OneInFundieville

When I was a fundie I essentially learned this meant...

"And whatever you ask in my name [line with my will], I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name [line with my will], I will do it."

That you can't really petition God into anything. Only understanding his plans.

But then I suppose it's just one big parlor game he'd be playing with us.

spamandham

I know that's what they say it means, because I used to say it meant that too. But I never stopped to consider why that would be a valid interpretation. If I had, I would have realized it isn't. "in my name" does not mean "in line with my will" no matter how you twist it. Preachers just made that crap up because otherwise, people would realize that Bible Jesus is a fraud.

Gamera

Others have argued that "generation" is meant in some unique sense of church/human history, meaning something like an "era," and that since Jesus's resurrection we have been in a single generation.

They cite Jesus' invocation in Matthew 16:4 that "this generation seeks a sign," which is purported not to apply just to the living at the time, but the period from Jesus birth to his second coming. Similarly Mark 8:38 arguably refers to all history from Jesus birth to the second advent, because of the escatological references in it.

If this seems a stretch, well I agree.

Gamera

Well, I"m a Christian, and I would reply that the preoccupation with correct prophesy is an odd pathology of theological christianity, which is most recently represented by the religious right. It is an attempt to "prove" that Jesus existed and was the messiah, through "evidence."

My concept of faith rejects these presumptions.

Prophesy, at least as Paul envisioned it, seemed unrelated to an apologetics, but was a gift of men, presumably to benefit beleivers. Hence his discussion of prophesy in the context of other gifts in Corinthians and Ephesians:

Ephesians 4:11 - And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,

Decypher

How is this consistent with what the Old Testament says? Deut. 18:18-22 tells us to judge prophets on the criteria of whether they give accurate prophecy. As far as I know, the Bible NEVER says that we should simply have faith when someone claims to speak for God. (And if it did say that, how stupid woud it be? We would be vulnerable to any fraudster and self-deluded false prophet.)

Decypher

I should probably say that the New Testament may take that attitude when it comes to Jesus. (That we should simply have faith.) But the Old Testament doesn't say that.

Decypher

These Christians that want to talk about "faith" rather than "evidence"... Well OK, but you have to give up saying that Christianity is true. You can of course say that Christianity is possibly true, and that you have faith in it. But you can't say that Christianity is necessarily true, or that it is likely to be true, or that it even has a good chance of being true. And if you can't say those things, why bother other people with it?

If you go around bothering other people with your religion, should you not have some good evidence for it? Should it not (at least) be probably true?

spamandham

I don't think this is an odd pathology at all. It's an internal struggle within the Christian community caused by a fundamental conflict between irrational ancient ways and the age of reason. (the same type of conflict exists in the Muslim community, and in the Vishnu community).

Paul defined faith as belief in the unseen based on hope. But most Christians don't really buy into such a concept. Instead, they look for evidence on which to base their beliefs, and then redefine faith to simply mean 'belief' in general rather than belief based on hope.

Entire ministries have sprung up in an attempt to identify the evidence upon which to base rational belief. So we have creationism, intelligent design, all kinds of philosophical arguments similar to Aquinas', apologetics aimed at showing the Bible is possibly right, and eschatology. These are all attempts to show that belief in {x} is rational, which of course, means it isn't based on faith.

The idea that you should believe something just because you want it to be true is asinine, and almost all believers reject it in practice, but pay homage to it nonetheless. It's as if they are saying "Faith is what other people should have, but show me the evidence."

haight

I just feel if your going to be claiming something and want the world to acknowledge it as true,you should damn well be able to prove it with no difficulty what so ever.
This is what makes religion so ridiculous,we're asked to accept these claims as true even though common sense and evidence contradicts the them.

People can believe what they like,but getting tax free bonuses etc (the church) for a belief is ridiculous,and it's fraud,unintentional maybe,but fraud nonetheless.