AB517

I agree with both of these.

I am christian that looked at a few of the other major religions before choosing. I am not expert in any tho

The seekers of knowledge are the finders of truth.

godlovesyou

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.


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.

i don't know any factual contradictions of the bible, only apparent ones.


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.

of course it does not proof anything. otherwise it would not be faith anymore.

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.

simply to say. i found what i was searching for. i found, what i consider to mirror reality.

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.

we are not attracted by fear, but by the love of God for us.

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.

this is said to the believers, to the church. so its directed only to christians.

anyone can have spiritual experiences. the quest is if they come from god.

well, i am talking about my faith, and what i consider the ultimate truth, is expression of my faith, nothing more.

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.

i believe you.

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.


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.

marmalade

In that case, how do you know the bible is the revealed word of God? Most religions claim their holy texts are the revealed word of God. In fact, this claim can often be found in the holy text itself(which is rather silly when you think about it).

I suppose you could answer that you know because you've experienced God while reading/contemplating the bible. However, once again, other people reading their preferred holy texts have made the same claims of their experience.

There is no claim that you can make that some other religion hasn't been claiming long before Christianity ever existed. Of course, you could make the argument that the devil implanted these false ideas to delude the heathens because they foresaw God's plans. This is the argument that the earliest apologists used to try to explain why the Jesus story was basically the same as the previous pagan ones.

Yes, yes, I know. Those pesky apparent contraditions that you find when you objectively study mainstream biblical scholarship. I've read a fair amount of apologist arguments. I know where discussing this goes(or doesn't go) with a literalist Christian. I could rationally counter every claim you make and it wouldn't matter. The criticism of contradiction is made according to the standard of rationality which you deny from the outset. We're just talking past eachother. For a literalist, rationality is accepted when it rationalizes what they already want to believe, and is dismissed(often with claims of 'faith') when it contradicts their blind asumptions. For a literalist, rationality is at best an afterthought, just another prosyletizing technique.

We agree on this point in a manner. I do accept that there are some things we can't explain. I'd prefer to think of it as not easily explained because I wouldn't outright deny the possibility of explanation. But sometimes things can be explained, but either we don't see the explanation or we don't want to see it.

On the other hand, I'm more open to there not being an explanation to matters involving God. All in all, I'd guess you're more attached to your explanations than I am to mine. This discussion would be a lot easier if you were more serious about accepting that there are some questions that we cannot explain.

Why do you assume that proof(ie rationality) and faith are in opposition?

And why do you assume that faith and dogma are identical?

Conviction in itself isn't necessarily a good thing. For one, conviction isn't necessarily of God... which relates to faith and dogma not necessarily being identical. Many evil people have had strong sense of conviction. Conviction can actually be very dangerous because its hard to have strong conviction while remaining humble. In my experience, I've found them nearly impossible to balance.

As long as you believe in a literal hell, I don't believe that you aren't motivated by fear and that you don't project your fear onto others. Its the natural consequence of this kind of belief.

Most traditional religions are based at least partly on fear. Islam is part of the Judeo-Christian tradition which is not lacking in fear of God. Yes, some Christians have transcended the fear-based origins of their religion, but that is true of any religion.

Interesting... the Muslims say their faith is different. Yep, your religion is unique just like every other religion.

I'm still not seeing anything different here. Let us take the example of Krishna which, by the way, has the same etymological origins as the title 'Christ'. His followers call Krishna lord and would have a similar attitude towards him as you describe about Christian's attitude to Jesus.

1 John 4:1 "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." NIV

Since we don't know if a spirit is of God until it is tested, then we can't even know God until he is tested. Any god(or claim of God, or supposed experience of God) must be put to the test, but, obviously, this requires more than ordinary testing. Any god worthy of worship needs to be tested in all possible ways including the unrestrained use of objective rationality. If a god fails the rather minor test of rationality, then he is a very minor deity in the scheme of things.

Excatly, your faith, your ultimate truth, nothing more than your subjective experience. I agree that this applies to me also, but I'm not the one making universal claims of God.

I'm glad you've explored this with personal practice. I have no problem that you believe a good God. But your claim that this good God is the exclusive God of Christianity seems utterly unfounded even by the standard of your own experience. Why make any claims about God at al? Why not simply accept what you know directly in your experience and leave it at that?

I'd guess, though, that you don't believe my spiritual experiences are of the one true God. If I haven't accepted Jesus, then according to your beliefs how could my experiences be of God? And if they're not of God, then what other choice is there? Are my experiences of Satan? Or am I merely a lost soul?

Thanks, I do appreciate hearing that. I don't doubt your experiences whatsoever. I grew up in New Thoght Christianity which means I grew up with a stronger belief in this kind of thing than most mainstream Christians. I believe in the possibility of many things.

Of course, people of other religions have these same experiences. Heck, ditto for non-literal Christians. Lets just say that these are normal experiences of humans in general, but people just have different way of explaining it. Right now, there is even scientific research being done on this kind of thing.

godlovesyou

[quote=marmalade;19867]

We must put first things first. Before be decide which religion is true we must first ask how we will know its true. Your objection is valid, an appeal to the Bible or any other religious book begs the question. If must be first proven that the Bible is God's word. And in order to prove that it is God's word one must prove that God exists.

