Stu wrote: "That is an astonishing thing to say. To think you are prepared to sacrifice reason and logic, two things which if there were a God, it endowed you with. Even though God is only imaginary, I doubt there is any greater testimony you could have made to rival that thankless idea, than for you to throw two of God's 'gifts' back in its face. I would suggest if you have to dismiss reason and logic to defend your religious beliefs, that's a good clue there is something seriously wrong with your religious beliefs." I never said to dismiss logic or reasoning. In fact, it IS logic and reasoning that has led me to a faith in God. I reasoned about my sinful condition before a Holy God and made a logical decision to trust in Jesus, because of His subsitutionary work on the cross for me, so that I could have the righteousness of Christ instead of my sin. Instead of heading for hell, I am now destined for heaven. That is a logical decision. I was referring to using logic and reasoning apart from what God has revealed about Himself. Using my own or others' reasonings to come up with who we think God is, is impossible for people to do. We can only know God through His revelation to us, and He has clearly said that He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. However, there are many evidences to believe the Bible. The prophecies of scripture are some of the strongest evidences. The harmony of the scriptures....that even in Genesis you have the the plural form of God used in the word Elohim, and it directly mentions the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. "Let US make man in OUR image." Is this not also a strong proof that the plurality of persons within the Godhead was not something invented in the New Testament? You have the idea of a substitute needed for humans because our judgment is that "dying you shall surely die" and animal sacrifices were began, from the time of Adam and Eve, looking ahead to the promise of the protoevangelium-already discussed with you, the promise that one would be born who would crush the head of the serpent (Satan) yet Himself would suffer as a bruised heal (recoverable). ALL of the Old Testament is, for the most part, looking forward to Jesus and somewhat revealing of Him. Isaiah, a book that has been proven to exist in it's current form before Jesus' birth has many, many specific prophecies about Jesus. But I will only list one: Isaiah 53:5-6 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way, and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Believing that this prophecy, written about 700 years before Jesus came, and there is a copy of it that dates to about 150 years before Jesus came, applies to Jesus is the most logical and reasonable thing a person can do. However, this passage is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus. Truly, God HAS spoken to the prophets and revealed Himself to us in Jesus. https://jewsforjesus.org/answers/top-40-most-helpful-messianic-prophecies/
Comments like the one above always amuse me. For example, in the thread where I'm looking into the problems with conventional evolution, a member who went by the name Pie Zoe (whom I now have on ignore because with his second post he immediately went off topic, commenting about Donald Trump and whatnot) he brought up how "advocates of the seeding from another planet hypothesis will note that this observation of unique codons in some primitive species would probably require more than one flying saucer landing." He mentions this as if it might be considered a logical and reasoned answer for resolving the inability of Darwin's hypothesis of adaptive evolution to adequately explain the mechanism of intra-species transformation. As others have pointed out, all this does is move the problem of the origin of life to another location. It in no way explains how life first came about. I'm more inclined to give credence to those who suggest that there are only four real possibilities when it comes to explaining the existence of the universe: The universe... ...is an illusion. ...created itself. ...is self-existent and eternal. ...was brought into existence by something other than itself. However, for the universe to be an illusion, there must be something somewhere imagining it. Consequently, explaining the existence of the universe by claiming it is an illusion merely shifts questions about the origin of life to whatever it is that is imagining the universe. The second possibility, that the universe created itself, is ruled out by the law of thermodynamics, the law of cause and effect, and the law of non-contradiction. For to create itself, the universe would have had to exist before it existed, which is utter nonsense. Currently, the most widely accepted paradigm within the scientific community is that the universe had a definite beginning which stretches back to the "Big Bang." But, this rules out the assertion that the universe is self-existent and eternal. This leaves only one possibility… that the universe owes its existence to something outside itself. This entity would have had to have been an extremely powerful preexisting intervening force transcending time, energy, space and matter. Given that an eternal, almighty God who is spirit rather than material meets every one of these requirements, I hardly find it illogical to view this as the most reasonable explanation, especially given all of the observable evidence present, such as the existence of the Bible, its fulfilled prophecies, God Himself actually walking the earth and performing miracles, etc. If attributing life on earth to "more than one flying saucer landing" is supposed to be more rational than giving credit to a "transcendent, extremely powerful, intervening force that existed prior to the creation of matter, energy, space and time," then I guess reason and logic are beyond my understanding.
