Part 38 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

I see it because in my perspective I see credible evidence. You're describing "blind faith". My faith is not "blind faith" Like the saying goes, "monkey see monkey do"...no sir! That's not me. I'm nobody's monkey rest assured of that my good man!

I have done my diligent homework/research and I have come to my own personal conclusion that yes, there is absolutely credible evidence that influences me to be a believer and have undeniable faith and trust in our Lord Savior Jesus Christ. So you could say I have found what I was seeking, so for me it's really there.

We Read in Scripture:

Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ said,

9 "And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened." Luke 11:9-10 NLT

 

With there being only one Christian Savior, why in your opinion are there so many different Christian denominations with differing beliefs, yet each with the presumption of authority? Doesn't that make God look confused or confusing to inquiry?

 

Would you believe in the Jesus character if the writer had left that passage (John 20:26-29) out of the fairy tale?

 

Very good question Injeun. All these different Christian denominations can be traced back to the Protestant Reformation. This reformation movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church took place in the 16th century. Out of this reformation movement emerged four major divisions of Protestantism. Just from these initial four came many other denominations over the centuries.

The primary reason for all these differing denominations is because of disagreements over the interpretation of Scripture.

But despite that each denomination has its own distinctive beliefs or practices, they are all commonly considered branches of the same religion in which they agree on such fundamentals as the Holy Bible, the Trinity, and the teachings of the Nicene Creed.

Lastly, no... God is never confused but when it comes to people, confusion and disagreements always finds a way to infiltrate our finite minds.

Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ told us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. This general principle can and should be applied to the church.

We Read in Scripture:

Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ said,

25 Jesus knew their thoughts and replied, "Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A town or family splintered by feuding will fall apart." Matthew 12:25 NLT

 

If you had asked me your question in this manner: Would you have still believed in Jesus if the writer had left that passage (John 20:26-29) out of the tale? I would have begun by saying: Very good question Gawd.

But since you didn't asked me your question in that civilized/appropriate/respectful manner, I will start out by saying, it's a fairy tale to you because you're an unbeliever, you have no faith in our Lord Savior Jesus Christ, you're like the disciple Thomas who doubted, who was faithless, he had to see in order to believe, that pretty much sums up/describes people like you Gawd.

But in my perspective, the whole entire Holy Bible is a true tale, after all we Christians believe it to be The Word of God. Reading that passage wasn't the clincher for me into believing this true tale. Before I even had known about that passage, I was already a believer, of having faith in our Lord Savior Jesus Christ.

If the Holy Bible just contained one verse written in the entire book, the first sentence where we read, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I would believe it.

You might ask me, why would you do that? Well, because there is evidence outside of the Bible that this existence we're in had to be created by an all powerful Creator. Our brilliant scientist just in recent past have come to the conclusion that our universe had a beginning, in other words it has a cause.

Who caused the universe to come into existence? Well non other than an all powerful Creator, an Almighty God! He is the first cause, which leads me into The First Cause Argument. I don't know if you ever heard about this argument but I would guess you probably haven't because if you had it would make you ponder that there just maybe something to this "Creator" concept. I will present this First Cause Argument in a new thread...just for you Gawd.

One day you will finally see that the fairy tale is actually a true tale Gawd. For your own sake before that one day comes you would have already wisely committed yourself on being on the right side of the faith totem pole by asking our Lord Savior Jesus Christ to forgive you for your sins and by telling Him you accept Him as your Lord Savior!
Being in that undesirable place is a huge price to pay for being on the wrong side of the faith totem pole.

We Read in Scripture:

Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ said,

39 Then Jesus told him, “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.” John 9:39 NLT

 

The First Cause Argument

There must be a cause for everything that comes into existence with the exception of God of course, because He did not come into existence, He has always been in existence, He is eternal, He has no beginning or no end, He is the uncaused cause that brought or caused everything else to come into existence. He is the First Cause, The Creator.

I know it's hard to conceptualize/wrap our minds into understanding something of not having a beginning, because we humans see everything as having a beginning. So I believe this is what is holding back those from believing in a God who is eternal, having no beginning or end. Just very hard to understand/see that. But anyway let me go on.

