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Author Topic:   What is GOD?
Hangdawg13
Member (Idle past 751 days)
Posts: 1189
From: Texas
Joined: 05-30-2004


Message 46 of 97 (216504)
06-13-2005 12:11 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by dsv
06-10-2005 9:56 AM


When you describe "infinity" in biblical terms (is there infinity in the bible?) you seem to be saying that it's infinity in the sense of being utterly unexplainable and inconceivable -- almost a "don't even try, just give up" impossibility of understanding.
I think you missed my point in bringing up infinite and perfection... I'm too tired to write it out again right now.
I think what you're really seeing is a rejection of specifically organized religion and modern (meaning human) religion.
That has absolutely nothing to do with nihilism being the logical conclusion to atheism/naturalism. I think you missed what I was saying again.
I don't believe there is definitive Good and Evil polars that we could judge people on.
I said nothing about judging people. I only mentioned Good and Evil as being either real or illusive. If you believe there is no good and evil, only pain and pleasure... life and death... clumps of molecules acting out pre-programmed lives in a meaningless universe without a programmer, then what motive could you have to pursue a path you do not believe exists?
If anything, your god should show you this, since he apparently heals people but people also die horrible horrible deaths, including very young children. I would call this evil.
This is a complete diversion from the point we were discussing. Let's try to focus here. I will say in response to this that it cannot be logically established that the existance of God should remove all human responsibility. This is only your assertion.
If god's reality is all that he knows and he can make seemingly evil decisions that we don't understand, why would he judge us on our seemingly evil decisions when our reality is only all that we know? Did that make sense? Heh, it made sense in my head, i swear...
I UNDERSTOOD what you said... Did it make sense? Well that all depends on WHAT GOD IS.
The difference is the lines of code are emulating the laws of physics to create a realistic world. Now if we found out that the laws of physics were "code" written by a God then of course nullify the reality that we once held.
No it wouldn't. It would just mean that laws are governed by more laws which may be governed by still more laws... It doesn't mean that what we once thought was real is now an illusion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by dsv, posted 06-10-2005 9:56 AM dsv has not replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 47 of 97 (216505)
06-13-2005 12:12 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by Hangdawg13
06-12-2005 11:24 PM


Re: Things...
I think I understand the way you are using these words, but I guess I just don't get the point you are making...
My point is that some of the things you believe only make sense within a certain semantic set of assumptions. I'm trying to get you to spend sometime thinking in a nondual way to see if you have different insights.
The Buddha introduced among others things a radically different way of experiencing and viewing the universe. What if no thing is real? That is another way of saying what if nothing is real? That is what if the most real thing is emptiness, the void. What if this void is the fertile creative source from which all appearances emerge? from which all "things" appear to be created or sourced?
If no sentient beings have ever existed then how are they to be saved?
lfen
ABE:
The Master said to me: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measure, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you - begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifest in the Buddhas.
Ch'an Masters: Huang Po
This is a succinct statement of one school of Mahayana (Northern) Buddhism, Chan or in Japan called Zen Buddhism. It's along the lines of some of the things I've read you thinking about except that it is from a Buddhist rather the Christian tradition. lfen
This message has been edited by lfen, 06-12-2005 09:21 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-12-2005 11:24 PM Hangdawg13 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-13-2005 12:25 AM lfen has replied
 Message 49 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-13-2005 12:29 AM lfen has replied

  
Hangdawg13
Member (Idle past 751 days)
Posts: 1189
From: Texas
Joined: 05-30-2004


Message 48 of 97 (216506)
06-13-2005 12:25 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by lfen
06-13-2005 12:12 AM


Re: Things...
...but but but.... I don't get it... Everything you just said was completely self-contradictory.
If no sentient beings have ever existed then how are they to be saved?
But we ARE by definition sentient beings...!?
I can understand the spirit and the idea behind it, but I can't go anywhere logically or philosophically with it, and besides, my mind has a problem with nothingness. I'm not so sure nothingness actually exists.... dang there's another self-contradictory statement... now you've got me doing it.
I can understand obliterating the physical world to find something deeper, but I cannot understand obliterating the physical world in order to find nothing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by lfen, posted 06-13-2005 12:12 AM lfen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by lfen, posted 06-13-2005 1:32 AM Hangdawg13 has not replied
 Message 52 by lfen, posted 06-13-2005 2:34 AM Hangdawg13 has replied

  
Hangdawg13
Member (Idle past 751 days)
Posts: 1189
From: Texas
Joined: 05-30-2004


