Introduction - Any Believers? (page 6)

Believer

Xanthippe, you said:

I just know the universe is huge and I don't know what the hell is going on out there so I keep an open mind.

Great! Closed minds are small minds.

cofty

we already have within us the capacity to find God and believe in him, even if we never knew about any sacred writings.

But how would you know anything at all about him?

Coffy, as I said, we can get a lot of information from books, but I accept only what resonates with me. In the New Testament, its referred to as the spirit of truth. It is a kind of knowing. Secularly it might be called ‘the ring of truth.’ Of course, it works based on our own knowledge base. If we don’t have a lot of knowledge or information, there won’t be much for new information to resonate with. That’s why its good to keep an open and agile mind.

Frankly, there are many things in the Bible that don’t resonate with me. I am comfortable setting those things aside and taking the things that do resonate. For example, I imagine what a loving wise Creator would be like and I reject anything that is not consistent with that view. I know strict Bible readers would object to that method, but the method I use to find truth its not up to them.

P.S. – I keep referring to the Bible because its something we all as ex-JWs have a commonality with, and the religious book I am most familiar with.

Ding

I'm a believer. To me, the key is the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. If that indeed happened, it proves the existence of God and authenticates Christ.

Rather than going into it in further detail, if anyone is interested in reasons to believe I would recommend William Lane Craig's ReasonableFaith.org, Lee Strobel's books, and J. Warner Wallace's Cold Case Christianity.

cofty

I am comfortable setting those things aside and taking the things that do resonate. For example, I imagine what a loving wise Creator would be like and I reject anything that is not consistent with that view.

Do you think that's intellectually honest?

Why does the natural world look nothing like the work of a loving creator?

Believer

Coffy, why would that be intellectually dishonest?

Believer

intellectual dishonesty would be accepting things that are inconsistent with what I know and what I believe to be true. Being true to ourselves is the first virtue.

Bonsai

Hi Believer,

I read your OP(but not the following 6 pages yet) and I respect the fact that you choose to hold on to your beliefs. I question my beliefs as an atheist all the time. I'm always looking for evidence either way. I have found a mountain load of evidence that strongly indicates that we evolved randomly and by accident. I have found very little indication that we were created and ZERO evidence that a loving, caring, fair and just super being created us.

I have to agree with some atheists that religion is a problem, but I don’t agree that God is the problem. I can separate the two.

This is the crux of my problem with allowing myself to even day dream that there exists an intelligent god worth worshipping. There are thousands of religions on earth today claiming to represent and be represented by god. The fact that god has let religion decay to a clumpy confusing blood spilling child sacrificing mess shows me there is no god. I have a problem with a god who let's people do terrible things in his name(s).

cofty

why would that be intellectually dishonest?

You cite the bible regularly and base your knowledge about god on things contained in it. Without the bible there is not one single statement you could make about god or Jesus.

Jesus believed in the god of the OT. "Yahweh was the god and father of our lord Jesus". Jesus quoted frequently from the OT. All the NT writers believed in the OT as the authoritative word of god.

You seem to be claiming to know more about god than Jesus did.

Believer

Bonsai, What do you think God should do to people who do such things in his name?

Introduction - Any Believers?

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