Paperstreet

I never understood why believing in things youve never seen makes you a better person then every other living person in the world.

Big Spoon

So believing in God entitles one to a reward? Believing in God isn't a virtuous act so to reward it would seem a little strange.

GrandDesigner

I would say that there is no reward system so there is no problem there. Whats the next 'so-called' problem?

Now, it's possible this human, James, saw Abrahams willingness to kill his son as the reason he was justified(found Heaven). But James is not Abraham. James does not know what 'clicked' or what thoughts or revelations were inspired in Abrahams mind when he found himself willing to do such an act. In that time, Abraham realized something maybe very important about himself. But it's nothing on the level of 'rewards'..it's more to do with him 'finding himself' and learning what he believes.


Grand Ol Designer

Mageth

But it's nothing on the level of 'rewards'..it's more to do with him 'finding himself' and learning what he believes.

If "finding yourself" involves discovering the will to sacrifice your own son to some imaginary being, then I'll stay lost, thank you.

Tarnaak

An Exposition of my beliefs for your contemplation

God created us and gave us free will because He planned, from what we consider to be the beginning, a kingdom. God thought it out, planned it, created and now maintains his creation. This kingdom exists in His Realm, which is not of this earth, as yet. This kingdom is Holy and Perfect, as God the Creator is Holy and Perfect.

It would have been easy for him to create this realm and place us into it, but then we would just be drones doing his bidding, with perhaps a false sense of being loved by him. This is where free will comes in. In order to establish His Kingdom he created us with free will so that we would not just be drones. Our existence here on this earth is a proving ground for our Spirit. Only those with a pure Spirit will be allowed into the realm God calls Heaven. A pure Spirit is a spirit that loves God and wants, by choice to do his will.

The Scriptures are inspired by our Creator to show himself to us and to help us better understand Him and his purpose. Scripture shows us what God (Trinity) is like and what Heaven will be like. Scripture gives us a blueprint to live by and a way to be Perfect and Holy ( pure ) through Christ.

God has given us we need to know to be His Children in Heaven. To speak against God and his ways, shows our Spirit and God will judge us accordingly. Judge not, lest ye be judged. This not only speaks of judging each other, but also of judging God. This is not to say that offering a non-believer the opportunity to explore is judging. To offer Scripture and tell one of the consequences of unbelief is not judging, but stating what is to come. Judging another is stating that they are going to hell. One cannot know that for sure, for a minute after you leave, that person may accept the Truth and be granted purity. It is a fine line indeed between judging and offering the truth.

All was predestined, in that God had everything planned. This is not to say, I believe, that each and every one of us has been predisposed to heaven or hell. Each of us has been predestined to live on earth, given free will, given the chance to prove our Spirit that we may enter into God presence in Heaven.

Even Christ coming to our realm and being put to death for our transgressions was predestined. This was done that we might see the Grace and Mercy of our Creator. From the book of Genesis to Revelation is God’s work laid out for us. It is our CHOICE to believe or not to believe. What some perceive as contradictions and fallacies in Scripture, the horrors of every day life, mysteries of the past and present, life and death, false religions, earthly desires, these all are predestined to “test” our Spirit.

As far as what Heaven is like, it will be much the same as in the past and present. There will be tasks to be taken care of and things to do, but there will be no more death or sadness. Scripture even tells us that we will be given stature according to our works. So there will be different positions of responsibility. We are even told of what Heaven will look like, for instance streets made of gold.
The choice is ours and ours alone. We have been given free will and enough evidence to make a choice but at the same time test our spirit. God would like all to believe and reside with Him. He knows not all will believe. This, as Scripture tells us, breaks his heart.

If God was to appear in Spirit in front of you and say “ I am the Lord your God, believe now that you have seen me!” What would that do for you? Would you believe? Most would say, yes, I would believe. But then wouldn’t free will be compromised? And how would God test your spirit? He wouldn’t have to test our spirit you say. He already knows! But then he casts you into hell for an unholy spirit and you cry out, “I am holy! Why did you cast me out?” God does not test our spirit for his sake, but our sake. So when you are judged, you know you were done so justly, in order that you cannot say to Him “You are an unjust God.”


It really comes down to a basic question. Do you want to believe? Either you do or you don’t. Try to disprove God’s existence. It cannot be done. Try to prove God’s existence. It cannot be done, at least not scientifically. This is a matter of SPIRIT. One cannot prove scientifically that our spirit exists. How is one to prove anything of the spirit? The majority of human life agrees that spirit is part of our making. This is a built in mechanism for us to seek that of the Spirit; that of God.

With all that has been written by man, both for and against, one opinion versus another, it all comes to the basic question. In what do you want to believe?