Message 49 of 97 (216507)
06-13-2005 12:29 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by lfen
06-13-2005 12:12 AM


Re: Things...
The Master said to me: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measure, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you - begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifest in the Buddhas.
OHhh.... well, now that makes a whole heckuva lot more sense. Sounds like God to me.
ABE: Thanks for adding that on there. I definately agree with it.
Yea! I finally broke the 1000 mark.
This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 06-13-2005 12:34 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by lfen, posted 06-13-2005 12:12 AM lfen has replied

Replies to this message:
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 50 of 97 (216510)
06-13-2005 1:04 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by Hangdawg13
06-13-2005 12:29 AM


Re: Things...
Sounds like God to me.
Yes, it does. Sankara's Advaita Vedanta would say that explicitly, that the ultimate reality is Brahman the source. Sankara was very influenced by Buddhism.
The Buddha did not call this God and I think with good reason and results. I think he didn't want people bringing their, lets call them concepts from childhood, to this experience of the primordial ground of pure being. Buddhism then allows people to provisionally believe in deities along their path of developement but isn't held to verbal or semantic concepts. When they progress they let go of their concepts and it's accepted.
Sankara will discuss Brahman in ways you would understand as discussing God but not God in the sense of being a person, rather in the most beyond concept mystery of that from which everything is sourced.
Though Buddha and Sankara have very different language, the Buddha non deistic and Sankara deistic language they agree in essential viewpoints about, let's call it, ultimate reality.
Some of your thinking that I've read here on EvC is in the territory that both Buddhist and Vedantist have spent a good deal of time thinking and writing, but of course from a different nondual perspective.
lfen

This message is a reply to:
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 51 of 97 (216511)
06-13-2005 1:32 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by Hangdawg13
06-13-2005 12:25 AM


Re: Things...
I cannot understand obliterating the physical world in order to find nothing.
It's not obliterated.
This calligraphy is a fragment of the Heart Sutra - Mahaprajnaparamita.
Form is emptiness
Emptiness is form
Emptiness is no other than form
Form is no other than emptiness
Remember we are speaking from a nondual perspective so form and emptiness are not oppossed to one another, that would be a dualistic formulation.
The Advaitist formulation (I switch to Advaitist because it being a deistic formulation I think it's easier for you to grasp) being is sentience and that is all there is. Form is something sentience entertains, like a shape that water takes.
The notion of a individual being is like the notion of a wave on the ocean. The wave has no independent existence. It's simply a form water takes. In this analogy one imagines a waves being aware it's about to hit the beach and be destroyed. Another wave, a guru wave points out to it that it's not really a wave, it's just water and the water is part of the ocean and won't be destroyed at all, not only that the water was always water prior to being a wave the water existed, it never was born and thus will never die.
Buddha means "awake". The Buddha as Siddhartha can be likened to an actor so deeply into his character in a play he thinks he is, say, Romeo and experiences as real the feelings and situations. Imagine after the play he sits bemoaning his own death, the tragedies that befell him until someone comes along and whacks him on the head (in Zen stories Masters sometimes do this for just this reason) and reminds him that he isn't dead and not even Romeo. The sentience that thought is was Siddhartha woke up and realized it wasn't. The sentience was awake, was Buddha. That same sentience at this moment is thinking it is me, and is thinking that it is you, Hangdawg. Please understand that I am not at this time anyway trying to get you to accept this. I am trying to get you to understand some of how these traditions think and express these matters.
This is a way oversimplified analogy for nothingness. You know that puzzle with like 24 squares that slide around in a 5 by 5 square frame, I don't know what it's called, that you can spell out words with? The empty space is the most important part of the puzzle. Without emptiness nothing can move. The function of nothingness, no thingness is the most essential function. It is what allows all the permutations, the creations. In the East this emptiness is viewed not as annihilation but as the essential source of creation, the fertile void, the luminious void.
Recall the discussion of what is a thing? It's a period of time in a process. What is an apple, is really better asked as when is appling?
When the blossoming? When the dropping from the treeing? When the eating either by peopling, or birding, or worming? So what is a thing? And when?
I'm proposing that things are notational abstractions that our brains use as we operate in the world. There are no things, an apple is no thing, it's nothing, if a form permuting constantly from blooming, to ripening, to rotting, to seeding, to new tree growing. Where is the thing? It's an illusion to say there is an apple, but it's obviously a functional illusion, not crazyness, just not accurate.
lfen
ABE:
Emptiness is the usual translation for the Buddhist term Sunyata (or Shunyata). It refers to the fact that no thing -- including human existence -- has ultimate substantiality, which in turn means that no thing is permanent and no thing is totally independent of everything else. In other words, everything in this world is interconnected and in constant flux. A deep appreciation of this idea of emptiness thus saves us from the suffering caused by our egos, our attachments, and our resistance to change and loss.
The Heart Sutra
This message has been edited by lfen, 06-12-2005 10:54 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-13-2005 12:25 AM Hangdawg13 has not replied

  
lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 52 of 97 (216519)
06-13-2005 2:34 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by Hangdawg13
06-13-2005 12:25 AM


