Why do you believe in God ?

this is circular reasoning, like your contingent being nonsense.

 

So I should hate all people who don't pray to me?? WTF!?
It sounds like Jesus is a bigger ego-maniac than even TRUMP is!

 

God reveals both good and evil because anything, even God, is revealed, described, defined, etc. just as much by what it is not as it is by what it is.

 

It was ignorance of evil that necessitated the need for sin.

 

Nonsense, many many millions of Africans are Christians - yet Jesus doesn't care, he sits on his all-powerful hands, not lifting a finger to help them - so untold numbers of African Christian CHILDREN have died and will continue to die.....because apparently helping American multi-millionaires beat other multi-millionaires is a higher priority to this psycho from Nazareth.
"Help us, Jesus!"
Jesus: "take a hike!"

 

I always say religion and government are similar in many ways. It's not just about money, it's more about control than money but both need to be funded.

 

Think outside the Bible. Give some credit to the era of the Bible too. We know a lot more today about the Universe than they knew prior to Jesus and a bit after him.

 

That which leads me to the bible also guides me through the bible, eg. material contingency and the immaterial, spiritual and eternal necessity that material contingency implies. God's sovereignty serves the same purpose, in my navigation of the bible, that magnetic north serves in physical navigation. It would not be too much of a stretch to compare the elements to a map, a compass and magnetic north. To me, God's sovereignty is magnetic north. The Holy Spirit is the compass that enables me to perceive magnetic north, and bible is the map.

 

You don't have the power to grant prayers, so no one should pray to you. And it doesn't say in the Bible that God hates those who don't pray to him, it says he doesn't help those who don't pray to him.

"The Bible teaches us that prayer is the privilege of those who have become the children of God (John 1:12). The Psalm writer tells us: “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; the face of the Lord is against those who do evil…” (Psalm 34:15).

This is also implied in the Gospel of John, chapter 9. Jesus healed a man who had been blind since his birth. The religious leaders of that day challenged the man’s healing and sought to discredit Jesus by implying that he acted outside of God’s will. To this accusation, the healed man replied, “We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will … If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.” (John 9:28-33)."
https://billygraham.org/answer/does...rs-of-those-who-dont-believe-in-jesus-christ/

Well, if you're going to pray to Allah, let Allah help you and leave Jesus out of it.

"Most residents of Somalia are Muslims..."
"Christianity is a minority religion in Somalia, with no more than 1,000 practitioners (about 0.01% of the population)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Somalia

You're assuming Jesus cares about football or answers football players' prayers. I never believed that, even as a Christian. They can give God the credit for winning all they want, but the other side probably prayed just as fervently to win and didn't. Nicholas Taleb, in his book, Fooled by Randomness, talks about the Christians who prayed to survive a sinking ship giving credit to God for saving them, and the ruler listening to their story wanted to know how many Christians on board also prayed who did not get saved. This is survivor bias, thinking that the survivors or the people who succeeded did something different from those that didn't, when in fact the other side was just as good, noble, praiseworthy, prayerful, etc., and the only difference was chance.

 

So in other works the Bible is flat out LYING to us when it says that prayer works.

 

Actually, it doesn't say that anywhere. You can be saved by prayer in the sense that you will go to heaven, and Jesus says to ask God for what you need with prayer, but nowhere in the Bible does it actually promise that your prayers will be answered. This is a common error among those who have never believed; I'm surprised as a former believer that you would also think it.

 

Matthew 18:19
"Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven."

 

Haven't you ever read your favorite fairy tale?

Matthew 21:21-22 (TLB) = "21 Then Jesus told them, “Truly, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this Mount of Olives, ‘Move over into the ocean,’ and it will. 22 You can get anything—anything you ask for in prayer—if you believe.”

John 11:22 (ERV) = But I know that even now God will give you anything you ask.”

John 14:12-13 (TLB) = “In solemn truth I tell you, anyone believing in me shall do the same miracles I have done, and even greater ones, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask him for anything, using my name, and I will do it, for this will bring praise to the Father because of what I, the Son, will do for you.

John 14:14 (NLT) = "Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!"

John 15:7(NLT) = But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!

John 15:16 (ERV) = “You did not choose me. I chose you. And I gave you this work: to go and produce fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you anything you ask for in my name.

 

This still seems to make the assumption that some one out there is going to have an answer. I agree that it is a good plan to search out other ideas, but I would say that to a large extent, that has to do with gaining an understanding of the possible lines of thought with which one can consider religious ideas, not expecting them to form a complete set of possible scenarios.

This argument I've heard before (maybe even from you) but I feel like there's a lot of analysis missing here. I'm not sure what transcend means, I'm not sure what you think constitutes personhood, I'm not sure what those to concepts have to do with one another.