If you want insight to all of this, ask of yourself, why do I believe what I believe? Then honestly answer. Don’t just spew forth some babble about what you have heard, for it is to yourself you are talking. Look to yourself for the answer. Not that we as humans are the answer, but that the answer is inside us, somewhere, buried deep. We all are the same, in that we seek the truth.

I believe because I choose to do so. To not believe in a Creator, to believe that we spawn from muck and chance evolution, is ludicrous in my humble opinion. As far as being a “Christian”, I choose to believe because it makes the most sense and has a substantial history to back it up. IMHO

Looking forward to the bash

James

orac

Selling teenage girls into slavery is perfect and holy? Sign me up! Oh, er, wait a minute. No, that's not perfect or holy at all. Sorry, your scripture has some pretty nasty and immoral bits as well.

Oh, that's right. It's just a test - pick out the good bits. What an interesting way to write a blueprint for living.

I'm curious about something, though: does your God want us to aspire to be as devious as He is? Should human parents raise their children by giving them rules with lots of little tricks in them, and punish them when they can't work out which rules are real?

Here we go again. You claim there's evidence, but the only thing I see is a very old book full of ravings from ancient nomads, sexism, racisim, slavery, violence, and instructions to believe or be punished. You even appear to claim it has lies, in order to mislead people who aren't careful enough. Do you have any better evidence than this?

Let me see if I understand you correctly:

You're claiming that Adam, Moses, the apostles, assorted prophets and holy men were all robots with no free will at all, yet were still capable of sin? Are you saying that the original fall (whether metaphorical or literal) was the deliberate and knowing choice of God?

That's a very strange idea. Most christians believe that Adam's sin was to rebel against God, yet you claim that Adam had no free will, and that his actions were caused by God.

Or are you prepared to admit that the Bible explicitly shows that direct personal knowledge of God (including actually talking to him and seeing miracles) does not deny free will?


Another somewhat unrelated question:
What is it with christians who don't even know their own holy book? Why should we take people like that seriously?


What is it with christian's materalism and lust for wealth? Can someone please explain this to me? Seriously, what's wrong with a natural organic city where everywhere you go there's comfortable soft lawns to walk on?

You've also got quite a physical body fixation there - whatever happened to "we're spirits, not bodies"?

Given the variety of experiences on earth and the total time required to last from now until the end of eternity, there's just something fishy about the idea of being stuck in one homogenous city for eternity but never getting bored.

I believe in things that are real. This does not include your god or your heaven.

philechat

I have an objection here. If you said heaven is a place much like ours, but without sadness or death, then I guess Hell will be similar, because we would suffer the fire for eternity, meaning we would not experience death at all, merely endless suffering. Also, if we were certain our dying loved ones were going to heaven, why the sadness at all? This makes no sense at all since for sadness to exist in witnessing our closed ones dying we must have some sense of death being final, not succeeded by an infinitely better afterlife.

mike_decock

If scripture is a blueprint, why do the thousands of denominations all look different? The blueprint seems to be more like a Rorschach test than a detailed set of instructions.

That's a non-answer. Why do you "choose" to believe? Why do you think that belief is a choice?

Evolution is the best explanation we have for the evidence we have gathered. It is ludicrous to ignore the evidence, IMHO.

Whatever makes the most sense is what one naturally believes. Why does Christianity make the most sense to you?

So does Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Paganism and Buddhism. Why ignore those histories?

-Mike...

Mageth

Tarnaak:

You say:

God created us and gave us free will because He planned, from what we consider to be the beginning, a kingdom. God thought it out, planned it, created and now maintains his creation.

and:

The choice is ours and ours alone. We have been given free will and enough evidence to make a choice but at the same time test our spirit. God would like all to believe and reside with Him. He knows not all will believe. This, as Scripture tells us, breaks his heart.

and:

All was predestined, in that God had everything planned.

So we have a god that created us, created all this, gave us free will, planned everything out, including the fact that we'd be tested to prove our "purity."

So what this life becomes is a giant testing ground in which god creates us, places us, gives us free will, tests us or allows us to be tested. Only those of us that pass these tests gain his favor. He "loves" the rest of us but knowingly lets us "choose" hell. And all this was predestined and, if you believe god is truly omniscient, pre-known.

We're god's lab rats, blindly negotiating a maze with two doors - one a wonderful existence in a garden rich with food, and the other a cage, where the rats will be used in torturous, painful experiments. Some will get lucky, take the right turns, choose the right passage instead of the left, and thus end up in the garden. Most won't be so lucky. And god knows when he puts a rat in the maze where it will end up.