The whole universe is a vast, interlocking chain of things that came into existence. Each of these things must therefore have a cause. Our parents caused us, our grandparents caused them, etc. We would not be here without billions of causes, from the Big Bang through the cooling of the galaxies and the evolution of the protein molecule to the marriages of our ancestors.

The universe is a vast and complex chain of causes. But does the universe as a whole have a cause? Is there a first cause, an uncaused cause, a transcendent cause of the whole chain of causes? If not, then there is an infinite regress of causes, with no first link in the great cosmic chain. If there is a first cause, then there is an eternal, necessary, independent, self-explanatory being with nothing above it, before it, or supporting it.

It would have to explain itself as well as everything else, if it needed something else as its explanation, its reason, its cause, then it would not be the first and uncaused cause. Such a being would have to be God. If we can prove there is such a first cause, we will have proved there is a God.

Why must there be a first cause? Because if there isn't, then the whole universe is unexplained, and we have violated our Principle of Sufficient Reason for everything.
If there is no first cause, each particular thing in the universe is explained in the short run, or by some other thing, but nothing is explained in the long run, or ultimately, and the universe as a whole is not explained. Everyone and everything says in turn, "Don't look to me for the final explanation. I'm just an instrument. Something else caused me." If that's all there is, then we have an endless passing of the buck. God is the one who says, "The buck stops here."

If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing. If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a railroad train moving without an engine. Each car's motion is explained proximately by the motion of the car in front of it: the caboose moves because the boxcar pulls it, the boxcar moves because the cattle car pulls it, etc. But there is no engine to pull the first car and the whole train. That would be impossible! But that is what the universe is like if there is no first cause: IMPOSSIBLE

Ok time for me to get ready in a few hours to watch the Super Bowl LV, I like seeing all the pre-game stuff.

I believe Tom and his crew are going to win. Go gettem Tom!

 

I said that we have archaeological artifacts that authenticates the credibility of the Bible.

We (Christians) believe God is the author of the Bible, that's why we refer to the Bible as The Word of God.

Over hundreds of years, he chose certain individuals to write down exactly what He wanted to tell humankind. The process in which He did this is called "inspiration."

We Read in Scripture:

20 Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, 21 or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God. 2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT

 

Don't you know that your favorite deity's surname isn't Christ? And, he didn't get the name Jesus until 1632. Since all Gods are imaginary you can name yours anything you want.

 

Your standard of belief is so low, how do you know that I am not a prophet from God? After all, you are talking to me. How could that be unless it is a miracle?

 

odd, the bible I read as a kid was from 15xx something

 

God doesn't need to use prophets anymore...His Best Selling Book of All-Time is done...didn't you get the memo on that?

Besides you've been so anti-God in your rhetoric/postings/comments/responses, are we now to believe that God has sent us a new prophet to trash Him?

Why would God "inspire" you to trash Him and contradict everything He has revealed to us in His Best Selling Book of All-Time?...wouldn't make any sense at all. What makes sense is that you are a liar!

C'mon Gawd get out of the darkness and come into the light...it's much better to be in the light!

Furthermore, if you insist you are still a prophet of God, well we believers are warned in Scripture about false prophets...so I will put you in the false prophet category...so let's see your first name is "The" your middle name is "Wyrd of" and your last name is "Gawd" ok I got it all written down.

We Read in Scripture:

15 "Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves." Matthew 7:15 NLT

4 Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 1 John 4:1 NLT

2 But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. 2 Peter 2:1 NLT

 

I didn't say atheism (meaning, "without theism")... I said Church of No God (meaning, the belief that god(s) do(es) not exist). Those are two completely different things.

Yes, there are. You are simply being a fundamentalist of your Church of No God faith. THAT is not logical.

 

And I might add...He is being intellectually dishonest!

 

there is no such church. Atheism means, the lack of belief in a god or gods. That is by definition not a religion.

unfortunately, there are no logical arguments for the existence of god. I do not, by definition, belong to a religion or a church. I lack belief in a god or gods.

 

by correctly pointing out atheism is by definition not a religion, and that there is no evidence for the existence of your god? lol, ok.

 

You said "There are no logical arguments for the existence of a god"

Look below, I clearly see that you said that...see the highlighted sentence.