You are the no thing ness
I can understand the spirit and the idea behind it, but I can't go anywhere logically or philosophically with it, and besides, my mind has a problem with nothingness. I'm not so sure nothingness actually exists.... dang there's another self-contradictory statement... now you've got me doing it.
I can understand obliterating the physical world to find something deeper, but I cannot understand obliterating the physical world in order to find nothing.
Well, there are vast Buddhist and Hindu philosophies so there are a lot of places to go with it, however, it's purpose is functional to get the process of illusioning stopped long enough to see one's true nature which is beyond words and can't be accurately modeled with words.
The analogy of the puzzle that depends on the empty space to spell out words points at another way to view the true nature of a personing. The letters that can be moved around to spell words are usually taken to be the individual. That is to say the contents, the body, the feelings, the thoughts, the skills are taken to be the person. These all depend on other factors like the language you speak may depend on where you were born, and your body will depend on genetics plus accidents, etc. In this view those things are in a sense arbitary or dependent and always changing. The real self is the emptiness that those things are being shifted in. I, or You, or Buddha, or sentience, consciousness is the emptiness that allows all this stuff to happen.
The illusion that we are an entity arises when the emptiness mistakes itself for it's contents. I think I am a male human body of a certain age that has a certain jobs, family, etc. The awakening is when the emptiness realizes it is none of these things, is literally no thing, or nothing, but rather is the space that all this stuff is movin in, the space the changes are taking place in.
The stuff still happens. The universe still happens. What is annilated is the illusion that these processes are things, that I am these processes that I thought were things. What is annilated is my illusion that I am Romeo, or Hamlet, or lfen. "I Am" is still there only without an illusion. Nothing changes accept the way I see things. I rest in my nature and the changes happen only now I know they aren't me. They don't constitute a being, an entity, a self. They are a character, a persona, a collection of behaviours arising and undergoing change with in a changless space. I am the awareness of these things but I am not the things. I am aware of a personing, but I am the awareness not the personing. This is the space metaphor of Buddhism. The clouds move through the sky, it rains but the sky is not made wet by the rain, nor bright by the sun, nor dark when it sets. The space is unaffected by it's contents. It's just space.
lfen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-13-2005 12:25 AM Hangdawg13 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by Phat, posted 06-13-2005 5:46 AM lfen has replied
 Message 64 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-13-2005 11:54 PM lfen has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 53 of 97 (216531)
06-13-2005 5:46 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by lfen
06-13-2005 2:34 AM


Re: You are the no thing ness
Ifen writes:
I rest in my nature and the changes happen only now I know they aren't me.
Beautiful! To comment any further is unnecessary.
Ifen writes:
I am the awareness of these things but I am not the things.
Great! That rules out pantheism! You may be on to something with this Eastern philosophy!
So whats up with being vs doing? Allowing?
Ifen writes:
Imagine after the play he sits bemoaning his own death, the tragedies that befell him until someone comes along and whacks him on the head (in Zen stories Masters sometimes do this for just this reason) and reminds him that he isn't dead and not even Romeo.
What a beautiful life when we allow instead of plan or pretend!
Ifen writes:
The Buddha did not call this God and I think with good reason and results. I think he didn't want people bringing their, lets call them concepts from childhood, to this experience of the primordial ground of pure being. Buddhism then allows people to provisionally believe in deities along their path of developement but isn't held to verbal or semantic concepts. When they progress they let go of their concepts and it's accepted.
Again, no further comment is necessary! How deeply have you taken to heart what you have studied, Ifen?
This message has been edited by Phatboy, 06-13-2005 03:58 AM

This message is a reply to:
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purpledawn
Member (Idle past 3457 days)
Posts: 4453
From: Indiana
Joined: 04-25-2004


Message 54 of 97 (216536)
06-13-2005 7:25 AM
Reply to: Message 45 by Hangdawg13
06-12-2005 11:41 PM


Re: God is Imagination
quote:
You're thinking about it as if God were a human engineer. You can't understand with your presuppositions about what god is.
I'm not, you said he was behind the weather. If I misunderstood that comment I apologize. I consider God to be a concept that was created by ancient man to describe that which he could not see, control, or understand.

