Why knocking is so important.

[ignoramus]

It's because he works in mysterious ways!

read: we've got no fucking idea (but hey, it works as it is, we all make money selling warm and fuzzy, so we just go with it, and everyone's happy)

[Drich]

If you wanted to meet the queen or the president, would it be their "responsibility to beseech themselves to you?"

Sorry Drich. This bullshit doesn't fly. The last I heard, my president didn't want to have a personal relationship with me (as I keep hearing from you christers) nor does he want me to fall on my knees and slobber his co... er... worship him. If he did, your fucking-a right I would expect him to seek me out.

If mixing metaphors in to straw men is the only way to make your point then, make it is better that you do not make your point known.

---

Ah, no again. In a nut shell approach God with an open mind and the same determination one should have in trying to find a mate.

You're really bad at the whole analogy thing aren't you?

Sorry, but many, in my experience most, people don't go "searching" for a mate. Most find one anyway. Even if I do go "searching" for a mate, it doesn't mean there's anyone searching in return. According to you christers, jeebus is doing just that, yet many of the people actively searching for it as well simply can't find it. Hmmmm. Maybe it just isn't there.

Do people not date any more? Or maybe they do not date where your from...

[Anomalocaris]

The only way to find god is to brainwash yourself. Some people can do this in a short amount of time and others take almost a lifetime to do it.

Once you have succeeded in being brainwashed you achieve a level of madness that allows you to think you have experienced god.

This god is of course is different from person to person. This is evidenced in the fact that no two people have the same idea of god.

This knocking that drippy talks about is nothing more than the tormenting process of weakening your mind to the brink of madness at which point you imagine a god loosely resembling the god described in whatever book you chose such as the bible or koran.

-or-
It is the only prescribed path to The Holy Spirit/proof of God.

How do you know if ask seek knock is a way to weaken you mind or the only prescribed path to the Holy Spirit?I've been a member of this board for two maybe three years now, and I can count on one hand the times I have been humbled by one of you looking to do so. If I have weakened my mind, and yet more often than not, can put a clown in his place when I so choose, then what does it say about the state of the mind who gets put in his place by such a "weakened mind?"

Your appeal to dismiss me on stereotypes and wishful thinking fails. Maybe give it some more thought and try again.

A few times?



You don't have any mind to weaken, you dishonest praying sack of brainless shit.

[Drich]

Or maybe it is as the bible says. We must ask seek and knock to meet with God on His terms and not our own.

You need to make a difference between God's terms and the Bible's terms.

Their is no distinction, as we were given the bible to know God's words.

[Chad32]

You may have been knocking on a door that no one would ever answer. In the op I explain this in greater detail with the parable of the wise and foolish builders. In short if you truly sought a relationship with God then apart of that process was to abandon a system of belief that was not biblically consistent with the God of the bible.

I build my house on the hard rock of evidence, instead of the soft sand of faith. That is why I left religion. If the teachings of the church have become so skewed that a child can grow up in one and still not find Jesus, then it's a failure on your god's part.

If a parent raises a child, and he turns bad, you may blame the child. If a parent raises twenty children, and most of them turn bad, you usually blame the parent. the bigger the number of people the person is responsible for, the less excuse that person has if the majority of them turn out bad. 3000+ years after he starts talking to people, and his followers are split into three mutually exclusive groups, and each group is only a minority of the world's population.

Your deity either doesn't care, or his followers know so little about him that it's impossible to tell what he actually wants. The bible is insufficient, and it is unfortunately the only source of information about your god.

[Drich]

And according to Christ in luke 11 you can also meet with God. But on his terms and not your own.

Christ never said any such thing you lying sack of shit. You have, but you're not Christ. You have the typical apologist's disease Drich. You come up with an interpretation of a passage, and if it "sounds good" to you, and seems otherwise consistent with the text, you conclude that it's the "true meaning" of the text. The problem is, as anyone who actually knows something about interpreting texts will tell you, there are as many such interpretations as grains of sand on a beach. That you have pulled this one interpretation out of your ass and declared it the word of God is arrogance beyond belief. I can think of plenty of acceptable interpretations of this passage that don't align with yours. The only thing that makes yours true in your eyes is your swelled head (and tiny brain). For one thing, Jesus is talking to people who already have a relationship with God, as clearly implied by the term "friend." If you go knocking at a strangers house at three in the morning, you're as likely to get a shotgun in the face as bread. Furthermore, it assumes, like Pascal's wager, that you've come to the right door. What if the only inhabited house is that of Shiva; you'll be knocking at Yahweh's door a long time. And furthermore, it assumes that Christ is God; if not, this is just some biblical Joe Six-pack's opinion about what "God" will do. I have no more reason to believe Christ is God than I have to believe that I'm hearing God's interpretation of this parable when I listen to you drone on. Again, this is a parable about a "friend" — it says nothing to the unbeliever. And that you've pulled this whole shenanigans from your ass and are too stupid to know that there's a difference between "your word" and "God's word" gives one all the necessary justification to ignore you and your "interpretation." For God's sake, Drich, it's a parable; it fucking invites multiple interpretations. Yet you're too stupid and egotistical to be able to differentiate between your voice and God's voice.

