I can't imagine not believing in God.

by MsGrowingGirl20 643 Replies latest members private

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  tec

  Your arrogance and air of superiority over other Christians is astonishing. Cofty

  I see your disciples are learning your style. Cofty
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  cantleave

  
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  cantleave

  That came out much bigger than I anticipated
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  mrsjones5

  LoL!
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  cofty

  You might want to resize that?
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  EntirelyPossible

  What of them? I agree with the first. Passing judgement on other christians IS arrogant.

  People are starting to use the same names as shelby and beleiving her theology. Is that name innacurate? If so, why?
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  cantleave

  Fixed it!
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  still thinking

  For someone that has entered into a personal realtionship with God, that relationship is as real as any he/she has ever had, in some ways even more so

  That is EXACTLY how I used to feel about god. He was real to me, and I totally understand what your saying here.

  Except....I realized it was all in my head. My own invented personal god. He was the bomb. But a little demanding at times.
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  Etude

  " Cofty does not have evidence. That is the point. He does not have evidence that he considers to be 'sound' FOR God. He has arguments... all of which are circumstantial. He has no concrete evidence. Indeed, his position is that there is not enough evidence for him to believe in the existance of God."

  Well then, by following your analogy, neither do you have any evidence. You can say you have it, but it wouldn't be any more or less valid than what cofty can come up with for the contrary. That's why it should concern you. cofty said: "It was evidence that brought me to disbelief and it was a difficult, heart-wrenching transition." I think you confuse what his evidence is. It is notthe lack of evidence that fails to support the idea of god. It IS the evidence that discounts the idea of God (at least the one that's commonly touted in the Bible).

  " a false premise does not necessarily mean that the conclusion is not true. The conclusion can still be true, even if one or more premises are false)".

  Correct. But then, one would not be using a deductive method at all, because the conclusion in a deductive method MUST STEM from the premises. If they are false the conclusion would be false. If the conclusion is correct it's not because of the premises and is either a coincidence or simply arbitration.

  " I did, however, come to believe that they [Jehovah's Witnesses] were God's channel ..."

  Yes, but how did that happen? To what degree did you just give in? It seems like you were particular enough and somewhat critical because you asked a lot of questions and received few answers. What happened that persuaded you at all? The failure of that mechanism is what we need to keep watching and testing. If you were persuaded once, you can be persuaded again by your own internal reasoning.

  " But you do not seem to understand that I have examined the evidence before me."

  OK. If you have examined to your satisfaction then your reality is self contained. But I find that what makes reality more worthwhile is that it also jibes with the rest of the world around us, not as some sort of popular confirmation (because others can also be wrong) but as a testable means of our beliefs via common rules. For that, you need exposure to the opposing "evidence". Obviously, for others, your "evidence" is shaky, starting with the Bible. Why? What is it that in the most formal sense of exploration, scholars find these problems in religious sources but people refuse to recognize them? If you reject those problems, what kind of examination have you really conducted of the "evidence" you say you have?

  " The bible is not my foundation; it just does some pointing TO the foundation. Christ... is my foundation. "

  See, this is a prime example that casts doubt on your "foundation". Apart from the Bible, there are no reliable references to Christ (Jesus) in any part of history. There are references to several other individuals who might fit some aspects of what the NT refers to Christ, but that is all. Any other reference to Christ has come via tertiary and quaternary sources centuries after his alluded time. So, if your foundation is Christ and not the Bible, how could you possibly know about Christ without the Bible? Where did this "foundation" come from? What is the source of this evidence that gives you "faith"? If "faith" to you is "knowing", there is very little to know with certainty about what you belive.

  " You mean... his disciples wrote, not Him, right?"

  I think I had a brain fart when I wrote the sentence "You can't state that you use the written word of Christ when there's so much evidence to show that Christ not his disciples wrote anything." It should have read: "You can't state that you use the written word of Christ when there's so much evidence to show that neither Christ nor his disciples wrote anything." There is no evidence that what was written in the canon (with perhaps a tiny exception) was written by any apostle or the author ascribed to the writing, especially the Gospels. Most of the Gospels' origins can only be traced to well over 100 years after Christ's supposed death. The apostles were uneducated while the Gospel writings seem well versed. The style is that of Greek writers and the apostles were illiterate (by the Bible's own admission). There are many more problems associated with that I can't mention now. It just seems that this is the evidence which you are not considering which affects the bottom line of your foundation. I think that by refining what your "foundation" is (not the Bible) you've shown an even shakier source of evidence.
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  PSacramento

  People are starting to use the same names as shelby

  The use of Jesus' jewish name is not new or isolated to Shelby.

  That Shelby choose to use the spelling Jaheshua as opposed to Yeshua or Yeheshua is grammatically correct also.

  Messianc Jews, for example, use Yeshua and always have, preferring to use traditonal hebrew names and transliterations.