"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-12-2005 11:41 PM Hangdawg13 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by Phat, posted 06-13-2005 7:46 AM purpledawn has replied
 Message 65 by Hangdawg13, posted 06-14-2005 12:02 AM purpledawn has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 55 of 97 (216542)
06-13-2005 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 54 by purpledawn
06-13-2005 7:25 AM


Re: God is Imagination
PD writes:
I consider God to be a concept that was created by ancient man to describe that which he could not see, control, or understand.
And yet why does modern man...who knows better...still believe in God?
Perhaps because the meaning of life is not found in a microscope or a telescope.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by purpledawn, posted 06-13-2005 7:25 AM purpledawn has replied

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purpledawn
Member (Idle past 3457 days)
Posts: 4453
From: Indiana
Joined: 04-25-2004


Message 56 of 97 (216574)
06-13-2005 9:24 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by Phat
06-13-2005 7:46 AM


Re: God is Imagination
quote:
And yet why does modern man...who knows better...still believe in God?
Because it has been taught through the ages and become part of human culture, tradition, psyche. Religions kept the tradition alive.
We know the sun doesn't move, but we still refer to sunrise and sunset.
Even though we know the reality of Santa Clause, we teach our children that he is real and can do amazing things.
We know that weather is without feeling, but we personify it anyway. It relates more to how it makes us feel as opposed to weather having feelings.
If we remove the name God or Spirit from the concepts associated with them, the common man has no name for them. Different cultures have different names as they understand these concepts.
We continue in our comfort zone and what works for us to manage our lives.

"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 57 of 97 (216618)
06-13-2005 11:36 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Phat
06-13-2005 5:46 AM


Re: You are the no thing ness
So whats up with being vs doing? Allowing?
Why should being vs doing? Especially noting I'm looking at this from the nondual perspective then being and doing are not separate. Didn't some Christian theologian, perhaps Aquinas, say that of his concept of God that God's being was identical with God's doing? Something along those lines anyway? Just a dim fragment of memory surfacing briefly there.
How deeply have you taken to heart what you have studied, Ifen?
Your question is quite broad I'm wondering if you've something more specific in mind? I still experience myself as a separate person. This is not simply an intellectual path for me though. It's something I feel very deeply about but I'm not as dedicated to it as it's possible to be. Ordinary life takes up a lot of my time and attention. It's a process, or a path and some days I'm more deeply aware than others. But I'm not sure if those were the questions that prompted you to ask.
lfen

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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 58 of 97 (216672)
06-13-2005 2:55 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by sidelined
06-08-2005 8:45 AM


I haven't read the thread. Here's my opinion;
a consequence of their experiences consider that they know that they have really determined that they have found the one true god and cannot be wrong.Since their are many POV's concerning the method or lack thereof for arrival at the "truth of god" here I would like to ask instead what god is and why they consider their POV to be correct
Well, the assumption of the none-believer, is that they start with their own view point that all religion is the same and says the same thing. That viewpoint alone negates the true faith in that person's mind. Because if you allow all religion to be the same, then the true faith is not revealed. And so I advise you to look at the evidence of the bible, that it is that one Holy book which has succeeded on earth, to convict people the most, and to show accurate prophecies. We all know that every other book is a distant second in the race.
For us, the fact that the Holy people have been scattered, and that so many believe, and so many start out in life with this one particular holy book called the bible, that God would surely only let that which is true reach the top of the pile. That which answers most things and describes best how the universe came to be, and who God is. God is love, (NT), and since love on earth would end all problems and strife, then I declare that the LORD God of Israel, IS GOD. Christ revealed the father. Jesus Christ is the truth. There can be no other thorough explanation given other than that which is provided in the scripture. Every other foolish idolisations and teaching is religion, because as the bible says "all gods are idols, but the Lord God created the heavens". That which is invisible created that which is visible.