Since I cannot write a book to you, let me share my path. I determined that the best test for a religious system was systematic consistency. By this I mean that the system is consistent within itself (coherence) and with all the relevant facts. Furthermore, absolute certainty is not to be expected. There are very few things we know with certainty.

Having decided on a method of testing the claims of various religious systems, I then began to examine each major system. The only religious system that fits all the facts that I knew and that was coherent was Christianity. Intuitively all know that there is a higher Being. The fact the the universe had a beginning suggests that it had a Beginner. The evidence is, in my opinion, beyond
reasonable doubt, to someone willing to do the research.

After the existence of God is established, then the authority of the Bible needs to be established. The Bible's historical accuracy is beyond dispute, as Josh McDonnell has shown in his book Evidence that demands a Verdict. The Bible was written by numerous authors over a period of 1,600 years. I have been studying the Bible for 16 years and I have yet to find one true contradiction. That is a miracle in itself.

Furthermore, I believe the Bible is God's word because: (1) It has the ability to explain reality coherently and increases one's understanding; (2) The numerous Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament is beyond probability; (3) I have found that its scientific knowledge was way before its time [such as contending that the earth was round]; (4) I have found that God answers prayers based on the promises of the Bible; (5) and many more.

I believe that each of us must walk our own walk in discovering the meaning of life. I choose Christianity because it fits the facts and is self consistent. That doesn't mean that every Christian or theologian or denomination is self consistent, they are not.
Rather, I believe that the Bible, when it is properly interpreted, is self consistent.

And my final evidence is experience.

i know the god of the bible for more than 22 years, and have made many experience, that strengthened my faith.

The fact is that there is no neutral choice. To choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. I would rather you choose wrong then remain uncommitted. Research the different religions. When you study Christianity read things related to apologetics. Is there a greater question in life then the meaning of life? Where did we come from? Why are we hear? Where are we going? The answer to these questions shape our lives. Your idea of life will determine you character.

you can find out more , reading this web site:

http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/sg1345.htm

there isnt any religion that is similar even close.


i certainly know that.

i guess you missunderstand me. if our faith would be irracional, it would be senseless.

i know its not.

we cannot find the ultimate answers of life trough own experience. only, if god reveals himself to us, we can know who he is. i believe he did it in the bible.

i believe it is dangerous just to rely on spiritual experiences, whatever they are. i base my faith on the bible, and the gospel, and jesus christ.

marmalade

There have been very many people all the way back to early Christianity who do believe it makes sense. Some scholarship argues that the scriptures weren't originally historical documents. I'll give you some quotes about some scholarship on this matter. I'm sure you have little or no interest in looking into this matter, but I'm hoping you might look into it beyond a cursory glance.

Here is Robert M. Price's translation. He has a book of his translations(Pre-Nicene New Testament). Price is a mainstream scholar who belonged to the Jesus Seminar and now belongs to the Jesus Project.

Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ
http://rationalrevolution.net/articl...th_history.htm

http://www.infidels.org/infidels/new...999/april.html

This next quote is from Earl Doherty's site. His arguments are similar to Price's.

http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/parttwo.htm

Discovering Christ

I am also a born again Christian and there is proof of the existence of God...

1. look at your computer, it is well designed and formated and was created by a man.

2. look at a building, big and tall and structured well. a man also created it.

3. look at this earth, it was made big beautiful... and no man created it. God created it.

Derbonic

A computor is a great example of evolution. You know .. keeping the parts that work , and eliminating the parts that dont. Started as an abucus maybe.

Building are also a great example of how evolution works. We didnt just all of the sudden have sky scrapers.

Come on now. *sigh

__________________
You can do it your own way, long as its done just how I say.~the hypocrit

godlovesyou

[quote=marmalade;19891]my friend

if jesus did not come in flesh, than the gospel is worthless.

please give a look at this selection of preachings about gnosicism. john mcarthur is a leading evangelical pastor , and i have found many worthy answers at his web page :

http://www.google.com/custom?q=gnost...ww.biblebb.com

godlovesyou

http://www.rae.org/godexist.html

One of the greatest demonstrations of God's existence is the tremendous evidence of design in nature. If we found that an arm or a leg or a gill or an eye or a heart could exist on its own, we would have more reason to believe that life as we know it could have evolved by chance. But every creature is a living system with millions of integrated parts that cannot exist by themselves. Even the single celled ameba is made up of highly complex molecules and organelles that work together in a tightly interrelated system. Take away any part of this system and the cell dies. A crude comparison would be to a gasoline engine, made up of pistons, a crankcase, valves, and a spark plug. Take away any of these parts, and the engine does not run.

That is why we say, "nothing works until everything works." The systems that make up life appear fully formed and functional, otherwise the organism would not work at all. Transitions between types of organisms, such as between reptiles and birds, would not function at all well in either world, and would die before they had the chance to reproduce.

duck

I take it that we aren't quite ready to accept that Genesis is a metaphor for evolution?

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Religion: The ultimate definition of verisimilitude