I’m mostly talking about future events and things that aren’t yet clear, such as things in Revelation, Jesus’ description of the afterlife and things like that.
Yes. I believe when our life ends we will find that these seemingly impossible things happened. It’s by faith and nothing more.
Do you believe faith is an effective tool in your mental tool chest that can reliably and consistently get you to the truth?
This was the biggest thing that helped convince me what I had been taught growing up was built on a house of cards. Faith was always upheld as a very high virtue and reenforced as the model of a good christian. That was my answer when things started to unravel logically, well you just gotta have faith because that’s what jesus wants and god loves the faithful. But the concept of faith is totally backwards in any other life context and sets you up to be duped by tricksters who take advantage of that credulity. Once you believe anything that god says because “faith” it’s a pretty small step to believe anything the head guy speaking for god says. I really want and hope for that true revelation of religion’s complete human fabrication to come to everyone, that’s a profound experience when you snap out of the indoctrination and take responsibility for yourself.
It's not crazy, but it's a belief driven by commuinity consenus rather than reason and evidence, and it is an incorrect belief. I say that bluntly not to be obnoxious, but because I can prove it. I may not be able to prove extremely broad concepts like the existence of God, but I can very easily examine a literary text and prove it is not the infallible word of God -- that's an insanely low bar to clear, and I reckon you've not made an earnest attempt at it.
I’m just curious, but as you’ve looked up all these things, did you ever take a moment to look at the prophecies that are fulfilled? I believe it would be worth your time to find a good source on that. I made a post above about some of it involving Israel if interested.
Not from the line of David? What makes you believe that? It explicitly shows the genealogy being from the line of David.
Hey, man, no disrespect but please actually read the post. The book of "prophecies" are conclusively dated to after the events it "predicts" and this was actually a really common literary form at the time.
For one, I did read a decent bit of it.Hey, man, no disrespect but please actually read the post. The book of "prophecies" are conclusively dated to after the events it "predicts" and this was actually a really common literary form at the time.
If you're interested I can discuss this with you but if you're literally not even going to read what I write, I think it says everything about how you manage to hold on to your belief system.
It's not only insulting that you wouldn't read it, it's really ponderous how the possibility that "prophecy" was written in retrospect.
If I write "In 2008 a dude named Barack Obama will be elected president" and I sign it "Abraham Lincoln" it doesn't mean it's proof that Abraham Lincoln was a prophet, it just means I am a liar and you're a fool for believing me.
The Bible is basically this meme:
Little, if any of it, is written by the people attributed to it. You can't simply take the attribution itself as some kind of proof.
But again, you CAN prove it easily. There are parts of it written in dialects that weren't spoken until hundreds of years later, major factual historical errors, and wholesale plagiarism. And the only reason you don't know this is because you actively avoid even engaging with the information given you.
These sorts of things involve a great deal of imagination, ignoring of context, and usually some willful mistranslation. Never is there any sort of anything compellingly specific about anything that people of that region and time wouldn't have known about.
A "decent" bit of it is not all of it.
These prophecies are not impressive in the least. Everyone knew about them, and you have an entire group of people actively trying to work to fulfill it. How prophetic is it if I randomly say that someone's going to build a McDonald's 20 miles off the east coast of Florida, and whoever does this will win $5 billion, and a bunch of people work together to build one and claim the prize money?
that's when you have to nope out, grown ass man believing in that shit just screams fundamentalist to me, if he believes in that flood shite he's probably a creationist and they are truly fucking deranged, may as well try and convince ISIS to eat a bacon sandwich
A less cynical way of saying that is that human beings are wired to find consensus with their peer groups, and that when someone is raised in a peer group, or turns to a new peer group out of isolation or alienation with another, they conform to the belief systems of that group.
Yup. One notices that the majority of stories revolve around ambiguous "personal experiences" which are highly subjective and prone to bias and flawed reasoning since these are heavily anchored in emotion.
"twisting a bit the original greek". How so? Assertions like this keep getting made. Are you fluent in Greek? Is your source unbiased. Or am I just supposed to assume you've done your homework without bias and found sources without bias?
The one thing I pin my faith on is that Jesus is God taking on flesh who lived a perfect life in our placing and out of the sincerest love willing laid down his life for people who would curse and reject him. He was resurrected and offers eternal life and forgiveness of sins to any who would accept this gift and follow him. I don't hold these insults against you, as I was very much like you.
Only when my faith is in God. Not just faith for the sake of faith.
Have you ever tried reading any apologetics, even just for fun? and I'm not suggesting googling the most disreputable thing you can find, but actively finding something well reviewed?
I'll try to get back to you on this later (hopefully today).
Since you like to cite scripture, what do you make of this?
How can you be sure that your faith in God is not merely faith in God for the sake of faith in God? What other tools do you have to independently verify this? What makes faith in God specifically special as a pathway to truth?
All I can tell you is God convicts my heart and restores and increases my faith.
That wasn’t even the worst of it. When he had to bear all the weight of every sin and feel the separation from the Father at that time.
Yes I’m familiar with the story, but you haven’t explained why that had to happen.
If that is all you can tell me, shouldn't that be a red flag that you don't have more solid ground to stand on? How do you know the conviction in your heart comes from God? Just because you feel it? Are feelings necessarily indicative of truth? Can your feelings ever be wrong? Does God literally talk to you or has He ever appeared in your presence and physically interacted with you? If so, please describe this experience. If not, please explain why the most important being in the universe interacts with us, His favored creation, in the most ambiguous and indirect way possible.
That does not answer my question.
That also does not answer my question. Who said anything about "American" slavery? I'm talking about slavery slavery - the owning of another person as property, something that the Bible clearly provides instruction for.
I believe the world is flat because of the flatness of the world being incredibly flat and and that flatness covering the flat world.
Is there a better way for God to show Himself and his love for you than to do something so costly?
I’m not a victim. But those were clearly insulting ways to speak to people, so I briefly addressed it.
Yes. He could appear before us, demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that He is real, and tell us that He loves us. He's God. That's not impossible for Him to do.
