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Originally Posted by usgrant7
What if the very principles you are holding to are meant for how men are given to deal with men, but not how men are allowed to deal with their creator?
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What if they are? I can only use the tools I have at my disposal. Your argument is an appeal to simply cease thinking when it comes to God.
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God demanded that Abraham kill his only son. I don’t think that it gets any more graphic than that. But also, Abraham knew the promise of God, and that it was a sure as God’s demand. That kind of trust, says the Bible, is counted by God as righteousness.
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So to be clear, you're saying "Yes, if God demanded that I kill my neighbors, I would do it?"
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I don’t think the Bible allows for us to conclude that God would demand anything of a man, unless it was moral.
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That's just circular reasoning, though. God saying that anything God demands is moral. It's once again using the Bible to "prove" Christianity is the one true religion. I could just as easily use the Koran to "prove" Islam is the one true religion. After all, it says so right there in the book.
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And just to set the record straight, God IS morality. He invented it.
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I disagree, but you're entitled to that belief.
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Think of the worse “sin” you have ever committed. Think of what influenced you to make that decision. Now think about the thoughts that caused you to do what you did. Do you think that the debate in your mind was between you and yourself?
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Yep. I take responsibility for that debate, my actions and the outcome.
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If the existence of God is possible, then what steps have you taken to know for sure “if He is, who He is, and what does He expect of you”. (Masculine personal pro-noun is by my own choosing.)
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A fair bit. I was raised in the Christian church, so I pretty much got inundated with Bible theology. In young adulthood I concluded that objectively proving God's existence or nonexistence is impossible -- which it is. So I became agnostic. God may exist, He may not; I'll find out when I'm dead. I keep my mind open to new evidence -- that's why I enjoy religious discussions -- but so far I have not encountered anything that has sparked me to change my position.
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If your doctor said you had an inoperable malignant brain tumor the size of a pencil eraser. At it’s present rate of growth, you will have a year, maybe less, to live. It’s in a area of the brain, that can’t be accessed by any known means to modern medicine. (There is no cure.) You wont even know its there for another couple of months. Then he shows you an x-ray with this little dot on it, that looks like all the other little dots on the film. You can’t see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, and you can’t even get a biopsy, but all the medical team is convinced. Do you start making plans? Or carry on as if they had never even spoken to you?
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Now you're comparing the science of medicine with faith. Just because I can't see it doesn't mean that other human beings can't. A tumor is not an invisible being; it's a finite, understood biological complication. It's provable, unlike God.
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I doubt if you have to respect the only brain surgeon alive who even claims you have a prayer of getting rid of your brain tumor either. But he makes the rules, right? If you don’t follow the diet, take the meds, and come to his treatment sessions, the certainty of your fate is relatively unchanged.
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But again, there is palpable evidence that the surgeon is right and knows what he's doing. He's not an invisible voice in my head -- which, by the way, is a common symptom of brain tumors.
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So why aren’t you as diligent about researching what happens to you after you die?
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Because the existence of tumors and the government are testable, provable. God is not. Trying to prove God's existence is, logically, a waste of time; it can't be done. Meanwhile, I'm getting along just fine without Him, so there's not a lot of urgency.
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What happens if you find out too late, that you were looking in all the wrong places for evidence of God who created you, and then you face Him in judgment and he points out how long and hard you looked for a cure, and yet, you spent 20 minutes a week, answering fools in chat, on a subject more serious, which you know nothing about. Is it because you really didn’t want to believe? Or is it because you were just lazy? (I hope you respect my honesty, and that I am not doing ad-homs. I really believe it’s that serious.)
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If God will send me to hell because I didn't look in the right place, or because I used my God-given gift of reasoning to determine that trying to prove His existence was futile, then screw him. He will know that my intent was honorable. If that's not enough, so be it.
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How much of a villain would I be, if I knew people who were destined for hell, and didn’t act like it mattered to me at all?
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While I appreciate that this makes sense from within your worldview, trust me when I tell you that it can be really annoying to be the subject of such concern. I'm sure it's heartfelt, but it's also condescending.
I think believers would do well to always consider the possibility that it's *their* religion that is the false one, not the other guy's.
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90% of the people I talk to, don’t have a clue about what real evidence looks like, much less have an evidential standard that they can rely on.
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Fair enough. Here's my standard:
1. God hasn't spoken publicly to humanity since Jesus' time. Therefore the only evidence is the word of people who have been dead for millennia. There is no way to judge the validity of such evidence. It's hard enough separating truth from fiction with modern urban legends. Stories that are 2,000 years old are beyond validation.
2. God is not testable. Any test I can devise, he can evade, ignore or simply change the results.
Thus the only possible evidence would be a direct encounter with God. Maybe you've had one; great. I recognize the possibility. But you can't prove it to anyone else. They have to take your word for it.
It's not complicated. God is omniscient and omnipotent; therefore, he can only be revealed if he chooses to reveal himself.
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Just what will happen to you after you die?
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Don't know. I'll find out when I die. So will you.
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You wont find science on what happens, but you will find enough to act in a reasonable manner.
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What you're essentially saying here is, "Why take the chance? Follow God, and if He doesn't exist, no harm done. But if he does exist, you're saved."
There are two main answers to that:
1. I refuse to claim belief in something when what I'm really doing is hedging my bets. Don't you think God would know the difference between true belief and strategic belief? Similarly, I refuse to live my life a certain way "just in case."
2. How do I know that your God is the correct one? Maybe I should worship them all -- "just to be safe." Except I think any God worth the name would be wise to that scheme, too. So I'm back to trying to pick out the One True Religion from among the thousands of available offerings.
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Just like, the airline can’t promise you will arrive at your destination safely, but you trust them enough to take their word for it.
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Airplanes can cite safety records: planes take off and land every day. It's a finite situation, with evidence, that I can weigh and measure. Totally unlike God.