The Creo Manual Now on TV

This is incorrect.At first I accepted Jesus by 100% blind faith, well almost 100%. I was reading the bible, and a lot of it made sense to me. For 13 years, I compared the principals I was reading to real life. It was enough for me to say, I want to try and live this way.Now the bible says many things, and we can validate them as we go along. Of course it is all subjective, but what does that mean? Love, and trust, even pain is subjective, but they happen.When I got blasted by what I believe to be the Holy Spirit, then a very important part of the bible came true for me, and in an instant God's word became very clear for me. This is not something that I read in a bible, but a feeling that I can experience in real time.Hopefully it is not just eminating from my own head, cause then I would be crazy. I have seen objective evidence that it is not just eminating from my own head.

In the context you put it yes, but not the way I meant it. Correct, but your behavior will indicate if God is with you, or if you are in God, not whether God exists or not.Again, I say, I am not Jesus. Only God can reveal Himself to you, not me. He may use me, and if I am obedient, I will do as He says. As you go through revelations, at the right moment He will reveal Himself to you, then everyone will call you crazy. Um no. It may appear that way to you, but following the tenets of a religion never really changed me, and I have always had the support of any community I was involved in. But the level of support has increased 10 fold since God revealed a bit of Himself to me. Another wacky coincidence....

quote:

---

Correct, but your behavior will indicate if God is with you, or if you are in God, not whether God exists or not.

---

But you just said that (bad) behavior doesn't indicate if God exists or not. You then went on to say that good behavior should indicate to me that God does exist.I really wish you would take more time to carefully and clearly communicate what you actually mean to say, rat. I cannot count the number of times I have read what you write, made a comment on the clear meaning of what you have written, only to have you say "that's not what I meant."Either you are not thinking through what you are trying to communicate or you are just backpedaling from what you really did mean to say in order to avoid admitting that you made a muddled statment that was easily shown to be so.

So, you experience a sudden, strong, unexpected, unexplainable feeling/emotion which you then attribute to God, (after many years of being soaked in the rites and dogma of your faith) because ”what else could it be?’.No matter how real your experience was, it was ultimately coloured by your faith. Your faith is underpinned by what you read in the Bible and what others taught you about what the Bible meant. So when this raw emotion hits you (for whatever reason) there is only one explanation that makes sense to you, and that is the one supplied to you by the Bible, hence my comment that you belief comes (ultimately) from the Bible.Had you never been exposed to the Christian religion, not grown up in its influence, what do you think your reaction to that emotion/feeling you experienced would have been? Would you have automatically have thought ”that must be god!’? I want you to REALLY think about this for a while, and not allow you current absolute belief to cloud your thought in this thought experiment.

I never back pedal. I admit I am wrong, and as you know, I have no trouble doing this. If you read the bible, it is clear what kind of behavior will represent God or not.
note: the new testament, where we learn things like love your enemy, and save the world, not judge.Also, I think I never mentioned behavior, until you did. I mentioned fruits.

Is the bible dogma?
Because that is all I studied for those years, I never liked church, I hated it.THe feeling was sudden, but lasted for 2 weeks, and continues to this day. During that time many thoughts were put in my head, as if someone was talking to me.I almost hate admitting this, because it sounds crazy. That is what I would think if someone told me that 2 years ago. But I am just being honest. Yes, I have had my head checked.But when I saw all those things told to me come to pass, then I knew it wasn't just me. It is my evidence, and I have a hard time calling it subjective. If course, I can't answer that.
But I do know people who walk in a place like a church, filled with the spirit, and they immediatly sense something, and the same thing happens to them.Another example might be, that we are born with a sense of something more. Probably the very thing that drives belief in so many Gods.God created us to worship Him, why things are the way they are, and why there are so many gods, is unknown to me. His ways are not my ways. I am sure they all serve a purpose.Eventually I plan to study more about all the other religions.I can tell you this, that all things I used to perceive as bad, I have found that they were good, and brought me to a place of understanding, and I can be an effective tool in helping others.

quote:

---

Also, I think I never mentioned behavior, until you did. I mentioned fruits.

---

Yes, you did talk about behavior. You said:

quote:

---

If I was a bad person, and claimed to believe in God, and follow Him, you wouldn't say God doesn't exist because of what riverrat does, would you?

---

Being a "bad person" means that you behave badly.What are "fruits" if they are not behaviors?(By the way, your statement above is a backpedal)Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

arg...No it isn't, it is truth.Fruits are the results you leave behind, in your wake.A bad tree cannot have good fruits.
A good tree will most likely have good fruits.Behavior is not completely relative to the fruits you leave behind.Example:
riverrat tries to tell people about God, someone like brenna, but only succeeds in making her upset. So, no good fruits, even though I may have behaved correctly.

quote:

---

Fruits are the results you leave behind, in your wake.

​

A bad tree cannot have good fruits.
A good tree will most likely have good fruits.

​

Behavior is not completely relative to the fruits you leave behind.

​

Example:
riverrat tries to tell people about God, someone like brenna, but only succeeds in making her upset. So, no good fruits, even though I may have behaved correctly.

---

If behavior isn't the way one judges if a Christian bears good fruit or not, then if a Christian beats brenna with a tire iron and in recovery, brenna becomes a Christian, the "fruits" of the attacker are "good", and therefore you know the person is "with God".Right?

Yes.Something like that, although this scenorio is abstract and would never happen, it demostrates what I am talking about.If God told some to beat brenna with a tire iron (never happened) and then she was grateful for it (also never happened) then you could say the fruits of his behavior were good, even though the action wasn't.How many times have I got you aggrevated a little? What if by some miracle those times were working in you to help bring you to God? You think my behavior isn't always the best, but the fruits of it may pay off one day in you. Then my prayers would be answered.

Just how close is this to "the ends justify the means"? Under this, it would be acceptable to "beat brenna with a tire iron" because as a result she converted to Christianity. That doesn't seem right to me, nor that moral, but . . .

quote:

---

If God told some to beat brenna with a tire iron (never happened) and then she was grateful for it (also never happened) then you could say the fruits of his behavior were good, even though the action wasn't.

​

How many times have I got you aggrevated a little? What if by some miracle those times were working in you to help bring you to God? You think my behavior isn't always the best, but the fruits of it may pay off one day in you. Then my prayers would be answered.

---

This is incoherent.If you are accepting my implication that the tire-iron maniac has God on his side, then you need to rethink what you are saying.

It's not important that she is converted to Chrisitanity, but that she has a personal relationship with God.

No, it's abstract like I said.