A Working Definition of God

Actually it is, and worse than that, as you "oppose" the person, not merely the belief. Which I will say more about. The intolerance is on your side, which was my point, and this statement is a perfect example of it. You are intolerant of anyone who believes that their way is the right way, but in fact you have exactly the same belief that YOUR way is the right way, meaning your belief that ALL ways are acceptable to God. That's YOUR belief and from that position you condemn others who do NOT believe that all ways are acceptable to God.The point is that you don't merely disagree with the belief, you condemn the PERSON, as you are doing to me here. A few posts back you actually claimed that your ad hominem character assassination of me was just "speaking from the heart." I decided not to respond to that, but it's apropos here.You are far more intolerant in the true sense of the word than I am as I haven't come out with the ad hominems you've thrown against me (pride conceit intolerance hard cold rigid), I've merely said I consider others' beliefs wrong. I certainly consider YOURS wrong. Thank you for identifying yourself as a Unitarian, which is a view of course I judge to be false.THAT is the proper way to deal with conflicting beliefs, to judge them false but not the person. You have it backwards. You don't content yourself with arguing that the opponent's belief is wrong, you judge the opponent -- intolerant, arrogant, rigid.What tolerance IS, which nobody seems able to grasp any more, is refraining from the very condemnation you do while clearly declaring that the belief is wrong. INtolerance is ironically in fact THE defining characteristic of the multiculturalist philosophies like Unitarianism that so pride themselves on tolerance while committing the opposite. It's like ancient Rome. They persecuted and martyred Christians for refusing to acknowledge their multiple gods, for daring to worship only One God. For that the Christians were called "atheists." The thinking of today's multiculturalists and religious pluralists is very like ancient Rome.The concept of tolerance, however, came out of the many warring sects of Christianity. It is an agreement to respect a persons's right to a different view WITHOUT having to treat the view itself as right. {EDIT: In fact WITH the attitude that the view is fair game for debate and attack. Just not the person who holds it.You reverse that and in fact commit intolerance.Sorry for being repetitive but I think it's important to get this said as clearly as I can.{EDIT: TOLERANCE IS LIVING CORDIALLY WITH PEOPLE WHOSE VIEWS YOU CONSIDER FALSE AND WORSE. IF YOU LABEL THEIR CHARACTER WITH NAMES LIKE BIGOT/HARD/COLD/RIGID/INTOLERANT/CONCEITED THAT'S NOT LIVING CORDIALLY WITH THEM.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-23-2005 09:44 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-23-2005 09:46 AM

Oh yes, I absolutely am. Whatever is true in the other religions is true nevertheless, but where they contradict the Bible, yes, the Bible absolutely excludes them as false. This is not about how I USE the Bible, it's what the Bible SAYS that excludes them. God is the one who has determined the way to Him, not I. Jesus has made it clear that HE is the way to the Father and there is no other. He has made it clear that the way to Him is "narrow" and those who go by the "broad" way are not going to get there. The whole Bible shows the falseness of all other religions. To deny this is to rewrite the Bible to suit yourself. I am a bit shocked I have to admit, though by now I shouldn't be. To treat the sacrificial love of Christ on behalf of all humanity as "wickedness" rather takes the breath away. But to answer your question, yes of course they will be turned away. That is why Jesus said to take the gospel everywhere, so that many may be saved from just such a terrible fate.I'm afraid you will find out too late that it is GOD who decides these things. I certainly don't do any of the deciding. He has mercifully given His Word so that no-one can be in doubt. If you prefer a different view from His, that's your right in human terms, but rejecting His chosen provision for your salvation is not something you should do lightly. This choice will have eternal consequences and you really need to rethink it. {EDIT: Perhaps you think you accept that provision. I don't see how that is possible without understanding that it is the ONLY provision given by God for all humanity.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-23-2005 10:06 AM

Apples and oranges. You aren't saying I don't make sense. You are saying I'm contradicting myself. Ptolemy has a problem with language, with expressing his thoughts. That's not the same as having contradictions in his thoughts. It's simply too hard to follow him to find out what he's saying, so I can't tell if he's contradicting himself or not.

