Why Do Theists Believe In God?

74x12 · Dec 23, 2018

9-10ths_Penguin said:
IMO, someone who looks in the mirror and sees God has an overly high opinion of himself.

Everything that exists reflects God. I mean it's clear their is a Creator.

Wasn't thinking myself!

Salvador · Dec 23, 2018

9-10ths_Penguin said:
That's some impressively elaborate pareidolia you've got there.

Thank you! One compliment deserves another, you've got an impressive vocabulary; I honestly had to look up the meaning of the word "pareidolia" in the dictionary. Also you've got an impressive knowledge of sports car racing; before reading the Wikipedia article about the Lancia Rally 037, I didn't know anything about this mid-engine rally car.

Kenny · Dec 23, 2018

Shantanu said:
How can one fail as a human being, does not Christianity accept the genetic basis of God-created evolution, meaning that even God has no right to interfere with Nature?

No, I haven't heard in our circles unless you are wording it differently. His Holy Spirit is working within us and with us. We are one together with Him.

Kenny · Dec 23, 2018

Salvador said:
The God of the Bible and Christianity is false, because as I've noted elsewhere in some other discussions about Christianity, Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Luke 3:23-38) and Eve whom the Bible claims as the mother of all the living. (Genesis 3:20)

However, the Australian aborigines have evidently been in Australia for over a thousand consecutive generations. Reference: Aboriginal Australians - Wikipedia

There have been hundreds of generations of Native Americans between the time their common ancestry migrated from Asia until the time of Christ.
Reference: Native Americans in the United States - Wikipedia

Of course, the Bible is wrong; in fact, there were people prior to the 76th generation before Christ that allegedly was spawned by Adam and Eve.

Adam as being the first man and perpetrator of original sin is an important premise of Christianity. If Adam wasn't the first man, then there isn't actually any "origin sin". Jesus supposedly died on the Cross to save humankind from "original sin". If there isn't any "original sin" from which to be saved, then Jesus Christ's death on the Cross is pretty pointless and meaningless. Evidently, there were many generations of people prior to the 76th generation before Christ whom the Bible claims was spawned by Adam. So then, Adam, Eve and original sin are mythological. There is neither any "first man" nor "original sin" throughout human evolution. Thus, Jesus Christ having died on the cross to save mankind from "original sin" is not reality but is rather mythological.

I don't think there is a record by the Aborigines or the Native Indians not to mention that it also depends on life-spans.

So, of course, the Bible is right.

Bob the Unbeliever · Dec 23, 2018

Skwim said:
(Kind of an after thought follow-up to my thread "Why Is It That Atheists Don't Believe In God?")

In One Word Tell Us Why You Think Theists Believe In God.

After that one word feel free to elaborate.

My one word is "NEED."

.

Laziness.

In that the majority of folk retain the religion they were indoctrinated into, from birth. And are simply too lazy to examine it much at all, and continue on, same-old, same-old, because they cannot be bothered to think about it.

It's a part of what they do, and is incorporated into their self-identity.

Bob the Unbeliever · Dec 23, 2018

KenS said:
No, I haven't heard in our circles unless you are wording it differently. His Holy Spirit is working within us and with us. We are one together with Him.

Citation Needed. If this were true? Why is your brand of religion less than 15% of the world?

Mister Emu · Dec 23, 2018

I don't speak for anyone else when I say:

Experience.

I've interacted with God in both a normative sense and in a mystic sense. It would be insane of me to ignore the reality right in front of my face.

viole · Dec 24, 2018

Skwim said:
(Kind of an after thought follow-up to my thread "Why Is It That Atheists Don't Believe In God?")

In One Word Tell Us Why You Think Theists Believe In God.

After that one word feel free to elaborate.

My one word is "NEED."

.

Because they would not be theists otherwise.

Ciao

- viole

Skwim · Dec 24, 2018

.

viole said:
Because they would not be theists otherwise.

So they believe in god in order to believe in god. Hmmmm, interesting.

.

Shantanu · Dec 24, 2018

KenS said:
No, I haven't heard in our circles unless you are wording it differently. His Holy Spirit is working within us and with us. We are one together with Him.

You say that Christians are one together with God, and that He helps you live out your Bible-inspired beliefs and objectives through His Holy Spirit. That makes sense to me if you mean that you too have become God like me, infallible and perfect in the dharmic activities that you undertake instinctively using your intelligence to ensure that you survive with dignity amid the greatest onslaught of persecution that any State could inflict upon an individual. But my impression was that only the Pope is infallible. Could you please confirm?

Kenny · Dec 24, 2018

Bob the Unbeliever said:
Citation Needed. If this were true? Why is your brand of religion less than 15% of the world?

