critical thinking made ez

Ok, I can agree with Love being subjective. A very good point indeed... But everlasting life is the bet here, not that we find Mr/Mrs Right. If you pick the wrong husband because of the subjective matter of love, the worst thing is that you get beat-up or treated like crap until you decide a divorce is called for. If you pick the wrong God, you burn or are punished etc. for eternity with no way out. So the method of believing i.e. (Faith) is a very important matter.


Funny how you can understand but God can't. If I "don't get there," he will send me to hell forever if he exists. In saying you understand, you are really saying, "you don't believe I deserve to go to hell," which has been my whole point on this matter. How is it fair that I go to hell if I don't buy the flimsy evidence for God's existence? There has to be a more fair way of believing that just having faith as defined by the Bible.

Thanks for the dialog, but I am still in a bog about this Faith thing.

Mageth

Love is subjective... God is also defined as love... so it makes sense to me that belief in God is subjective.

Love is blind...god is love...therefore god is blind.

Actually, I challenge you to find where in the scriptures god is defined as love.

bgponder

Mageth:

While I generally agree with you on lots of stuff,

1John 4:8 (KJV)--He that loveth not Knoweth not God; for God is love.

1Jn 4:16--And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

Peace, cornbread Barry

Tercel

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because <strong>God is love</strong>." 1 John 4:8

Edit: I see bgponder beat me... oh well...

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Mageth

I forgot about those passages (they are, I believe, the only two places in scripture where god is defined as love), but I would add that IMO they are not intended to imply that god is only love, or that all love is god. Scritpure instead elsewhere seems to describe love as an attribute of god, not as god. (that's my beef with the "god is love" statement so freely thrown about).

"For god so loved the world..." - god loves (it does not say that god is love)

"Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:10) - So does this mean the fulfillment of the law is god?

And how about god as hatred, jealousy, vengeance and wrath?

"You are not a god who delights in evil; no wicked person finds refuge with you; the arrogant cannot stand before you. You [God] hate all who do evil;" [Ps. 5:4-5]

"Into your hands I commend my spirit; you will redeem me, LORD, faithful God. You hate those who serve worthless idols, but I trust in the LORD." [Ps. 31:5-6]

"Your throne, O God, stands forever; your royal scepter is a scepter for justice. You love justice and hate wrongdoing; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellow kings. [Ps. 45:6-7]

"For I hate divorce, says the LORD, the God of Israel, And covering one's garment with injustice, says the LORD of hosts; You must then safeguard life that is your own, and not break faith." [Mal. 2:16]

Nahum 1.2: The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies

"Your throne, O God, stands forever and ever; and a righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom. You {Jesus} loved justice and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions"; [Heb. 1:8-9]

"But you have this in your favor: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I {Jesus} also hate. " ' "Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the victor I will give the right to eat from the tree of life that is in the garden of God." ' [Rv. 2:6-7]

Tercel

Some points for Critical Thinking and Bob to think about.

You are confused because people now use "faith" to mean (at least) two different things. It can either mean "belief" or "trust". You want to use faith=belief. However I suggest (consider Epitome's examples) than when the Bible writers used the word faith they always meant trust. Hence, of course you can have varying degrees of faith - depending on how much you trust God.

In the story of Adam and Eve, the snake convinced them that God didn't have their best interests in mind and so they lost their faith/trust in God and committed the first sin. Having "faith" is putting our trust back in God where it should be and puts us into our right relationship with God... the reason that faith saves.
You don't seriously think that God would say "To those who have an intellectual belief in me without any evidence I will send to paradise, but everyone else burns... Muhuhahaha!!" (Heck, no wonder you're atheists!)

In my experience many of you are downright unwilling to seriously consider what evidence there is, apparently preferring to hole yourselves up in your own cosy little world where you're not responsible to God for your actions. However, I agree that there are no doubt many atheists who truly haven't been shown sufficient evidence to believe.

I agree.

I agree.

Doesn't the story of doubting Thomas count? Jesus didn't say to him "nup, you have to have FAITH and to give evidence would defeat the purpose" but rather Jesus was happy to give him all the evidence he needed to believe. Neither did he comment that Thomas was an exception and those in future that didn't believe without evidence would be condemned, but rather he noted how blessed people who believed in him without seeing him would be.

