The concept of faith

I prefer King James myself. I don't care if it's "accurate" or not."Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."Anyone with the least bit of verbal sensitivity can appreciate that.

Or this:"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain.. . . (and then he switches to the "evil days")Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets."

I agree that the language is beautiful.
What part does the meaning of those passages play in your appreciation?

You seem to read things with the mindset "It seems Christianity requires me to believe various things when I have no way of being able to believe something I have no evidence for. I can't blindly believe that (insert x doctrine here) is the case" No wonder it seems complex.If you've heard it once though, you've heard it a thousand times. God is the one who saves. He is the one who provides the evidence for you which enables you to believe all these things. In that case it is not difficult at all.If you are to be saved then two things must happen.1. God must present compelling (although indirect) evidence of the fact that all the roads a person has followed in attempt to buttress their own independance and pursuit of happiness, have not in fact resulted in that goal being achieved. Masks only. He must show them that for all their attempts at self-fulfillment, they have not filled the desire that all this stuff is aimed at filling. A person is 'nearer' if they at least see this about themselves. Many deny that there is a void in their life at all. If a person DOES arrive at this point then it wasn't them that brings that revelation about their position. He is showing them that this stuff doesn't cut it. He is holding up the reality of their lives for their evaluation. .2. A person must not deny (past the point of no return) the conclusion that would be drawn from this evidence. One can of course shake off the notions that would hint at this conclusion and continue to attempt to fill the void with 'stuff'. We are afterall, free to deny and ignore the evidence. To not face it. To turn away from it.It can take many years of denial to get to the point of really seeing ourselves as we are, to submit to the facts about ourselves, living like the man in Romans 7 (without any reference to God prior to the point of conversion which Romans 7 deal with). But at some point we will be faced with "Why do I keep doing the things that I don't want to do??" Hopefully at some point a man finally accepts that he has tried and tried and tried ...but failed...and sees that he will always fail if he keeps on going.Hopefully he doesn't do a Howard Hughes and grinds, in time, to a halt at a place where God is the only one left. It is natural to suppose that this is an appalling way to arrive ("God - I'm trying you last, not because I think you exist, not that I respect you, not that I even want to believe you. But because you're the last option of all the options").Fortunately God isn't like us. He is not proud. He will always welcome a prodigal son. Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

In the quote from the NT, very litte. In the quote from Eccles., quite a bit. But I wonder why the almond tree flourishes when everything else is crumbling away?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I guess this could be called the "moral argument" for the existence of God. I wonder if that could be put into a moral logical form. The basic idea seems to be that we can deduce the existence of God from our sense of wrong-doing: the argument from conscience. Does one need a God to have a conscience? I think you need one to have an objective conscience. That is to say, assuming no God, there's no grounding for morals. It's just a matter of feelings. The issue would be whether our sense of morals is objective, for if it is subjective, it means nothing as for as being evidence for anything.

The almond tree is a symbol of God's judgment -- {abe: its flowering is a symbol of the imminence of judgment. Edited by Faith, : shown in text

From my own experience there was an element of the moral to my conversion. I had gone my own way and it was the failure of these ways to fill a void which brought me to my knees. I could see and admit that I had the morals of an alley cat. But having good morals alone wouldn't have filled the void. I don't see how one could ever deduce it. One (on your side of the fence) could never reason that out - due to lack of certainty that God exists - which as you say is a requirement in order for morals to exist objectively. Without knowig God exists, morals can never known to be objective. Deduction will only result in going in circlesNo. For a man to be saved God must first part the seas around a persons self-justification of their wrong-doing and let them see themselves as they are. And they must come to a decision about themselves: either it is objective or subjective. They can sit on the fence and dither until the day they die.Its plain old honest-to-goodness decision-making - not hiding in the mists of procrastination which simply kicks the decision into touch. "I was deducing.." is a dodge for the reason I gave: one cannot deduce the undeducable.If you wanted to limit it to morals then the question you must ask yourself is this. "If God exists can I consider myself to be depraved against his measure of good and evil. A hopeless case on his day of judgement?" One doesn't have to believe in God to decide that. And even that self admission is something he can work with (if he exists). But he cannot work with the denial inherent in procrastination. Agnostism is denial by the back door - it doesn't fool Him.

The whole point is to deduce it. In that case, why believe it? Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I have to agree that people around here don't care about deduction or induction: what they care about is politics. That's what drives this show.Well, you know what, iano? I don't care about politics.

Deduce it from what? Do you consider it deducing it to believe what somebody tells you? Deducing its truth from their testimony perhaps?

Uh, no. You have to logically deduce it. The testimony means nothing.

Yes, the reason Percy started this site was to defeat the political moves of the creationists to have a say in the schools. The science stuff is just a pretense since that is their real aim. They aren't interested in truth, just in winning the war. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well then, as Iano says, it isn't deduceable to the normal fallen mind so I guess we won't see you in heaven. Too bad.

I think Percy is an honorable man. That's been my impression.