I thought I'd answered this thoroughly.The evidence of the miracles dissipated in short time. It's gone.The evidence of God's hand in the world on all levels is opaque to us as we think in terms of the natural laws that are the proximal cause, instead of in terms of God who guides it all. This is our own inability to see, but the evidence is there for whose who can see it.The Flood may turn out to be evidence, but it is in process of being thought through.What am I leaving out?We do, however, have LOTS of witness evidence to make up the difference, provided mercifully by God on account of our spiritual blindness.

I'll have to read up on this subject more, but my impression is that subduing the creatures doesn't have to mean anything violent, but simply involve the work of cultivating or training, what we do with both plants and domesticated animals now. Maybe the word "taming" applies. Breeding them perhaps. But overall simply "ruling" as authority. Good rulers don't normally kill their subjects, they rule them, give them good laws, see to their needs, improve their condition.Romans 5:12 says both sin AND death "entered the WORLD," making no distinction between humanity and other parts of the creation: "...as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men..."His adding that "death passed upon all men" is simply a focusing on humanity, not an exclusion of the rest of the creation, the point being that from that point on death was inherited by all of us.This is my reasoning on the subject anyway. I will have to read up more on it.And again, do you know the Catholic position on the shortening of the human life span as catalogued in the begats up to and after Noah?

I have a problem reconciling the idea that we NEED to eat for sustenance with the idea that we will have eternal life. The language of Revelation is certainly symbolic or allegorical, but I don't see any hint whatever that Genesis is. It reads like straight narrative reporting. Again, since we will have eternal life whatever food we have available can't be for sustenance but for some other purpose I would think, at the very least simply one of the many pleasures of eternal life.

You are trying to pull a definitional fast one here. "Myth" means "made-up story," meaning the term itself defines it as untrue, therefore it begs the question of (argues in a circle) whether it is true or not. That is, it states up front definitively that it is not true, and defines its evidentiary value away. I was understating things to say it is a much stronger statement than "there's no way to know." It's a perfect case of circular reasoning that proves the conclusion in the very premise. The independent corroborating evidence is the witness reports of the Old Testament. That IS corroborating evidence, but you simply define it away by pre-judging it to be a myth. It is written as an account of actual events, it has been taken as an account of actual events for some 3500 years by rational people. Again, by trying to define away the question it is you who are arguing in a circle and begging the question. Call it a myth and you DEFINE it as untrue. You needn't bother then with considering it the evidence it most certainly is. That is true, and irrelevant. If something happens and you know it happened but it left NO physical evidence, it nevertheless happened, yet all you have to show for it is TESTIMONY. And that is valid evidence whether you call it scientific or not. It is utterly irrelevant if it's "scientific" -- that's just another definitional ploy.The point is that eyewitness accounts are often the only evidence available for something that REALLY DID HAPPEN, and I said to you earlier that you yourself experience this every day. Give physical evidence for what you had for breakfast on Wednesday. Give physical evidence that it rained on Tuesday. Give physical evidence that you had the flu a month ago but recovered. Give physical evidence that you saw a collision between a truck and a car a year ago. By the way, a written account of the accident and your role would be WITNESS evidence.In ordinary everyday life we experience events all the time that leave no physical evidence. We depend on eyewitness evidence for our knowledge of all kinds of things. There is no logical difference between these ordinary daily experiences and the grand-scale miracles of the Bible. Since they ARE extraordinary, however, God provided millions of witnesses and had the witness reports written down and obsessionally carefully copied to preserve accuracy over 3500 years.It is a great folly to call a person deluded or a liar for something he tells you he witnessed for the one and only reason that you find it hard to believe, but you are saying that about millions of people. I don't know what you can "reasonably" expect but the fact is we have many many ways of knowing. We have the eyewitness testimony of the writers and the people they quote, preserved carefully over the centuries and always available for your study. And we have the testimony of the millions who have believed it true and not a myth over the centuries since the writing, which amounts to a TON of "character witness" evidence.If you demand physical evidence for events that by their nature leave no physical evidence, you are doing the epistemological equivalent of putting your eyes out.