I seriously disagree.
The only verse which pronounces such condemnation is Mark 16:16 "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." and this verse is not found in out earliest MS so there is good reason to suspect that Jesus never spoke those words and we have further good reason upon finding that this statement is not very consistent with the other discussions on salvation in the Bible. Unfortunately fundamentalists with their amusing doctrine of inerrancy are compelled to accept this verse at face value and thus declare that God sends all non-believers to hell and try hopelessly to reconcile the havoc created with the rest of their theology...

For a discussion by me on the subject of salvation, what causes it and who gets there, I suggest you have a look at this thread:
<a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=002538&p=" target="_blank">Theophilus or others - Could the Borneoians have been saved?</a>
My discussion begins half-way down the first page and continues to the top of the third with some further clarifications. I think both Bob and CTMEZ will find my views interesting reading, and I hope you will both recognise that it is not all Christian beliefs which are disagreable, but only those held by an (unfortunately very vocal) fundamentalist minority.

Tercel

critical thinking made ez

Let me get this straight, are you saying that if I die before I get the level of proof I need to believe in Jesus and God, that I will go to heaven? Because that is what agreeing with my statement above would entail.

Bob *insert witty nic here*

Well, it seems we are still stuck on defining the word faith. I hate it when discussions digress into semantic issues.
To Epitome:
You're right in that no discussion can be had if the participants cannot agree on the meaning of the term. But I have serveral issues with your point that might help clear the air.
Testimony in court is given under oath (an oath taken on the Bible interestingly enough) and under thorough cross examination with legal recourse in the event of willfully false testimony. Therfore the Bible is not evidence in that sense. As well if the Bible then refers to itself as evidence it again is not eveidence in any sense. An analogy to what you said would be that if in answer to your questioning of the evidence for my statements I merely said "because I said so" and told you to accept that as evidence.
My problem is not nessecarily with what faith is defined as. In my previous post I clearly covered your definition of faith and what the logical result would be. But I think you are unclear about your own definition of faith (see later in this post).
So you lurk because you don't want to have discussions with people who don't agree with or who don't support your own belief system?
That was too easy.
First of all subjective evidence IS an oxymoron. Evidence is fact. Fact by definition is objective. You could say instead that Christian Faith is a belief based on subjective interpretation of evidence. And it is quite obvious that you can not prove something that is subjective, so you are quite right to say that you can not prove anything that Christian Faith is based on. But wait a minute... that would mean that if I did believe in God or the Bible as the word of God it would be a totally subjective belief. A belief that would not and [b]could[/d] not (since that is God's intention) rest on iogical proof or material evidence (since material evidence is not subjective).
I now fail to see your disagreement with my definition of faith as it is plainly clear that [b]you[b] are clearly using the same definition as I proposed.
Well I guess that clears up the definition debate,

Now to move on...
Love is an emotion. Emotions are based on a belief or idea. Befiefs and ideas can be based on anything you want them to be based on as we have seen, therefore love as an emotion can be totally subjective.
But that does not mean it can not be objective. If someone loves someone or something wouldn't they show it? Ones actions are fact, and objectively measurable. So if someone says they love you and show you through their actions that they love you then you have edivence to believe that that is true. In that instance you would not have faith in their love, but that would in no way diminish your belief in their love for you, it's just that you have very good reason to believe so. I am sure that your husband shows you in many ways how much he loves you, or you would not have married him I'm sure.
So here is a question for you:
If your husband never said that he loved you, never did any of the nice loving things, or never in anyway ever show that he loved you, would you think that he loved you?
I truly believe that you would not be led to think so and if it were so that you would not have married him. Therfore your belief in his love for you is truly based on rational, objective, and factual evidence, which is a supremely wonderful thing, but it is not faith.
If you then equate your belief in God with your belief in your husbands love then you must have some proof for yourself to believe in God. Of course this proff may be entirely subjective but let me pose this to you, and to any other christian out there.
Suppose instead of meeting and marrying your current husband you married someone else, but it wans't the usual courtship. Imagine it happened this way:

One day a friend comes to you. They tell you how sad they are that you have been searching for a husband and have not been able to find one. She then shows you a letter that she says was written by a man who would be the perfect husband for you and who would be willing to marry you. You read the letter and are swooned by his prose and smitten with his charm. He seems to represent everything that you have been looking for in a husband. You can imagine nothing but unending happiness for you and your children should you wed. You immediately ask your friend how you can meet this man, to which she replies that you cannot, right now. However she tells you that he is comming to your town very soon and that as he stated in his letter, if you loved him and were true to him, when he came, he would make you his bride. Again you ask when he would come. Your friend says that she is not sure, but that he is comming very sone, then she tells you that you that he may not come during your life time until the day that you die. But on that day he would come and raise you from the grave and you would be forever young with him and that you would live in eternal happiness and love with him.

