My Beliefs- GDR

Our beliefs about God,god, gods, no gods or gods are just that — beliefs. We are individuals with individual beliefs. It isn’t that we worship different god(s) but it is the continuing human quest as individuals to discern whether or not God exists and if so what can we understand about the nature of God and what if anything that has to do with our lives and how we live it.Now then, why is it just Tangle who can determine what the job requirements are for such an entity? Why does God have to be all seeing and all knowing? It seems to me that if God is knowing enough to be the cause of the existence of life then that would be good enough to be called God.It also seems to me that if God created life with free will and with an open future meaning that even He can’t see the future then I don’t see why that disqualifies Him for the job and title. So once again you want it all mapped out so that Tangle can understand it all in an unambiguous way. If God had the future all mapped out having perfect knowledge of that future then we would no longer have free will. God IMHO has created a world where we have the freedom to change the future and in the end He responds to who we are and what we have done. In the case of Jesus he responded to what mankind had done in torturing and executing His anointed one by resurrecting Him, and inaugurating His Kingdom for the world now and for the world to come. Jesus was going to die at some point in time. If He had died of natural causes 20 years later I suppose God could have resurrected Him then. That is one suggestion but I don’t pretend to have all the answers.As it was God responded to what mankind did when Jesus was executed. Actually going through any part of the Bible we can see that God responds to mankind in time. Even right back in the mythologies in Genesis God is reactive to the actions of Adam and Eve. I don’t see the resurrection being any different. I don’t see the disciples of understanding Jesus as part of the Godhead prior to the resurrection. They understood Him to be the messiah which was not understood to be any one but a man who was anointed by God to lead them. They would not have seen it as God being killed. They would simply have seen the failure of yet another messianic movement. The belief in the Trinity came later as theologians such as Paul considered the words of Jesus in the Gospel and the ramifications of the resurrection.

Well exactly. This means that you can make it all up as you go along - all difficulties can be neatly sidestepped by a rationalisation. This is why you frustrate both atheists and traditional Christians.We now have a bible that isn't always the word of God, a God that is unable to see the future and who will let non-believers into heaven. There really isn't much left to give away.

This is from Matthew 27:

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26 Then he released Barabbas for them; but after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified.27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. 28 They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. 29 And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand ; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews !" 30 They spat on Him, and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head. 31 After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him. 32 As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross.

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By this account He was only beaten with the reed after he had been scourged. Hanging on a cross after being nailed to it would also be somewhat debilitating. Also you can see that He wasn’t fit enough to carry the cross. I go back to my point that if Jesus hadn’t actually died on the cross his ability to heal form all of that in just 3 days would be pretty remarkable on its own. Of course not. The story could be made up or somehow wrong, but it could also be accurate even if not perfectly so. Absolutely if you start from an atheistic or deistic belief. I contend that if the stories are read with a mind that is open to theistic beliefs then I believe that the way the accounts are written are more plausible than there being any fakery or fiction. Certainly, if there is no God it’s a no-brainer.

Aaarghhh!As always you have everything the wrong way around.Most people don't start out life as atheists, they're born into whatever religion their parents happen to have. (Which, of course, makes the whole concept of a correct religion erronious in itself.)I was born a Christian and read the bible like all others. I believed the whole shooting match until I got old enough to reason for myself and had the road to Damascus moment that the emperor not only had no clothes, he wasn't an emperor and, actually, he didn't even exist.Don't fool yourself, this isn't atheists scorning the bible because, in your terms, "their hearts aren't open to it", it's believers needing to believe in something and finding something to then believe in.When the bible, it's history and belief generally are subjected to rational examination - with our heads, not our hearts - it all fails miserably. It just leaves no room for doubt - it's all baloney and the biggest con trick that man has ever played on himself.

Exactly, and until there is corroborating evidence the default should be that it is a story not history.

You're bending over backwards. He "died" more quickly than anybody would have expected, and without even having his legs broken. If he "healed quickly", the obvious implication is that his injuries weren't as serious as they had appeared to be. You're trying to rationalize a miracle instead of just following the logic. You're making up your own language. "Reasonable" means whatever you happen to believe. "Evidence" means whatever supports what you happen to believe. "Plausible" means whatever you happen to believe.It seems pretty clear that you're retrofitting your thinking to fit your preconceived belief.

This is ridiculous. You don't have to be an atheist to understand that faking something is more plausible than miracles. I mean, what's easier to fake that you can cure cancer with the wave of a wand or to actually perform that miracle? Even in your stubbornness you must conclude that it's easier to fake it, right? You're committing the fallacy of begging the question

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The fallacy of petitio principii, or "begging the question", is committed "when a proposition which requires proof is assumed without proof"; in order to charitably entertain the argument, it must be taken as given "in some form of the very proposition to be proved, as a premise from which to deduce it".[8] One must take it upon oneself that the goal, taken as given, is essentially the means to that end.

