Mad Kally

It wasn't meant to be a blistering reparte. My mother is a psychotic xian. I've lived all my life surrounded by delusional xian cult members. I was only being honest..

theophilus

I guess I haven't been paying attention. Perhaps you can refersh my memory about how they were proven false. If it is so obvious, this shouldn't be too hard for you and will be a good lesson for the rest of the readers.
Enlighten us all by showing how you "know" anything apart from God's revelation.
I look forward to learning from you - although I reserve the right, as any good student, to ask questions.

theophilus

Why would the fact that you might find this "odd," have any meaning in the discussion of supernatural communication.
Like all questions about "why" God did or didn't do things a certain way, you'd have to consult what he has chosen to communicate.
Remembering that God's revelation has a redemptive purpose, we understand that he has given us "all things necessary to life and godliness," but he has not given us (not being "necessary") an exhaustive knowledge of all things possible.
Christians do not claim to have such knowledge and posting such questions as a test is meaningless.

theophilus

I'm sorry if I was a little hostile in this post. My quarell here is not with individuals; it is with false ideas.

Of course, true conversion is a work which God alone can accomplish, but he uses means to accomplish his purposes. So, I argue.

Whatever you may have been, you were not a Christian. I say this because your subsequent rejection proves that you retained your own autonomous thought process as superior to God's word. You never really acknowledged Christ as Lord in your life. You evaluated Christianity as a system of belief and decided that it met your criteria; then later, you changed your mind.
Christianity is based on the authority of God and his word in ALL things.

Baloo

KillerBob: 1 matched digit.
Koy: 0. Notta. Zip. I have to chuckle at the irony, given the context of your post.

Theo, I have no interest in continuing our dialogue.

Sotzo -> cross-post here, my reply to your most recent post will follow.

Apparently, we are having trouble with the phrase "pissing away". Allow me to clarify my attitude towards "evidence for God." My attitude is remarkably similar to the attitude of the US Patent Office toward Perpetual Motion Machines:
(taken from <a href="http://www.chem.unsw.edu.au/staff/hibbert/perpetual/Freelnch.htm)" target="_blank">http://www.chem.unsw.edu.au/staff/hibbert/perpetual/Freelnch.htm)</a>
"The views of the Patent Office are in accord with those scientists who have investigated the subject and are to the effect that such devices are physical impossibilities. The position of the Office can only be rebutted by a working model."

Basically, with failure after failure after failure, the Patent Office could no longer justify "pissing away", so to say, the time and resources for investigating PMM designs. But, they left a back door: Give them a working PMM, and they will drop their policy on the spot.

Similarly, given the failure after failure after failure of theists to present evidence for God which, upon close scrutiny, either has NO natural explanation, or for which I judge the natural explanations to be less probable than the existence of God, I've concluded that I cannot justify pissing away the resources necessary to scrutinize each such claim. But, I'm leaving a backdoor. I have chosen the guessing of a string of 32 digits as an acceptable event for which the natural explanations are less probable than the existence of God.

And to reply to your more recent post:
Yes, you are. You are giving God the guidelines by which He needs to play to warrant your belief. Why should an omnipotent Being have to play by your rules?

I am setting up guidelines necessary for me to begin "playing", period. You don't just wake up one day and decide, "I'm going to try believing in purple talking rabbits. To start, I will go into my back yard, and start searching top to bottom for purple rabbits. I will then spread out, asking others about purple rabbits, looking for signs of purple on all rabbits I see, and trying to start up conversations with rabbits in general. Furthermore, no matter how little evidence I find for purple talking rabbits, I will never give up, and never stop looking..." But, this is EXACTLY what many theists would have atheists do in regards to their invisible friend, Jesus. In a nutshell, I have looked long enough to say, "Enough!". IF there is a god, and IF he wants me to continue searching [worship/believe in/pray to/love/whatever] him, THIS is the only way to get me searching again. I'm not dictating rules to play by; there are no rules, as I am no longer playing the game.

Anyway, my carpool has arrived... I'll finish replying tomorrow.

Viti

Here is my guess

58426944147534582569742556324856

HelenM

theophilus

Are you saying it's impossible to have been a Christian and no longer be one? So everyone on these boards who thinks they used to be a Christian, really never was a true Christian?

From e-mail conversations with some people here I am convinced that there are people here who were as Christian as any Christian I know...yet who have now decided that what they believed was an illusion, I suppose...

Are you saying that's impossible? If so that's not my experience.

Could you clarify? (partly because I'm not sure whether what I quoted above was to everyone here who doesn't believe, or to a specific person)

love
Helen

Huginn

Excellent post! Interesting thoughts well expressed in clear language. Well done. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

critical thinking made ez

There is a "chance" that a person here could guess at the number, and it match correctly; yet there still be no God.

I have a 1 chance in X to guess it correctly without proving anything except that I guessed right despite the odds.

God endorsed a test for virginity by instructing men to look for blood stains on the wedding bed. I don't think that this test is any more correct in determining the existence of God. However, if we look at the brilliant tests created by God in the Bible, this would certainly fit his Intellectual level. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: critical thinking made ez ]</p>

xoc

Hmmm... I thought you were the one using the Gideon story as an authoritative reason why someone could ask for any kind of "proof" from God that should be replied to by God- that is God is somehow obligated, right?

The qualitative difference is significant between Gideon's "proof" and any proof someone might throw out. Since we are talking about a volitional Being rather than a Cosmic Law, the issue comes to GodScruples if you will. but as I pointed out it makes more sense to argue the "proofs" that God refused to give in response to certain individuals; the Pharisees, Satan(in the case of Jesus' temptation), the Roman soldiers, the "unbeliving" people. Since Baloo hasn't even asked for a "proof" of God as He admitted that he still wouldn't believe even if the demands were fulfilled but would rather only engage in some phony religious exercises, one would have to ask why God should be obligated to respond in some great way, and transform mere believers into prophets so one guy will waste his time reading a book. Compare that to the effects of Gideon's "proofs" a)true faith and b)willing to risk his life etc. and we see a significant difference in these examples.