The question is, would you wait for such a man? Lets say that you choose to wait. Lets say that every week your friends come to your house and tell you that he is comming very soon and that you should be ready for him to come? Well obviously you should prepare! So you clean your house and prepare the best meal, open your finest bottle of wine and set the table with your best china. You do this every day, for weeks on end. Then you begin to tire and perhaps only set the table once a week, the day that your friends come to visit you. Your friends hastly remind you that if you are not ready when he arrives (and he will surely arrive on the day of your death if not earlier) he will not take you as his bride. In fact he will do worse and sentence you a slave labour camp in an inhospitable and unbearably hot and humid asian jungle, and that he would raise you from the dead to do so if necessary
Would you still wait?
What if some people told that he truly did love you? What if some said that he didn't? What if some came to you with what they said were messages to you from him? What if some said he didn't even exist, and this was big multilevel pyramid scheme that your friends were involved in?
Would you still believe? Would you still wait? Will you still spend half of you waking hours preparing for his arrival? How much time would you have spent on preparing for him over a year? 5 years? 10 years? Your entire life? Could such a perfect man even exist?

I know that these questions are rhetorical along with the metaphor, but I know that the point is absolutely clear. None of it makes sense, there is no reason or logic behind it. Pipe dreams and threats are the only justifications available, and even then you have to deny your own sense of reason and rationality. I also know that I am not wasting my life or my existence having faith that someday someone will come to take me to a place where all my dreams are realized. I am going to take that time to realize my dreams right now in this life. Now that makes a whole lotta sense!



To all:

Now that the definition of faith is cleared up we can again returs to my original topic of posting which basically states:
<ol type="a">[*]In order to be a good christian and go to heaven you must have faith in God (now we all know what faith really means now so we can move past this point).[*]To try and prove, reason, show evidence for, rationalize, or logically understand God then you no longer have faith and you are not going to heave. read: you are going to hell (so bring some sunblock with you ).[/list=a]
Is B true? And if so why would a christian do as A states?

Thanks alot everyone for participating

Bob

Bob *insert witty nic here*

Reply to Tercel.
I find this concept common in non fundementalist christians, that we do not have the correct definition for the way the word faith is used in the Bible. Then why is it used there? Didn't the translators know what they were doing? Weren't they interested in presenting the texts of the Bible as they were originally written?

Also faith and trust today mean entirely different things so will entertain your notion that the word trust shoud be used.

If we replace trust for the word faith then I summarize your point as being that you must trust in God, that there are varying levels of trust, and that trust is based on evidence, proof, and logic (of course I expect you will correct me if I am wrong).

Well I have not as of yet been shown any proof for the existence of God (this is coming from someone who was a christian for a decade and witnessed unexplainable phenomena attributed to the so called power of God), so if you have some evidence different from the so-called evidence that was presented to my by the dozens of ministers and preachers, or the hundreds of believers that I personly new and was exposed to, then please present it.

Also CTME's point about whether or not one can enter heaven as a result of not trusting that God exists in liue of lack of evidence is very valid.
The rest of your post is pro christian (what variety I am not sure) verbiage and perspective. The point of some atheists not being responsible to God for their actions is totally irrelevant. The point here is if christians who try to prove the existence of God, have no faith in God.

However if all this results in is a length diatribe of the definition of faith relative to all the many different possible interpretations of the Bible then I hardly see it as a point worht persuing. I have covered what I think it means to have faith in God through what was by my intention to be a logical deduction of the written word of the Bible in the context of today's language. I have also hear a thousand times before that some word or another in the Bible means this or that different thing, which is different from the current meaning of the english word. To all those people out there: Where the hell is an appropriate and relevent translation of the Bible that accurately communicates what it itends and is not open to the subjective interpretations by every one with an opinion on its content? And if there isn't one why the hell don't you write it since know so much about the true meaning of the Bible?
Damn I am losing faith in this thread going anywhere

Bob

critical thinking made ez

I'll have to call you on this one Bob. Evidence is just "data" that "tends" to support a Fact. But Evidence is not a fact.

So there is room for subjective evidence just as there is for material evidence. However, you allowed for subjective interpretation of evidence so your argument stands. Good save!

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: critical thinking made ez ]</p>