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 Message 59 by mikehager, posted 06-13-2005 4:17 PM mike the wiz has replied

  
mikehager
Member (Idle past 6467 days)
Posts: 534
Joined: 09-02-2004


Message 59 of 97 (216686)
06-13-2005 4:17 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by mike the wiz
06-13-2005 2:55 PM


You are making unfounded and unprovable assertions.
Well, the assumption of the none-believer, is that they start with their own view point that all religion is the same and says the same thing.
Your conclusion is correct, but you are absolutely wrong about how I (as one atheist) came to the conclusion. I was a Christian and upon actually learning about other mythological systems saw Christianity for what it is, a myth that serves the purpose all myths do, in the same way all other myths do. There is simply no reason to believe any one of them.
look at the evidence of the bible, that it is that one Holy book which has succeeded on earth...
The claim that the Bible is the only "succesfull" religious text is completely spurious, unless one accepts the implied definition of "succesfull" as "The one the writer believes in." The Book of Mormon has many dedicated followers. The Koran does too. In fact, so does Scientology. That would seem to indicate success.
to show accurate prophecies...
Where? Surely you don't mean OT prophecies being fulfilled in the NT. That kind of claim is the single best real world description of a circular argument I can think of. There are no unequivocally fulfilled prophecies in the Bible. I invite you to show otherwise if you can, but it that would likely be best done elsewhere.
We all know that every other book is a distant second in the race.
We know nothing of the kind. Unless one begins with the presupposition of inherent truth of the Bible, one rapidly sees that it is little different from every other mythology. Be careful of making claims about what other people think. You have no idea what is in my mind unless I tell you.
The rest of your post is simply your opinion, which you are entitled to.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by mike the wiz, posted 06-13-2005 2:55 PM mike the wiz has replied

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 Message 60 by mike the wiz, posted 06-13-2005 6:10 PM mikehager has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 60 of 97 (216697)
06-13-2005 6:10 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by mikehager
06-13-2005 4:17 PM


Re: You are making unfounded and unprovable assertions.
That kind of claim is the single best real world description of a circular argument I can think of. There are no unequivocally fulfilled prophecies in the Bible
There are certainly biblical prophecies even that have came to pass concerning Israel and their return to their land etc, which trumped the Muslim's jihad book.
A circular what? that's irrelevant, I'm not under the rules of science and logic. WHo cares what your side conludes as circular. We're establishing truth here! Logic doesn't necessarily establish truth, nor science.
Since the OT being fulfilled in the NT aswell as being fulfilled in modern times etc is very much evidence of something, along with the fact that the bible is the book which speaks to most people, that evidence alone must is an argument of weight. Goid wouldn't allow the majority to be hoaxed, but the lesser religions are clearly negated because of this.
The Book of Mormon has many dedicated followers. The Koran does too. In fact, so does Scientology
But stick the three together and they haven't had half the impact of the bible.
The bible obviously instills truth into the human plight and psyche. People relate to it in a major and overwhelming way, therefore it's fair to say it reflects reality, as it helps people in their real lives.
Unless one begins with the presupposition of inherent truth of the Bible, one rapidly sees that it is little different from every other mythology
I didn't suppose it was true, but then it was revealed to me when I believed. When I doubt I don't get nothing but spiel, indeed, it looks like just that, when I doubt. God isn't a foolish God, that he would give wisdom to those who doubt.
Myth books require religion. The truth of Christ doesn't. You could not make out I was a believer in Christ, from that of any other living person. But all the other religions require religion. Yet Christ gives life and joy, and puts the burdens of ours upon himself, and also went about to rid the teachings of the religious of his day, who made petty rules as stumbling blocks.
It's just that anyone can make mythology, and even cleverly. But no one could make up the bible. It all fits, there are no holes in the peacable doctrine of Christ. I know that my own wisdom is unbreakable because I always have an answer in the scripture. There is no way silly myths compare to the facts of Christ's documented resurrection, and the wisdom in the bible.
Also, I made a topic showing those things the bible tells us are true, before we found them out, which adds to the established and overwhelmingly irrefutable truth, that the bible is the real deal. Yet this is the book which says "test me". Your failing as a Christian means you doubted, as the bible says. It's not the fault of the book, but your own fault. Christ said "why do you doubt" to Peter, even when Peter had faith initially, but then sank. Likewise, you sank Mike. You bailed out on the big guy.
Fair enough if you are that rare atheist that came to a conclusion that the theology of truth is the same as the other religions. I guess God foresaw your doubts and didn't therefore show you wisdom of the scripture. Is that fair enough?
This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 06-13-2005 06:15 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by mikehager, posted 06-13-2005 4:17 PM mikehager has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by Asgara, posted 06-13-2005 7:22 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 62 by mikehager, posted 06-13-2005 7:23 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 63 by dsv, posted 06-13-2005 7:27 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
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