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

― Susan B. Anthony

You didn't read Luke 11 did you?

If you did at the end of it you would have saw what Christ said was the purpose of the a/s/k process.

Luke 11:13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your [l]heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

The Holy Spirit is indeed God. When God The Father, gives someone the gift of the Holy Spirit the H/S then becomes apart of you. It's kinda hard to share space with someone else's and not to get to know them. Hard still to share an existence and not know the being you are sharing with.

Even so, the gift of the Holy Spirit is not given to those who demand it on their terms, according to Christ it is only given of those who ask the Father on His terms.

If you have another interpretation that differs from what Christ said In Verse 13 of Luke 11, I can confidently say it is wrong.

---

Why should I trust any answer I get?

When I was younger I talked to God and Jesus. I saw them and heard them when I prayed and in my dreams. They gave me sage advice that helped me out at the time. I gained comfort and support from them.

I was brought up in the church. I went to religious schools. I studied theology. I read the bible. So I was primed to believe in God. And if you are primed to believe in something and you go out looking for it already believing, you will find it.

My senses lie to me. My mind plays tricks on me. There is no reason beyond my personal subjective experience to believe in the God I was searching for.

So the alternative is to what? Turn your beliefs and thoughts over to someone in whom you believe to be smarter than you?

---

Why does god command others to spread the word when he also says everyone has knowledge of him and he's omnipresent?

where does the bible say this?

Because not all of what's in the bible is true.

we are only responsible to what we have been given. God gave us the bible as our 'sole source material.' It is to the bible we must be faithful. If it is incorrect, then it is up to Him to make a change as with the Dead Sea scrolls, or to simply forgive us for following the single source we have.

Whether Obama has as much control as anyone thinks he does is a different subject than whether or not he exists. We haven't proven that Yahweh exists, much less whether he's the creator of the universe.

Again, I never mentioned names. Rather [/quote]I addressed the power of the office for that very reason.

---

The OP shouldn't be giving us examples of seeking god with seeking other "real" people.

The OP is so conditioned that god is "real" that he feels comfortable making this comparison.

Seeking god is no different to seeking leprechauns.
Someone tell me why it isn't?

And please don't tell me he said/she said/read it somewhere.....

I did not compare seeking God with individuals. I compared seeking God with seeking an audience with a person who holds the title of a leader of a given nation. The difference? While proof of existence is easier with people however right, title and authority can be a little more subjective.

Again I point out the personage of Christ can be doubted, but for the most part is not when one honestly looks at the historical provenance that surrounds Jesus. However His claim to the rights, authority, and title as the son of God is almost always in question in a group setting such as this.

[Chad32]

Where does it say in the bible to spread the word? Mark 16:15- Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

[pocaracas]

Drich, you're presupposing that a god exists.
We (and I hope I speak for this thread's atheist repliers) refuse to presuppose that, as we acknowledge it as a fallible method to discover anything.
When you presuppose, you half-convince yourself that that thing exists and if you then proceed to try to find such a thing and you find a few hints that it may exist, you interpret them as positive proof that the thing exists, thus very likely ending up with a wrong conclusion to your investigations.

Scientific knowledge is incomplete and will likely be incomplete for a long long time. So there is always some wiggle room for any divine claim to hint that a god exists on a person who is already half convinced that it may exist (your mustard seed).
But someone who takes the intellectually honest position and does his/her best to eliminate such pitfalls, then that person will never start half-convinced. They will start with no assumption of existence and work from there. If any evidence surfaces, it will be scrutinized and matched against other known phenomena. Only after exhausting all previously known explanations, must a new one be put forth.
Thus far, none of these new explanations have been "god-did-it".

Drich, this is the mountain you must go over to get through to us. Don't start on your side, start on ours and then walk us over.
You keep starting on your side... that doesn't work.

[Jenny A]

Drich: All your metaphors fail because you are comparing looking for something or one that everyone can see exists with looking for something that can be seen only by those who really want to see it. Seek Kansas and you will find it, you don't have to want, need it, or fool yourself into thinking it's there because it is there. Seek The Land of Oz and finding it's going to be a bit of a problem. I'm sure some people could convince themselves it is there if they tried hard enough, but I don't think that that would be a very good idea.

You may think Oz is a ridiculous comparison, but people do convince themselves of ESP, witchcraft, dead relatives communicating in knocks, and a variety of other things in just the same way you suggest looking for god. I'll pass thanks. Self delusion just isn't my thing, at least not on purpose.

[Anomalocaris]

You might as well tell the pope to examine the proposition that Catholicism is a racket.

He might know it, but by god he will never admit it.

And drich is not even the pope. Drich is effecting a strident confidence so as to allow him to ignore holes and deceits in his own belief system. He has zero interest in exposing himself to any exercise which would require him to critically examine his belief system.