So that's why I said you are being intellectually dishonest. I agree with gfm that there are logical arguments for the existence of God. Just that you are being in denial of them.

If you were intellectually honest, you would say something like this, "I see that there are logical arguments for the existence of a god. However I have arguments of my own that are logical arguments for the non-existence of a god."

So if you had said something like the example I gave up above, then you would be intellectually honest and I wouldn't have said that you were being intellectually dishonest.

So you have the floor...what are your logical arguments for the non-existence of God?

 

What?....who used that "P" word?...certainly it wasn't me!...I swear I didn't use that "P" word!

Look, again I'm going to say this for... I don't know...maybe the billionth time!

It's a fact that no one on God's green earth can prove/disprove His existence!...period!

We come to the Lord through faith in Him!

We Read in Scripture:

17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” Romans 1:17 NLT

 

That he is.

I have only ever ran into one single self-proclaimed atheist who is an atheist in the literal "without theism" sense of the word (or what is more commonly referred to as an "agnostic").

Many Church of No God members are intellectually dishonest, calling themselves atheists (or agnostics, if one prefers that terminology instead) when they are actually Church of No God members. These people wish to retain the "without theism" label while they firmly adhere to a particular theistic belief (that there are no gods).

I sometimes retort back to such people that I "lack faith in the nonexistence of gods" or something along those lines... That really ruffles their feathers!

 

There is a difference between "without theism" (lack of belief) and "belief that god/s do not exist" (a theistic belief). You purposely avoid this distinction, and I know why you do that.

Argument of the Stone Fallacy.
Argument by Repetition Fallacy.
Circular Argument Fallacy.
Intellectual Dishonesty.

 

Yes indeed, that's true. But let me point out that it doesn't mean all religions are right/true, for there can only be one right religion to believe in because most religions contradict one another, so they all can't be right.

I strongly believe I chose the right one.

I have determined that the Christian religion was the right religion for me to believe in based on a thorough process I engaged in that required reading, researching, evaluation, using common and logical sense, prayers and then I personally came to the conclusion that the religion I was going to follow was the Christian religion, it stood out among the rest as being the right one.

So I guess you could say I went through a process of elimination...eliminating all the others and choosing the Christian religion. So I used my gift of "free will" that God has given to each and everyone of us. So I chose to put my faith in Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ. And I freely admitted to our Lord that I have sinned and have asked for His forgiveness.

We Read in Scripture:

23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Romans 3:23 NLT

Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ said,

25 Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying." John 11:25 NLT

 

Who said that? ralh?

There is no such thing as 'without theism'.

the a- prefix is an alpha privative

if there is no positive affirmation, the a- prefix operates as 'without' such as (analgesia)
If its added to an affirmative word that starts with a consonant it operates as a negation, or 'not'. Atheist is the negation of theist or theist is the negation of atheist,l whichever way you wnat to play it.

It looks like this example from the dictionary:

Prefix
a-
Not, without, opposite of.
a-moral, a-symmetry, a-theism, a-sexual, a-cyclic, a-typical

Thats right out of the dictionary, including the underline under the negation 'not'. I think they are trying to impress these Δόλος worshipers how screwed up they are in the head.
It follows logic, if you are != theist you are = atheist.

moral, symmetry, theism, sexual, cyclic, are all positive affirmatives, to get the reverse meaning you negate it with a- which is a not in logic.

For absence or without usage, it would take this form:
Analgesia, analgesic: ἀναλγησία Analgesia, ἂν-ἄλγος an- without algos, pain. Absence or reduction of painful sensations; insensitivity.

furthermore lack belief does not confirm someone is an atheist. it claims insufficient belief which in logic is a nonsequitur, which may be true but it is not a claim of atheist, its a claim of belief. These guys are using it to imply (fraudulently I might add) that they are atheist, they are not LOL

 

I see this convo has degraded into the depths of semantic hell .. always a disturbing sight..

 

No semantics, just proper grammar
trying to be helpful

 

Are you sure your memory is correct? Do you recall the version?

https://www.quora.com/If-the-letter...600-how-did-Jesus-get-his-name-2013-years-ago

 

Right o thar Matey - but did it help in the enlightenment process ?