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We depend entirly on God's revelation.
Does this mean the Hindu deities are better or more powerful than your God? Or does this mean that all spiritual experiences of all religions have the same origin?
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when i say we depend on god's revelation, than i do not refere to spiritual experiences, but to the revelation trough the word of God, the bible.
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And there are just two answer we can give : take it or leave it. Believe it, or do not believe it. The ultimate truth, men cannot find with science.
If those are your only two answers, then either Christianity lacks much insight or you lack much insight into Christianity. The ultimate truth, men cannot find with human dogma.
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the ultimate truth, man can find trough the revelation of god. i believe the bible is the word of gos, revelation of god to men.
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our faith is not irracional and baseless in regard of what the bible says about
the universe, creation, nature , men, the future etc. If it would not hold on scrutiny of men, the bible would not be, what she is today.
Besides, even the included texts contradict eachother. If you doubt my understanding of this, then I could direct you to a very long thread I had on this subject from another forum. Have you read much mainstream biblical scholarship?
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i don't know any factual contradictions of the bible, only apparent ones.
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you know, i cannot explain you why i believe.
Doesn't this bother you that you can't explain yourself? You know, this is an awfully long thread considering your claim of having no explanation. Can you atleast explain yourself to yourself?
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there are questions about ourself, we cannot explain. you are not able many times to explain, why you take a decision in one direction, and not in another.
someone hears the exact same message to the gospel. someone responds with faith, somebody else does not. why ? there is no explication for that.
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It's something, one day i said:
i want to try it out. I gave a positive answer to the call of God of trust him. Since then, this faith has deepened, and it " works ".
What do you mean by it "works"? There are many methodologies a person can use to create non-ordinary states of mind, but maybe they're nothing more than simply that.
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of course it does not proof anything. otherwise it would not be faith anymore.
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Do you mean by it "works" that it gives you comfort?
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no, it works in the sense, that my conviction is deeper , always more, up to a point that it is such a strong conviction, nobody can remove.
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If so, do you want comfort or do you want to explore to see if there is a greater truth to be found beyond the beliefs that may be limiting you? Why not now say "i want to try it out" as you did before?
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simply to say. i found what i was searching for. i found, what i consider to mirror reality.
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Why did you quit trying new things after having found Christianity? You could remain in Christianity all the while exploring other religions to see if there is a greater truth to be found.
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that's why i said before, my faith works. there is no need anymore, after i found Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, to find any other answer. jesus is the answer i was looking for, to fill out my desire of spirituality. there are things, that can be comprehend only in a spiritual way. natural men does not comprehend it.
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.[c] 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:16"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"[d] But we have the mind of Christ.
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Why limit yourself to this one experience? Are you afraid of going to hell if you stray from the path? If so, what kind of religion keeps its followers in line with fear?
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we are not attracted by fear, but by the love of God for us.
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What is the mystery of men's hearts that they are choosing Islam more than they are choosing Christianity(as Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and in the US)?
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islam in fact works by fear, as a follower has never cerainty that he will be accept by allah, and saved. the christian faith is different. when someone is born again, and recieves christ as the lord and savior, god adopts us as his children, and we can have cerainty about our salvation.
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.
1 John 5:13
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
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"No eye has seen,no ear has heard,no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"[b]— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.[c] 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
I understand what is being said here, but it isn't specific to Christianity.
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this is said to the believers, to the church. so its directed only to christians.
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I am a conflicted person in many ways, but I'm seeking to go beyond this feeling of conflict by connecting my intellectual mind with my non-intellectual experiences. Both represent intrinsic aspects of my nature, and neither is better or more true than the other.
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anyone can have spiritual experiences. the quest is if they come from god.
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You're probably right, but that is true of everything. You would only understand my faith if you actually tried it. You would only understand the faith of a Hindu or a Muslim if you actually tried it. This proves my point that no perspective of any religion can be considered ultimate truth. Your religion can't save you from the mire of subjectivity and social conditioning. Whatever truth you experience of God is not because of your religion but in spite of it. Yes, religion can point towards some higher truth, but religion itself isn't that higher truth. If you treated a ham sandwich with enough reverence, it would point you towards higher truth.
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well, i am talking about my faith, and what i consider the ultimate truth, is expression of my faith, nothing more.
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I'm not an outside observer. I've studied and prayed and meditated intensely for many years. I've been known to contemplate God for hours and sometimes for days without hardly a break. I'm a severely depressed person, and it can make me quite obsessive sometimes.
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well, i use to have almost every day a time reserved to talk and have community with god in prayer, where i praise him, and ask him to bless many things of my life, of my family, and friends. and, you know what ? i see how god acts. not with spectacular pyro techniques, but in a silent, steady way.
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So, I have searched for God with all of my heart and will. And I have had some very profound experiences. But this has nothing specifically to do with Christianity. A person can have these kinds of experiences in any religion. Actually, this has nothing specifically to do with religion. People do have profound life-transforming experiences outside of religion. Belief in God isn't requisite much less belief in a Christian God.
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i believe you.
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might you have a look at this website, with hundreds of testimonies :
http://www.christiantestimonies.org/
I was asking for your testimony. Other people's testimony can tell me very little about your experiences.
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if i tell you, i was praying for a wife, and god blessed me with the right one, will this be useful information for you ?
or , i had depression for many month, and after i started to search for god, it suddenly disappeard ?
now, for me, these were very deep and impacting experiences, however, i cannot tell you, why, since the things , that happened, and how they happened, are personal.
if i tell you, my wife had a prophecy from a pastor 15 days before i met her the first time, and he described exactly who i am , how i would appear and many other things. it wont make much sense for you, but since we know all details, and understand, why this happened, it was important for us, and we were seeing god working in our lifes.
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There are Christians who would disagree with you... I being one of them. In fact, there were early Christians who held beliefs contrary to your beliefs here. Its called Docetism. There were many people who believed in the non-physical nature of the Christ before the Catholic church became homicidal and wiped them out in a very un-Godly fashion.
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yes, i know about it. its a heretic , gnostic teaching, which does not find any support in the scriptures. we believe jesus came in flesh, was real men, and god , at the same time. heretic teachings and doctrines have existed all the time, and will find always their followers. however, if it this doctrine would be true, the coming of jesus would not have made any sense.