I'm not sure the percentage is right. I fellowship with Baptists, Non-denominational, Methodists, Presbyterians, Church of God, Assemblies and others... pretty much the same

Citations:

Hebrews 13:21
Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working inyou that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

John 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

1 Corinthians 6:19
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the HolyGhost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

Ephesians 5:30
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

There are others, of course.

Kenny · Dec 24, 2018

Shantanu said:
You say that Christians are one together with God, and that He helps you live out your Bible-inspired beliefs and objectives through His Holy Spirit. That makes sense to me if you mean that you too have become God like me, infallible and perfect in the dharmic activities that you undertake instinctively using your intelligence to ensure that you survive with dignity amid the greatest onslaught of persecution that any State could inflict upon an individual. But my impression was that only the Pope is infallible. Could you please confirm?

That is the difference between Protestants and Catholics. We don't hold to position that the Pope is infallible.

We wouldn't say say we have become God. We are in the image and likeness of God but are not God.

Shantanu · Dec 24, 2018

KenS said:
That is the difference between Protestants and Catholics. We don't hold to position that the Pope is infallible.

We wouldn't say say we have become God. We are in the image and likeness of God but are not God.

You are imagining God to have the image and likeness of you not the other way round. That is wishful thinking.

Kenny · Dec 24, 2018

Shantanu said:
You are imagining God to have the image and likeness of you not the other way round. That is wishful thinking.

You can think that if you want, but it isn't what we hold as truth when it was written. "Let Us make man in Our image and in Our likeness".

But, hey, if what you believe about what I said is what you want to believe and it makes you happy, Merry Christmas.

Bob the Unbeliever · Dec 24, 2018

KenS said:
I'm not sure the percentage is right. I fellowship with Baptists, Non-denominational, Methodists, Presbyterians, Church of God, Assemblies and others... pretty much the same.

But. You do NOT GET to lump them all together like that-- they are separate and distinct.

Proof? Is the fact that they call themselves different names, and rarely associate! And are often at odds with one another, sometimes to the point of violent objection.

KenS said:
Citations:

Hebrews 13:21
Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working inyou that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

John 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

1 Corinthians 6:19
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the HolyGhost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

Ephesians 5:30
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

There are others, of course.

That is your claim-- you cannot use your claim to "prove" your claim.

Shantanu · Dec 24, 2018

KenS said:
You can think that if you want, but it isn't what we hold as truth when it was written. "Let Us make man in Our image and in Our likeness".

But, hey, if what you believe about what I said is what you want to believe and it makes you happy, Merry Christmas.

Well over the past few decades my objective was to get the UK's National Health Service Mental Health authorities off my back so that I could live in the UK peacefully. I do not see any evidence that this nations of morons in a police state are made in the Likeness of God, but if you want to believe that all I will say is Merry Christmas back. The State has restricted my whisky saying that it has interfered with my risperidone and sertraline medications that it enforces on me to quell my independence off the wicked witch, the Queen who is the Head of your church and certainly not infallible and not with any authority under the divine right of Kings and Queens to rule over the United Kingdom to terrorise a satya-advaitic Hindu who has attaind God status and so infallible.

Evangelicalhumanist · Dec 24, 2018

Indoctrination.

Bob the Unbeliever · Dec 24, 2018

Evangelicalhumanist said:
Indoctrination.

The proof that god(s) doesn't (don't) exist?

Is the fact that some human has to tell you about it(them).

Kenny · Dec 24, 2018

Bob the Unbeliever said:
But. You do NOT GET to lump them all together like that-- they are separate and distinct.

Proof? Is the fact that they call themselves different names, and rarely associate! And are often at odds with one another, sometimes to the point of violent objection.

Because you said so?

I don't lump them together... we all lump ourselves together whether you agree or not. That's like saying, "Because you are the index finger and I am the thumb... don't lump me together as part of the hand".

We do functions together, we eat together, we agree that we are one body... but because you say we can't, it isn't?

Only in your mind.

That is your claim-- you cannot use your claim to "prove" your claim.

You asked for citations and now you don't want me to use the citation? Interesting. :facepalm:

Kenny · Dec 24, 2018

Shantanu said:
Well over the past few decades my objective was to get the UK's National Health Service Mental Health authorities off my back so that I could live in the UK peacefully. I do not see any evidence that this nations of morons in a police state are made in the Likeness of God, but if you want to believe that all I will say is Merry Christmas back. The State has restricted my whisky saying that it has interfered with my risperidone and sertraline medications that it enforces on me to quell my independence off the wicked witch, the Queen who is the Head of your church and certainly not infallible and not with any authority under the divine right of Kings and Queens to rule over the United Kingdom to terrorise a satya-advaitic Hindu who has attaind God status and so infallible.

We must have had a disconnect somewhere. I don't remember saying what you are saying.

Why Do Theists Believe In God?

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