Thank you.I also would like to comment on the main gist of your post to Percy in which you show basic Catholic agreement with at least the universalist aspect of his Unitarianism: Seems to me that this is a bald-faced contradiction, but in any case the Catholic Church has utterly left the arena of Christianity with such statements. Many from all over the world may yet come to know Christ, and uncountable missionaries and mission supporters are working to that end, but that's the ONLY way they are included in God's plan of salvation. Those who NEVER come to know Him are NOT included, and the Catholic Church used to hold to this belief. How can this be true in one century but not another?Also, the claim that followers of other religions have the Holy Spirit has no foundation. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to His followers, not to anyone else -- He was promised to everyone who believes and He testifies of Jesus -- ONLY of Jesus. That being the case, anyone who does not follow the testimony of Jesus does not have the Holy Spirit. Scripture is clear that many who think they are Christians nevertheless are not and do not possess the Holy Spirit, so how much less those who do not call on the Name of Christ?Other religions certainly have many truths and much wisdom and their followers have a God-given conscience and the imprint of the image of God in them, but to attribute qualities to them that are given ONLY by Jesus Christ is to oppose Christian teaching. This I agree with. Humanity started out knowing the one true and living God and there are still remnants of this belief in some cultures and religions, usually distorted, but overall we have degenerated into inability to detect His presence as a result of the Fall. Does the Catholic Church reject what seems to me to be the clear Biblical teaching that the "pantheon of divinities" are the servants of Satan? Isn't it the Biblically derived view that Satan and his demons earned permission to deceive humanity upon Satan's successful deception of Eve into disobeying God, and have taken human worship to themselves by the invention of multiple deities? Satan became the Prince of this world (Jhn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11;Eph 2:2) and as his aim is to put himself in the place of God (Isaiah 14:13-14; Ezekiel 28: 2,6,9) he and his servants have styled themselves gods and goddesses all over planet earth for the purpose of continuing the deception of humanity begun in Eden. Hard to see how, after so many thousands of years of deterioration since the Fall, whatever distorted remainders of belief in the true God continue to exist could lead BACK to the original knowledge.In fact this is why Jesus came. No way does humanity without God's special provision of sacrifice have any hope of getting back to God after the Fall.

YOu give no evidence here that it ever means anything but false or not based on reality, you simply assert it. No, it was the event of the Red Sea parting that was in question, and the written testimony to it is witness evidence of it. You are right I should not have used the term "corroborating" however, as the ONLY evidence is witness evidence. Of course not, though normally you will be taken at your word on minor points of information unless you've proved yourself to be untrustworthy, and if it's very important information you are giving someone, they are going to have to figure out just how trustworthy you are and if others find you trustworthy and all that. That's how we judge witness evidence. Not that often, though we may certainly make allowances for a human tendency to embellish. But that is why the Bible is hedged about with so many extra securities, so MANY witnesses, so many witnesses TO the witnesses, so many ways to compare the testimonies, so many checks on accurate transmission and translation over the centuries, contrary to ignorant suppositions. You offer none of the securities that your word is true in this case that the Bible offers, the securities that even normally attend everyday information. You are simply making a stupid mockery of the idea and refusing to think. Millions of witnesses is extraordinary evidence, and the internal consistency of the reports is extraordinary evidence, and the reverence which is character witness at the very least is extraordianry evidence, and the results of the teachings of Christ in extraordinary benefits to the world is extraordinary evidence. If you have no ability to judge such things you are up a creek. Can, but some of us have the sense to tell the difference. And this is PRESENTED as fact? Or as instructive story? And these characters are placed in a historical context or just in the city of the imagination? Do you ask such questions? Apparently not. You jump to the silliest superficial comparisons and call it proof.Are you familiar with the liar-truthteller puzzle? The solution to it requires very careful thinking, and should get something across about the thinking required in establishing the validity of witness testimony as evidence. It takes intelligence and careful thought, not snap judgments and silly sloppy thinking such as you are offering.If you don't know it, be honest and don't look it up, and try to solve it yourself: {edited to insert important part of puzzle}This message has been edited by Faith, 04-23-2005 08:24 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-23-2005 08:29 PM

You've apparently hit the "general reply" button for these last two, instead of the button for replying to the post.

quote:

---

Some people take the Scriptures so literally and say that you have to confess Christ with your lips -- and that's it. Yet Jesus himself said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

​

In short, I think that many people confess Christ by their thoughts, words and deeds, even the ones who don't know him. And I'm basing this on the Scriptures and Church tradition.

---

Certainly there are many of the lip-service "Lord-Lord" Christians who are not Christians, but on the other hand there's no way to "confess Christ" without confessing His death in our place, that we belong to Him because He bought us at a price. No amount of the most excellent and even Christ-like thoughts, words and deeds will suffice in place of that.

