I Know That God Does Not Exist

I wasn't attributing the Ottoman invasion to the Crusades, just mentioning it as an Islamic invasion of Europe. I admit I don't know much about those historical events, it's pretty sketchy in my mind but I wasn't making the connection you said I was.I don't defend the Crusades so you can stop with the accusations. But it's an interesting fact to my mind that the Roman Catholic Church is considered to have been officially founded in the 7th century, 606 AD to be precise, when the Emperor Phocas declared the Bishop of Rome to be Universal Bishop, making him Pope, which even one Bishop of Rome, Pope Gregory I think, said was the same thing as calling the Pope the Antichrist. It is considered to be the beginning of the papacy in any case, and this occurred in the same time period when Islam was created too, and soon out for conquest. Some Christian historians, regarded the RCC as the Apostate Church headed by the Antichrist, considering it to be the last expression of the Roman Empire, one of the legs of the statue illustrated in the book of Daniel, and the other to be Islam, both together to be the conquering Roman Empire of the last days. A long way of saying that I'm certainly not defending the RCC and although I'm not really up on the history of the Crusades, it was the RCC, a political entity, that brought it about. A Christian church should not also be a political entity as the Vatican is.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

yes, I just corrected it. I meant 7th century.

My guess is that AZ heard a few things about the Inquisition and certainly knows about Islamic jihad so he blurs it all together and denounces all religion.He has no clue, same as most here, that all over the world as we speak Christians are being persecuted for their faith in Christ. By Musims mostly, but also by Hindus in India. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put the gospel invitation: "Come to Christ and die." That's our calling. To die for our belief and that includes being persecuted in word, ridicule, scorn etc, and by laws that make living out our biblical belief punishable, and in the case of people in the rest of the world, imprisonment and death. Richard Wurmbrand, a Jewish convert, spent fourteen years in a Rumanian prison cell deep underground for his faith in Christ. Under Ceaucescu. Another Rumanian pastor, Josef Tson, more recently was brought before the police time after time for interrogations that included beatings, and the police on one visit destroyed his whole painstakingly collected library of Christian books. I just happen to know about those two but there are lots more stories elsewhere. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I was speaking in the context of what we believe about God's love and I think we do agree about that. Of course Phat rejects the Trinity and dredge is a Catholic so there are plenty of differences among us.

There is no proof. Since America has been nominally "Christian" anybody who commits any knd of atrocity is a "Christian" according to the know-nothings although there isn't a shred of Christian belief involved.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't think you've said anywhere what you mean by "Christian slaughter." If you have would you please link to it and if you haven't would you please explain what you mean.

I certainly don't agree with dredge about many things, because he is a Catholic, but I also don't see what you are talking about when you say he's pushing "Hitlerian fervor." Could you please explain.

I agree. Well put.I wanted to say so because I'm often at odds with you.

Apparently AZ was saying Christianity condemns everybody to Hell who doesn't believe. That's how a lot of people take it although theologically it's wrong: Christianity teaches that we're all sinners who are naturally set for Hell and Jesus came as Savior from it. Christianity didn't invent Hell, some version of a place of torment for the wicked after death exists, or existed, in most cultures long before Jesus came. I think I posted a picture I found of a Buddhist version of Hell with demonic beings wielding pitchforks as unhappy human beings try to get away from them, people depicted with Asian features by the way. Funny how that image is supposed to be Christian but isn't. Anyway Christianity has the only offer of salvation from all that.The idea of Hell is scary of course. I'd talked to my oldest grandson about God off and on when they visited about twice a year, though his parents aren't believers. They didn't seem to mind, and my son in law particularly liked hearing that one of the Ten Commandments is about honoring and obeying your parents and was perfectly happy to have that teaching get into my grandson's head because he was, well, a "difficult" child. "Strong willed" is the term they use. Very hard for a mild mannered well meaning parent to deal with.When he was really little he loved a book of Bible stories I got him, kept asking me to read it to him, learned who all the main characters are. But when he was about seven or eight he learned, not from me but at school of all things, that there is a Hell where people are punished and it upset him very much -- he really seemed to be aware that he was a sinner and would deserve Hell. I hadn't wanted to get into that subject but at least it gave me the opportunity to tell him that Jesus came to save him from Hell. I hope that got through but it's hard to know how a kid processes that kind of information. He's approaching the scary years of adolescence now and all I can do is pray for him. It's interesting that his best friend is from a Christian family although I have no idea if they discuss tnese things.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That is my experience too.

I've argued for witness evidence on this thread, meaning the evidence of physical proofs of God, events reported in the Bible that were intended to demonstrate the reality of God, such as the parting of the Red Sea and so on, events reported to have been witnessed by many people. That's the kind of evidence we get from the Bible and since I don't distrust the Bible as so many here do, to me this is compelling evidence.But the attempt to determine whether there is a God without the Bible, through scientific methods, seems completely futile to me. If you don't think the world and the universe are any kind of evidence in themselves for an intelligence behind it all, seems to me there isn't any way to have any evidence at all.What we learn from the Bible about God Himself is that He is Spirit and must be known spiritually. There is no way to know of His existence by direct scientific means. We are equipped with spiritual faculties for knowing God, although according to biblical theology that part of us was severely damaged at the Fall. At least we can refer to the fact that we know we have minds, that we think, that we learn, that we feel, all nonphysical realities we are all very aware of, which at least give some idea of the nature of spirit even when we've lost the spiritual ability to know God.Anyway there is no point in trying to find God by looking into the physical universe. He made it and He's omnipresent so we know He's there in every particle of it, but He's Spirit and there are no physical means of seeing Him.

Funny, I see I had a question about this as did a couple others here. Can you say what sort of connection you are talking about and if a person should be able to recognize it? And you say you read it so do you know what you read and who wrote it?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I didn't know you put up a Sproul audio, I usually enjoy listening to him.

Oh the "Gospel of materialism" and the "materialist faith" are just ways of describing the naturalist method of the sciences, which you seem to understand so I'm surprised you don't feel you do.I tell ya, the words Percy has been choosing to eliminate from my posts are a strange collection. Thoght" for instance, and "thlnk" and now "t h e o l o g y." His h a y t r e d of me is pretty extreme.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

One of the hardest things for us to learn is that when we get born again we really are changed, "a new creation," so that although it may not be obvious, (though I suppose it should be more so than it is), we can love hearing a good sermon while they absolutely abhor it. I heard one by John MacArthur yesterday that I really needed to hear, it may have saved my sanity, and much as I would love to share such a message here I thlnk I've finally learned that there's no point..HOWEVER, I wrote the above before I'd heard the Sproul audio and see it's not really what I had in mind about a "sermon." He does get into a lot of philosophical subjects.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.