My god is the strongest

yep, it's the only Abrahamic religion that is made in America

 

And yet, there are those among you (not necessarily you personally) who will claim that our assertion of recognizing God is false, especially if it does not agree with your interpretation of the scriptures.

 

It isn't Bible or scripturally based like traditional Christianity or Judaism. It's members consider it restored or God based. That's why so many of its doctrines and practices cut against traditional bible based religion and doctrinal interpretations. And that "cutting" not of malice, but by the handiwork of God.

 

Well, talk is cheap. So saying that something is of God and it actually being of God, are two different things. It is like knowing about God by studying what is written and spoken about him, and on the other hand actually knowing him personally. In any case, to each their own. We have religious liberty in America. I thank God and our Founding Fathers for that.

 

Likewise, saying something is not of God, and it actually not being of God are also two different things. Now if only certain Christians (again, not intended to be addressing you directly) would get that through their thick skulls.

 

That's true. My Church is often accused of being established by demons, even though I personally know that it was established by God. But I don't mind the heat. In fact, in my own knowing of what is true, I sort of enjoy the accusations. Being rejected though is a bit disappointing. Still, God is the only person in my life who has ever known me. And in his knowing of me, I know him, or at least to the recognizance that he is real, that he lives, is divine, and that he is my God. So it doesn't matter to me to any great degree what people say contrarily. I know what I know.

 

As long as you are not one to play True Scotsman with who is and isn't a Christian, I am all good with that. In the belief that I follow, God has different paths for us all, each with its own restrictions and permissions. So your restrictions are not necessarily my restrictions and vice versa.

 

I bet there have been many cult leaders throughout the ages. Especially, back in ancient times. People are sheep.

 

Define a cult. As best as I can understand the word, Christianity started out as a cult.

 

I don't even determine for myself who is God. So it is impossible for me to determine that for another. God lays claim where and with whom he will. That is in recognizance of the concept that God is real, that he lives and is divine and worthy of the privilege to act of his own accord. All things in creation belong to him. So there is only one God and one way. There is one name given under heaven that leads to God the Father. And that name is Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life. He laid down his gospel of repentance, followed and sealed by the laying down of his life.

It is self evident that men walk many different paths according to the priesthood like power of free choice. But the key is whether they converge towards or diverge away from the truth. So while Christs salvation is offered to all. It only goes to those who choose it or enter the straight and narrow gate. Consequently, the doctrine of many Gods, paths, and ways to salvation, is a marketplace of counterfeiters, a dazzling kaleidoscope of pretty lies.

Jesus Christs gospel of repentance may seem boring. But it is like building a home. You begin with a grueling foundation. Yet it is with the hope in the finished product of a place of refuge, safety and joy, that every stage of development goes to that end.

 

All religion is made up of cults created by mankind. There has yet to be a single shred of evidence proving anything anyone preaches is truth. Yet, I am all for religion in the world if it helps give people guidance and deters them from negative behaviors. Heck, this forum is talks more about Christianity, yet Islam is the largest religion in the world and that wasn't created until around 700 AD. Makes me wonder how people survived BC.

 

Where did you get that stat? Looking it up Islam is the 2nd largest, with Christianity being the largest. Now I did find evidence that Islam is projected to pass Christianity by 2070, Bringing them each to a rough 1/3 of the world population each. But they're not there yet.

 

Just saying something without a rational justification means nothing. You could just as easily have said "I can confidently say there is no Coca-Cola. I just did. Watch. I will do it again: there is no Coca Cola".

You can prove things two ways. First, there is a DEDUCTIVE argument. This uses logic and facts in tandem to demonstrate the truth of a statement. Second, there are INDUCTIVE arguments, which uses observed data.

These are examples of REASONING.

You are just making assumptions. That's why there is no solution.

 

You are quite right and that’s what I am saying! Just because Injeun has had experiences that cause him to believe there is a god is not an externally valid reason for the rest of us to believe in god. He makes an appeal to emotion “you cannot ‘confidently’ say there is no god.
Yes, we can apply our emotions to any statement, it neither proves nor disproves the statement.

 

When I was a young man (a period lost in antiquity) someone posed me a problem... Imagine a native of some jungle culture, devoid of any modern concept of "education" was walking along the jungle trail in his loincloth, hefting his spear. Suddenly, he sees a shiny object at his feet. It is perfectly round and smooth. He examines it carefully, with no idea its a stopwatch. He never heard of a stopwatch.

He thinks about it and listens to it tick, observes that the parts move,,, but that's about all he knows. He concludes that someone must have MADE IT... nothing so perfect had ever grown in his jungle naturally... it must be something MADE by someone. But he can't imagine who, when or why. He just concludes that there was a MAKER ... somewhere.

Now look at the stars at night... your child... the beauty of a rose... the inviolability of the Laws of Physics. These are OUR stopwatches.

 

The more accurate statement would be that one cannot factually say there is no god. And the inverse of not being able to factually say that there is a god. The former can only be proven factually by factually proving something mutually exclusive.

 

Having not observed it prior does not make it made or not of nature. Think about how many things that we have discovered about the natural world that we never knew about before. We have found complex organisms and so much more. Think about a platypus. Looking at that animal, you would have thought that it was a mage made creature like a griffon is sometimes claimed to be.

 

Which leads to the question if there is a god in this infinite universe, would he even know or care that we exist or even care about a single creature on earth or even have the capabilities to care.

 

true, I have never seen a magic horseshoe, but they could exist, one can't prove they don't

 

A valid enough question. Thing is, we can't really impose our limitations upon such a being. They may be capable of such or they may not. I thinking it was this thread where I made a Chuck Norris analogy, and it applies here too. God may exist, but we've added attributes above and beyond what they have. Or even a being lesser than the creators, but greater than us, who is making more claims that what they should. There is a wide range of possibilities.

 

And that moves the goalpost. Existence is one thing. Next after that is naturally occuring or created. Ultimately a beaver's dam is a created thing, even though dams can occur naturally just from a significant amount of deadfall landing in the water. The dam's existence isn't in question while the status of natural vs created is.

 

Was the person who posed this to you William Paley?

How does anyone know that this person would conclude that the watch was made? I feel like if I lived in a world surrounded by nature in which manufacturing was limited to rudimentary items like loincloths, I would probably not assume there was a human maker of the watch. I might guess it had a supernatural source, especially if my culture and traditions were focused the on supernatural for things unexplainable otherwise.

The watchmaker analogy reminds me of the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy” in which an African tribesman from the Bantu people finds a coke bottle dropped from a passing airplane and decides that it is evil and should be dropped off the edge of the world.

I have always thought the analogy to be kind of silly. It’s like the creator of it feels the perception of someone who finds a watch but doesn’t know what it is should be weighed in as fact when we all know that human perception is prone to error and unreliable.

There are lots of examples of order in the universe that happens without a person actively creating it. I will leave it to others to criticize the watchmaker analogy since they would probably do it better than I would or you could read the section on David Hume in the Wikipedia page on the Watchmaker Analogy.

 

I am reminded of how a Javelin anti-tank missile works. It has a television camera in its seeker head. The gunner sights in on the target and when he has a good sight picture, he pushes a button to have the seeker head "lock on" to the target. It does this by identifying a perfectly straight line or a perfectly formed right angle. Neither of those things exist naturally, so the image must be man-made... that means the enemy tank.

This logical reasoning can be applied to things other than war.

 

now think of what one thinks of as an all-knowing, all powerful God... that God must need a MAKER right.....

 

The world is the cult dude, out of which one is called by God, don't you see. Where mans secular laws direct us for the cause of civility and tranquility while we live. Gods laws fit us out for eternity.