The God That Paul Marketed Over Time.

More like billions of people instead of only millions. And yes, any God we can discuss or describe or communicate with or know is a figment of our imagination.

But this is inconclusive. How Do You Know We Are Not Communicating? God has motive. he wants to get us to know ourselves and him. He wants to be in communion. He has means. And He has opportunity.

And yet he never does. Weird huh? It's almost as if he doesn't exist.

But hasn't Phat been saying that he is in communion with God? Just because you aren't doesn't prove others can't be.

He says he thinks that he is but when quizzed admits to not being able to explain what, when, how or why.I've asked for clarifiaction on this point from everyone who claims to 'be in communication' with god. All I ever get is woo. If you or he would like to clarify, I'm all ears. Well it's a good indication isn't it? Why you and not me? Am I not worth saving? (Please don't give me that bollox about needing to believe before you can believe - that's just more evidence of delusion.)

Yet no one has ever presented a model, method, process, procedure or mechanism to test or verify any of those assertions.

There may not be any way to prove this to you and it may not be a worthwhile thing to do even if it could be done, hard to know. Spiritual things aren't open to ordinary channels of knowledge. When you become a believer your spirit has been "quickened" which before was dead. We who have experienced it know it by the change in our perspective. Cat Sci has recently described what sounds to me like a genuine born-again change in his outlook. The change is within yourself. Others can see changes in behavior if they are around at the time, but can't see what's going on inside, which includes knowing that God is communicating with you through your spirit.However, there may be more external proofs too. Sometimes He communicates through external means in other words. Here are c couple of examples from my own early days of believing: I was upset about a sense of gloomy things in my future, when a breeze blew the pages of the open Bible on the table in front of me and my eye fell on the verse where Jesus says "In the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Considering the number of verses in the Bible I don't think that can easily be dismissed as mere coincidence, but here's another story: When I was in the process of becoming a Christian I went through a phase where I thought I was going to be a Catholic. One day I was reading a book by a Catholic, Keating I think, where he wrote "The Pope is the head of the Church." This bothered me quite a bit. How can the Pope be the head of all believers? The next time I opened the Bible it opened to one of the two verses where it says" Jesus Christ is the head of the Church." I immediately turned a few more pages and landed on the only other place in the Bible where it says the same thing.This I took as God's talking to me through the Bible, giving me necessary information in answer to a problem, and in the first case offering comfort to my worry, without denying that there may be unpleasant things in my future.I hesitate to mention such things at all, and maybe I'll regret it. I had lots more similar experiences that piled up relevant Bible passages in answer to a problem or question I had. The point here is that I didn't have these experiences before I was a believer. To my mind such experiences can't be dismissed, but if anyone can find a way I'm sure you can.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well thank you for taking the risk. But like I said, all I ever get is woo - signs and omens, coincidences and spookiness. Never what people say they do, which is communicate. Two way normal communication. Not ouija board stuff. They can be dismissed extremly easily as coincidence and confirmation bias. It will never happen to me because I'm never going to be sat in a draft reading the bible. The mere fact that you're reading the bible is enough to tell any objective observer that you're simply selecting what is significant to you. It's a well studied area Faith.

That's amazing. I knew you could do it. No wonder you will never hear from God. You have to be able to tell the difference between genuine evidence and your own made-up prejudice.

Hi Faith. Happy 2017. I cheered your post because it takes guts to post something that personal on this forum. Your experiences may or may not have been of God, or the Holy Spirit if you like, but let us assume that they were.Just because God has touched your heart and mind, doesn't confirm in any way your understanding of how the Bible itself is to be understood. You didn't claim that in this post, but you have inferred it other times. There are many of us with different beliefs about Biblical interpretation who have also have felt that God had touched and influenced their lives. You might also look at New Cat's Eye's thread who as a Catholic, a faith that you so strongly criticize, to see that he also experienced God in his life.I only post this to suggest that you might be a little less critical of the beliefs of others, and consider that just maybe it is our response to the influences that we receive from God ,as opposed to our doctrinal beliefs, that is important to God.Edited by GDR, : incomplete sentence

I'm pretty good at that Faith. But so far you haven't produced any evidence at all. Just silly stuff. There's no conversation here - just, well, woo.

In order to reduce what I said to mere "woo" you have to assume I'm lying or somehow fudged the facts. OR you just didn't really think about what I said? Anyway, what I described is really good evidence of communication from God. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I fail to see how those experiences could have had any other source but God. They had to have a supernatural source, that's for sure, but although the demons can do such things it would be hard to explain why they would provide me with this kind of response that was so pertinent to my situation.I believe I acknowledged that I think CS has had a born-again experience. I don't require perfect doctrine for such experiences -- all of us know almost nothing about Christian doctrine at the very beginning --and I've said that I believe Catholics may be true Christians, that it's the Vatican, the papal hierarchy that is the Antichrist. (Your approval of this Pope on that thread gave me the heebiejeebies.)I think God overlooks a lot in us, doctrinally and in our lives, which He can do on the basis of Jesus' death for us. It "covers a lot of sins." He's looking for a pure heart toward Him above all. That's how King David could have committed the horrific sins he committed with Bathsheba, even having her husband murdered, and still be regarded as a man after God's own heart. He had a tender repentant heart, he genuinely loved God. That covers a LOT of sins.I can hope that over time God would lead CS out of the RCC, but He works in mysterious ways and His plans may be rather different from my hopes.There IS, however, no doubt a true doctrine that we SHOULD be aiming for even if God forgives our falling short of it.

All you've said Faith is that you read something in the bible. Nothing else.
The question was about communication. I said that when people say they communicate with god and I ask them for details, they only have instances like your 'breeze turning pages'. This is not communication, at the very best it's circumstantial, but actually it's just superstition and confirmation bias.

I notice you keep making assertions like that but never provide any evidence to support that position.What evidence can you present that shows you know some true doctrine that happens to be different than Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism or the doctrine marketed by the Roman Catholic Church?