Yes, we know all things were made through Christ, and God is active in the lives of every human being in one way or another, as He is throughout the Creation as a whole; and of course we're all sinners -- none of us deserves salvation at all; and those who are given more are more responsible -- ALL true. But nevertheless the Bible makes it very clear that salvation through Christ does not come by any other means than faith in His death on the cross in our place. Proclaiming Christ as Lord is only part of the gospel. If you leave out His sacrifice in our place you aren't proclaiming the gospel. But this is a side trip so I won't say any more on it.

Mat 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

What kind of deeds are you thinking of? I've already discussed all I can think of in the previous posts. Message 215, Message 229 & Message 245. No they don't. Hardly any evidence at all, as I've said over and over about the miracles. I gave a long list of Biblical miracles, some of which would leave no evidence whatever, most of which would leave evidence that would rapidly disappear, within days to years. Evidence of what exactly? Are you thinking of miracles or what? We've been through the miracles. The evidence was ephemeral, quickly dissipated. What kind of evidence are you expecting to show up? I said God no longer does those grand scale miracles as they served their purpose. Again, God's interventions otherwise follow His laws, but we don't normally see Him in them as we can always explain everything that happens on the basis of those laws. I've also said that more than once. Sensitive spirits see God's hand in natural events like the blossoming of a tree. I have no idea what kind of evidence you think there should be. As I've said many times by now, the parting of the Red Sea would leave no physical evidence whatever, very very far from "copious evidence" as you put it, it would leave NONE. ZIP, ZILCH, NADA. I've said this many times and explained why not, but you just keep saying this as if you had never read it. The people passed through, the water went back to normal. WHAT physical evidence? Nobody's asking you to believe on the basis of physical evidence. There is none. God no longer does miracles on that grand scale, and in any case the physical evidence from those would have been gone as soon as the miracle was over.If you had come upon the scene of the parting of the Red Sea right after all the people had gone through and the sea had gone back to normal, you'd have no more evidence even then than what the people told you about what had happened. ONLY witness evidence even then. Same as you have now. Their witness of the events is written down and has been carefully preserved. It hasn't changed in 3500 years or so. You believe them or you don't.Or if after it was over you had come upon the scene of the fire from heaven that consumed Elijah's soaking wet sacrifice, you'd probably have found a couple of extremely messy bloody altars, one of them soggy and blackened as well, but how could you interpret what had happened from that evidence? You'd have to depend for your knowledge upon what the witnesses had to say about what had happened. Same situation you're in now. You believe the written report or you don't.Or the scene of Jesus' healings or raisings from the dead. Say you happened to show up in the vicinity after each of these miracles and saw the people who had directly experienced them. Say you saw Lazarus after Jesus brought him back to life. On what basis could you believe there had been such a miracle at all? Only that people told you there was. Same position you're in now. You believe them or you don't.You are asked to believe on the basis of witness evidence. That is the whole thrust of the Bible -- BELIEVE. Believe the people God chose to report on His actions. Believe what God spoke through them. They are telling the truth and it is the ONLY evidence God is giving us. You believe it or you don't. One???? Millions saw the parting of the Red Sea, and Moses wrote it down. Millions were led by the pillars of fire and cloud. The millions on the basis of such experiences embraced God to be their ruler. That is also recorded. Thousands witnessed Jesus' miracles. Some believed their own experience, but actually even some of those didn't believe it after a while or doubted it in the moment; of those who didn't witness the miracles, some believed the witness reports, some didn't.God does not look favorably on demands for physical evidence. Jesus graciously showed Thomas the evidence of His wounds that he demanded to see, but at the same time He warned: "You believe because you see, Thomas, but blessed are those who did not see and yet believed."Again, it's exactly the same situation now that it was then. When there is only witness evidence, you are in the same position they were -- you believe it or you don't, it doesn't matter how much time has elapsed. The reports are credible to you or they are not. You will not be given any other kind of evidence.It's excellent witness evidence in my judgment, and I've been blessed beyond all expectation in believing it, but you apparently consider it pretty unconvincing.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-24-2005 01:20 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-24-2005 01:22 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-24-2005 01:27 AM

Sometimes it is much more important that somebody be able to recognize the reality of this kind of treatment than that they agree with my views. Thank you.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-24-2005 01:34 AM