the deliberately deceitful nature of the idea that "faith leads to knowledge", because it is obvious that, according to Godschild's apologetic dog shit, the method by which you find the 'truth' is much more important than actually knowing what the truth actually is. Belief in a faith like Christianity may be an honest mistake, but if you tell someone else that it is wrong to examine its claims critically (by, say, demanding that God show himself), then you are essentially a deliberate liar, because you're just as aware of the problem as we are but you have a vested interest in not allowing your version of the truth to be challenged.

[ThomM]

I just love the contradiction. It's a splendidly elegant demonstration of how fraudulent the Christian faith is. If everyone knows God exists because he reveals himself to everyone in a public display, that erases free will, but if YOU know God exists because he reveals himself to YOU through private revelation, this somehow allows you to retain free will. How does that even make sense? Thinking that you know something to be true will determine how you act on it (if it is important enough to determine your thoughts and behavior). How you come to that conclusion is not important (to you). Christians treat their truths the same way atheists treat actual truths. Neither has any more or less 'free will'.

It exposes the deliberately deceitful nature of the idea that "faith leads to knowledge", because it is obvious that, according to Godschild's apologetic dog shit, the method by which you find the 'truth' is much more important than actually knowing what the truth actually is. Belief in a faith like Christianity may be an honest mistake, but if you tell someone else that it is wrong to examine its claims critically (by, say, demanding that God show himself), then you are essentially a deliberate liar, because you're just as aware of the problem as we are but you have a vested interest in not allowing your version of the truth to be challenged.

The claim of FREE WILL is just another part of the contradiction - since the god is supposedly ALL KNOWING. "FREE" will implies the ability to actually choose from ALL available options. IF a god knows what we will "choose" before we exist - at the time WE have to make the choice - we do NOT have the freedom to choose something other than what that god already knows. WE cannot choose to change our minds and do something else - so our choice is not actually FREE

Worse - if a god were all knowing - then it can only do what it already knows it will do - and it cannot change its mind to do something else as well. So it does not have free will - ie - it cannot be almighty.

Given that there are Thousands of different xtian sects alone - means that a LOGICAL and INTELLIGENT person MUST be able to question which one is the correct one -since they all claim to be the ONE and ONLY. So - why not just have the god appear and identify which Xtian religion is the true religion - which would clearly give ALL humans the ONLY path to redemption - since all the others are false.

Of course - they will still argue against that as well.

[Godscreated]

Persons who know God know He is going to do things by His will, and we know that asking God to do things outside of His will turn out fruitless. God doesn't work the way you are purposing and if you did not know this you do now. You're trying to use scripture in a way that's against God's will, you should be careful about toying with God.

Congratulations, GC, you are now an Atheist. In fact, you may have already been one long before now, but now you are actually aware of the fact.

I suspect you will continue claiming that you are a man of faith, as it takes time to try and make sense of what your life has been about the past who knows how many years. But we both know that, deep down, you have no faith. It was put to the test, and you had none to offer.

But don't feel bad about that. This development and realization is a good thing. Reality is a good thing.

Again, welcome aboard! I look forward to you developing the guts to admit your true beliefs.

My faith in Christ has grown into knowledge, He is more real to me than you are. Now you have once again my true belief. I want fall for your little childish trick and you get upset, you want others even the atheist on this site to take you serious then you need to grow up and act responsible. If anyone is having doubts it would be you, seems to me you are desperate to find out if God exist or not, use scriptures they can guide you to the answer. A/S/K

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh boy, another one is getting all giddy on this asking nonsense. I believe someone did ask a bit earlier, and you responded with something along the lines of not tempting a god.