" God... ...is an illusion. ...created itself. ...is self-existent and eternal. ...was brought into existence by something other than itself. However, for God to be an illusion, there must be something somewhere imagining it. Consequently, explaining the existence of God by claiming it is an illusion merely shifts questions about the origin of life to whatever it is that is imagining God. The second possibility, that God created itself, is ruled out by the law of thermodynamics, the law of cause and effect, and the law of non-contradiction. For to create itself, God would have had to exist before it existed, which is utter nonsense. Currently, the most widely accepted paradigm within the scientific community is that God is nothing to do with science as science deals with the real world not imaginary supernatural deities. This leaves only one possibility… that God owes its existence to something outside itself. This entity is in reality, extremely superstitious ancient beings called humans. "
The Bible says your condition is sinful therefore you're condition is sinful. That represents little to no reasoning past un-reasoned blind faith. Indeed you dismiss logic and reasoning outside the Bible but contrary to logic and reasoning, claim they're present only within it. Exactly. As you say, you can't use logic and reasoning even 'to come up with who you think God is'. Now you can 'come up with who you think God is'. Which is it going to be? Don't worry, it was just a rhetorical question anyway. Your evangelicalizing won't help logic or reasoning toward providing any logical or reasonable answer. If what you "know" can't be subjected to any external logic and reasoning, you can never logically reason if what you "know" is reasonable or not. oof.. careful with that hubris dude. Isn't it supposed to be your imaginary God which decides who gets to your heaven? Matthew 7 "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." John 3 "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning." You must have reasoned you are of the devil. John 3 "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin;" Ah, but too late John. Logic and reasoning dictates whoever John was, can't un-say something once they have said it. The sin has already been committeth. According to the Bible you are already of the devil. The Bible illogically ties itself in this type and worse self-contradiction knots all the time. If the so called 'Son of God' in this scenario was supposed to have been manifested to destroy the works of the devil, then it manifestly failed. Otherwise logic and reasoning suggests you wouldn't have been born with sin in the first place. For according to your faith and against all logic and reasoning, you don't have the free will you're told you do have, not to be born with sin. Rather you should have to choose to purposely commit sin. That would have been a far more logical and reasonable argument. Then you could, say, make a promise to imaginary Jesus to not do so again. That is if your self-worth wasn't strong enough to make that determination to do good without subjugation to an imaginary friend, but more simply and more purely for the sake of it. " Christianity : Believe in Jesus then it doesn’t matter so much how you live your life, it’s all about whether you believe in a conceived-without-sex god-man zombie and self-propelled astronaut, referenced in an ancient, highly-contradictory, politically-compiled book bereft of any original manuscripts that was authored in foreign lands and in foreign languages decades after the fact by unknown non-eyewitnesses, and interpolated and edited for centuries by error-prone, agenda-laden scribes, then manipulatively translated by ardent believers and preached by cherry-picking pastors."
Responding to Stu's response to Expiated: In defense of God...not necessarily Expiated: I am not going to enter into a discussion with you on each of your arguments. Enough has been presented by Expiated and myself that any honest seekers of God know that I and other Christians have testified that we have come into a relationship with God personally, through Jesus and His substitutionary work on our behalf, as His word tells us, and that God has revealed Himself and truth in the Bible alone. God Himself has given us all we need to know on the matter: "I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God." Isaiah 45:5a NASB "Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me." Isaiah 46:9 NASB "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me. 7 ‘Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; Yes, let him recount it to Me in order, From the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming And the events that are going to take place. 8 ‘Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none.’” Isaiah 44:6-8 NASB
Response to Stu: Your words are not worth my time to answer. "My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments." Colossians 2:2-4 NIV
The bible is not wholly believable given the nature of parables . A parable is not something you believe, but rather *understand*. Take the popular ethnic salacious liturature called "The Song of Solomon". What exactly is there to believe? It appears to illustrate a man's lust for a woman but I can't be too certain of that. What man? What woman? I have no clue. Solomon? I don't know. A concubine? One of 500 concubines? I don't know. So when you say you believe ancient ethnic liturature what exactly are you even believing? Some say the narrative of lust is a parable. Ok, so what do you believe? Parables do not explicitly contain their own de-coded meanings. So who is telling you what the lust really means? Is it they/them whom you believe? If so, then you believe them, and what they say about the book. Meanwhile the book remains unbelievable . Prima facia it appears to be the musings of a rich man, presuming it costs a lot of money to write racy longings on parchment. But I still don't know what to believe about it because it doesn't lend itself to interpretation as if it were a parable. How is it you know what to believe about the Song of Solomon? When, exactly, was the moment you decided you believed the Son of Solomon? Did you start believing on a Saturday at 3 p.m.? What were you thinking the moment you decided you believed the Song of Solomon? Were you thinking, 'Yes, on a hot afternoon in 2003 BC Solomon did historically lust after a woman '? Were you thinking it was "God-breathed"?
According to https://www.openbible.info/topics/omnipotence, God is omnipotent. Similarly, https://www.openbible.info/topics/omniscience says God is omniscient. Also, omnipresent. https://www.openbible.info/topics/omnipresence Why would someone all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere at all times need to be defended?
First of all belief, believing, and faith are sins. They are sins against knowledge. The most basic love of wisdom should tell you that believing and knowledge are exclusive opposites that cannot coexist . Either you know or you believe. You cannot believe what you know and you cannot know what you believe. So why do you think you've done something honorable by choosing a moment in time to believe something as obscure, dark, non-transparent and confusing as a book that combines parables with historical accounts of wars and census takings? You believe whats put forth as historical actually happened? What do you believe about the proverbs? All true? What do you believe about the prayers? All said? What do you believe about the parables? All true? But how can a parable be true when you don't even understand what it means ? Do you believe what your pastor tells you about the parables ? Can a historical event also be a parable from which to draw lessons? Where is the understanding of a parable located ? In the parable (book/bible) itself? In your mind? Where is your mind? Supposing the crucifixion of Jesus was historical, can it also be a parable or even a parody? Likewise the resurrection of Jesus . History, parable, parody? If Jesus taught in parables, why do you think the cross and resurrection were not teachable moments to be interpreted and understood ? The parable of the prodigal son for example. Why do you not believe it is the story of the beginning and end of the world of man? Also, why do you not believe that the intra-biblical term "god of this world" is not a reference to the maker of man's world? Or, how do you take something so prima fascia obvious and force a completely different meaning on it, as if there was some other god other than the god of this world?