Before you criticize my analogy too much, remember that those rats have free will! They can choose which way to turn, which passage to take. Yet, christians often claim that the unlucky rats "choose" to go to the torture chamber!

If god is capable of creating some people that he knows can pass the test, why not create everyone that way? Is god an imperfect creator, incapable of creating all of us "right"?

What is the difference in regards to "free will" between god creating some he knows will make the right choice, and are thus predestined to eternal heaven, and the rest he knows will make the wrong choice, and are thus predestined to eternal hell, and god creating us all, revealing himself so that he can't be denied, or creating all of us predisposed to make the right choice, or otherwise assuring we all end up making the right choice and end up in the "right place"?

When god creates someone, if he has foreknowledge, if all was planned, he knows the ultimate fate of that person, what he/she will choose to believe and where he/she will end up. That person ultimately has no "free will" in the matter; god's very act of creating that person with foreknowledge of his/her destiny sealed his/her fate.

Further, why would "God the Creator [who] is Holy and Perfect" create the majority of his "loved" creatures knowing they are somehow flawed, imperfect, and will thus make the wrong choice and thus suffer eternally? And plan it that way? Where is the "holiness and perfection" in that???

Mageth

It really comes down to a basic question. Do you want to believe? Either you do or you don’t.

What difference does it make what anyone "wants" to believe? For the record, I'm an ex-christian. My ascent into non-belief covered a period of decades. Trust me, raised as a christian, in a christian society, fed on the milk of the bible, during this process I wanted to believe.

And even now, as an atheist, it's not true that I don't want to believe. I didn't become an atheist because I no longer wanted to believe the myths of my childhood. I became an atheist through knowledge, reason, and questioning.

There's simply insufficient evidence to warrant my believing in a deity. Thus, as an atheist, I now lack belief in god. Again, I don't "not want to believe." If there was sufficient evidence to warrant belief, trust me, I'd believe. My wife, my parents, and all my siblings but one are all believers. And they're the kind of believers that aren't very accepting of us evil "atheists." Almost all the rest of my quite large family are believers. My society consists of mostly believers. Life would be much easier if I could simply "choose" to believe. But I can't. I can't simply make myself believe something I lack belief in.

Knowledge, reason, and a questioning mind are dangerous things, especially when one allows oneself to question the very beliefs one holds at the deepest level, as I did my religious beliefs.

Try to disprove God’s existence. It cannot be done. Try to prove God’s existence. It cannot be done, at least not scientifically. This is a matter of SPIRIT. One cannot prove scientifically that our spirit exists. How is one to prove anything of the spirit? The majority of human life agrees that spirit is part of our making.

What the majority believes has no bearing on the truth of the matter, obviously. If something "imaginary" (spirit, god, leprechaun, unicorn, etc.) cannot be proved to be true or false, then the default (scientific, at least) position is to assume it's false.

This is a built in mechanism for us to seek that of the Spirit; that of God.

Hold on, you said spirit and god can't be proved, yet you're stating them as if facts.

With all that has been written by man, both for and against, one opinion versus another, it all comes to the basic question. In what do you want to believe?

Once again, that's not a very good question, as it matters not what one wants to believe. And I'll add that "wanting to believe" something carries dangers - it can cloud one's judgment, allow one to believe things because one wants to rather than because they have enough evidence to support them to warrant belief. That kind of thinking is the root of many of the world's problems.

If you want insight to all of this, ask of yourself, why do I believe what I believe? Then honestly answer. Don’t just spew forth some babble about what you have heard, for it is to yourself you are talking. Look to yourself for the answer. Not that we as humans are the answer, but that the answer is inside us, somewhere, buried deep. We all are the same, in that we seek the truth.

You can see my honest answer above. And my answer, I don't believe, is "babble about what you have heard."

But that's interesting, because I'm almost certain your belief in god, and your entire post above, is largely if not entirely based on "what you have heard."

I believe because I choose to do so. To not believe in a Creator, to believe that we spawn from muck and chance evolution, is ludicrous in my humble opinion.

Well, I think "choosing" your belief, and rejecting others, based on what you "want" to believe, is ludicrous. Especially when rejecting evolution, since the evidence for evolution (descent with modification from a common ancestor) is so overwhelming that it's largely considered a scientific fact.

As far as being a “Christian”, I choose to believe because it makes the most sense and has a substantial history to back it up. IMHO

Interesting. From my understanding of the Xian bible, I thought "believing" was supposed to be based on knowledge of the truth of the gospel, the triune god, necessary salvation through Jesus Christ, the crucifixian and the resurrection. I wouldn't think merely choosing to believe because it "makes sense and has history" would impress God very much.