Couldn't a deist god qualify for person-hood? Does person really transcend non-person?

 

this is circular reasoning, like your contingent being nonsense.

 

On an absolute scale, all contingent thought is assumption. Contingent being knows contingently. Contingent being doesn't know anything necessarily. It seems to me that, for contingent beings, certainty is more akin to east and west than it is to north or south. I do not expect that I will arrive there, but that does not stop me from trying to move in that direction. To move in that direction, I need to test new ideas as well as those remaining. I sometimes look to other people for new ideas. I sometimes ask them for ideas on subjects that I'm testing.

I find transcendence difficult to describe in brief.
Transcendence can be thought of both chronologically and ontologically. Chronologically, "No effect can transcend its cause." is easy to understand. Ontologically, "No effect can transcend its cause." is most often experienced via the limitations we face when we try to do otherwise. For example: We cannot get more energy out than the potential energy available. We cannot understand, design or produce anything that surpasses us intellectually, emotionally or volitionally.

A person is a being with intellect, emotion and volition. That which has the potential for intellect transcends that which has no potential for intellect. That which has the potential to emote transcends that which has no potential to emote. That which has the potential to will transcends that which has no potential to will. Being transcends non-being. Life transcends death.
Let me put it another way. Life has no potential to be the effect of death. Non-being has no potential to be the cause of being. Neither intellect, emotion or volition have the potential to be the effects of their absence.

 

God must be, at least, personal because I am a person, and no effect can transcend its cause.
Neither intellect, emotion or volition have the potential to be the effect of their absence.

 

Some use science as were it a religion.

 

Well it is easier to have "faith" in science that it is in religion because science is willing to improve/change, and it's more intellectually consistent than any religion has ever been.

 

See, I don't see it that same way. I reverse engineer this. From what is known and then you assume that the universe was created, since no science yet can explain a nothing becoming a something unless you factor in GOD.

Some speak of many gods to throw you off. It is like you have a chicken laying eggs in the pen. So you see 3 eggs and then remark, where are the rest of the chickens!!!

 

Bu they have the SAME level of proof as your particular one chosen god does, so of course a thinking person has to be very skeptical about the claims of that one chosen god.

 

Science runs parallel to the knowledge of the universe. We lack universe creating explanations that are proven thus it leaves room for GOD. Take the black hole. To date, though assumed to be true, the rules laid down by science says one must be able to see, measure, and more or you are not certain. Black holes to date have yet to be seen.

So, science says we infer, we look at things that seem to be explained by the black hole.

I see GOD much the same way. For me, it reduces to science. For the noise of GOD running your life or Jesus running it, that is background noise.

I see humans this way. The vast majority have lower IQ's than needed for the GOD problem. Imagine Einstein was talking to children on his theories. They are not able to process his theories.

Most ordinary humans see in one dimension as to GOD. Some see in all three physical dimensions yet others in 4 or more dimensions.

 

Science hasn't yet explained prior to the Big Bang, so your solution to that is to believe a book that has all the following nonsense in it! WTF!?

Witches are real, and should be killed.
There’s a magic guy who has lived forever, he created the entire universe - only a few thousand years ago.
Talking donkeys.
500 zombies.
A man living inside a fish for 3 days.
I can actually survive my own death if I simply believe in a member of the living dead from Nazareth.
Talking snakes.
Almost all humans and all animals died in a magic flood.
An invisible evil guy is real, and works to mess up our lives.
People have lived to be 900 years old.
The earth is flat.
A plant can talk (a talking burning bush.)
A magic invisible place in the sky exists, where religious Apartheid is sanctioned (Hindus, Muslims, Atheists etc. are so hated that they are not allowed to enter, ever.)
Magic is real (walking on water.)
Dragons.
Invisible "demons".
Giants are real.
An invisible magic place exists in the middle of the earth ("Middle Earth"??) where people who simply don’t think like the hero are tortured forever.
Talking dead guys are real, and one will return thousands of years after his death to become king of the world.
There’s an unscientific invisible thing inside us that survives our death and magically leaves our body (the completely unproven “soul”.)
A magic man can turn water in to wine.
All humans and all animals alive fit on one boat...at the same time.
Unicorns are real [or change the translation, jeez.]
Magic invisible people that fly around with wings are real, and protect us.
Locust headed scorpions are real.

 

Some humans hate the idea of a GOD. They want to confuse the issue by acting as if a religion gets a particular god where a different religion gets it's own GOD. I see GOD as far more generic and need not concern myself over that silly argument.

 

Nothing has potential to be the effect of its own absence.
No cause and effect sequence can begin with an effect.