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Your reasoning is questionable because you put the cart before the horse. To be able to approach the Bible from the point of view that there is a god, you must first prove that there is a god. Otherwise it is circular reasoning to say, "Well first believe there is a god then you will believe all the stories about god are true."Are you satisfied with that kind of reasoning?- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

It isn’t in any way conclusive but it is evidence. I wish you would use the entire quote instead of a part of it that doesn’t give the context. The point was simply that if cells are nothing more than a collection of perceivable base elements the it indicates that things like consciousness, emotions, and morality which are not perceivable aren’t part of a material world. If sentience evolved then the information for that to happen had to exist in initial cellular life. You would need a reason to consider their existence first. Call it evidence if you like. Not that I am aware of. But again the Bible is a collection of books compiled into one. It isn’t just one source. There is no evidence for that. All we can do is observe what has transpired and we can observe natural forces at work. There is no objective evidence one way or another as to why or how those natural forces exist. Actually, I think it’s an original thought in response to what you’ve posted but I’ve read so much it might not be. If sentient life evolved from single celled life then that cell must have had within its DNA the potential for sentient life to evolve from it. It would also need in it the potential for all of the life forms that have evolved over 4 plus billion years. We have been around the track a couple of times. This is getting harder to keep up. There aren’t that many theists around and here and in a thread like this it is open season. I opened up my e-mail and I’m 8 posts behind.

Why?
I don't understand why that would be required. Please explain. Scientifically, not just assertions and incredulity. Exactly. You have no more evidence for Jesus than there is for Unicorns. All unsourced and questionable provenance. Again why? The comment is exceedingly silly. Life itself is the potential. Original life did not have to have info about humans in order for humans to evolve. If you think so please explain why.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

As we do with any historical account. One difference with the Bible is that it isn’t just a single account but a collection of several accounts by different authors. Again the key for me is the resurrection. Yes, I believe in the virgin birth, but if it could be proven that it was just a legend that grew up around Jesus after the resurrection it doesn’t really change anything. If the resurrection could be proven as false then there is no basis for the Christian faith at all.I realize to everyone who is a non-believer it sounds strange but after reading and listening to debates on the subject I believe that the evidence for the resurrection is more compelling than the evidence against it. Frankly, the only argument against it is that it is impossible so that there has to be another explanation, and I have yet to read one that sounds reasonable. If it is accepted at the outset that theism is a possibility then the idea that Jesus was resurrected is IMHO far more plausible than any other explanation. If however, theism is rejected at the outset then of course there has to be another explanation regardless of how implausible it sounds.

Got to object here, GDR: If the virgin birth was just a legend it would change everything. The virgin birth is essential to the claim that Jesus is the literal Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. If He isn't the Son of God but a mere fallen human being His sacrifice on the cross can't pay for our sins.

There's that frustrating, cart-before-horse, begging the question, arse-about-face logic again.You can't pre-suppose the existence of God just so that you can then say that the resurrection is therefore probable.Don't you get that? If you pre-ordane God, then unicorns are possible along with anything else that you want to invent.

How about a God who is responsible for the very fact that you exist? How about a God who made His Word incarnate in a human in time and when that human was executed resurrected Him in a new bodily form and inaugurating His Kingdom, empowered by His Holy Spirit to reflect His love into the world in anticipation of the time when He will renew all things in the recreation of heaven and earth where suffering and death will no longer exist?So yes, I’m not a fundamentalist. IMHO the Bible is not inerrant but God does use it to speak into our hearts and minds. So yes, IMHO God has created a world of becoming as John Polkinghorne calls it in order that we truly do have free will, and yes IMHO God is more concerned with our hearts than He is with our theology.I don’t see where I’ve given away anything, I see myself as pretty mainstream Christian except for the fundamentalists, and I believe in God that is responsible for the creation of all life in this world and the next. My views are very close to C S Lewis who is maybe the best known of Christians in the last century.

As has been pointed out numerous times, the Bible, at is not a single source and was in the case of the NT was written mostly during the time when the eye-witnesses would still be alive.

You ARE a mainstream Christian - that's my point. You're a thoughtful, liberal Christian - most of what you're saying is what most CofEs say over here.But if you don't believe in the virgin birth, the inerrancy of the bible, the necessity of being a baptised Christian to get into heaven and so on, you've virtually invented a new religion; one that fits better with what we now know of the world and how we'd like God to be rather than what the bible tells us he is. It's cherry picking the bits you prefer and rationalising the bits that cause problems.My mother, is a nice, liberal Christian, she doesn't believe in the Devil, do you? (She just says it's a silly idea and chops another onion.)