For God, there is no time, every time is now, there is no past, or future, just the present. So 2000 years ago, 200 years ago 20 years ago, what's the difference? And I doubt people would believe even if he did show himself. People don't believe in NDE's even though many of them have staggering amounts of proof behind them. There was a man in the 1800's who went around recording people's last words before death. People said they saw Heaven and hell. And still we don't believe. "What if they were lying?" we say. People didn't believe in Jesus even though hundreds of people saw Him resurrected. People won't believe no matter what. We always want to find a way to say "no, there must be a loophole." Like Jesus said, "If they won't listen to Moses, then I tell you even if they were sent a person from the dead they still wouldn't believe." And also, "If you don't believe in the words of Moses, then how are you supposed to believe in the Son of God?"
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Does the God of the Bible...
- Thread starter M O N S T E R
- Start date
For God, there is no time, every time is now, there is no past, or future, just the present. So 2000 years ago, 200 years ago 20 years ago, what's the difference? And I doubt people would believe even if he did show himself. People don't believe in NDE's even though many of them have staggering amounts of proof behind them. There was a man in the 1800's who went around recording people's last words before death. People said they saw Heaven and hell. And still we don't believe. "What if they were lying?" we say. People didn't believe in Jesus even though hundreds of people saw Him resurrected. People won't believe no matter what. We always want to find a way to say "no, there must be a loophole." Like Jesus said, "If they won't listen to Moses, then I tell you even if they were sent a person from the dead they still wouldn't believe." And also, "If you don't believe in the words of Moses, then how are you supposed to believe in the Son of God?"
McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
So you are saying that an all powerful deity is completely unable to prove it exists?
Sounds like a man made cop out to me.
M O N S T E R
Member
Common sense suggests that if the Bible contained some accurate predictions regarding when some natural disaster would occur in every century, month, day and year, the Christian church would be much larger today. Agreed?
McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Self fulfilling prophecy is at best, a second rate prediction.
M O N S T E R
Member
No loving, merciful god would send skeptics to hell for 1,000 years without parole, let alone for eternity. If love and mercy are about anything, they're about rehabilitation and second chances. If a god inspired the Bible, he withholds evidence that would convince more people to accept him. No man can morally be sent to hell for refusing to accept evidence he would accept if he were aware of it.
M O N S T E R
Member
Imagine what would have happened if there had been 10,000 begotten Sons of God all over the world instead of one begotten Son of God and had performed miracles all over the world and had been crucified and had risen from the dead. In such a case, in for instance the first century, the Christian church would have been much larger than it was. Surely the Middle East was not the only place in the world where people placed great emphasis upon tangible, firsthand evidence. Why do a lot more people believe the car they drive exists than believe the God of the Bible exists? Obviously, because humans typically place a great deal of importance on tangible, firsthand evidence. Apparently, so did the writers of the book of John and the book of Acts. What is not apparent is why the God of the Bible abandoned the use of evidence (tangible, firsthand evidence) that he once considered to be very useful.
If a god exists and had always been available for people to see and talk with in tangible form and had always prevented any kind of serious suffering such as cancer, heart disease and rape, surely he would have had far more followers today than the God of the Bible has. All that most people want is to be treated right. Killing people and innocent animals with hurricanes is certainly not treating people right.
If a god exists and had always been available for people to see and talk with in tangible form and had always prevented any kind of serious suffering such as cancer, heart disease and rape, surely he would have had far more followers today than the God of the Bible has. All that most people want is to be treated right. Killing people and innocent animals with hurricanes is certainly not treating people right.
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Quote...danny vee...For God, there is no time, every time is now, there is no past, or future, just the present.
You are correct danny vee, God encompasses all time within this universal cycle of activity, He is the ‘First and the Last’, ‘The Beginning and End’, ‘The Alpha and Omega’, ‘The Father and Son.’ For the Omega who is the end result of this period of universal activity, is in our future, and although he Exists in His constant present, we exist in his dead past and he knows everything that we have done and everything that will occur in our future, which is still in his dead past. It matters not what you have done in your past or what you will do in your future: to the Omega you have done it and he has already made his judgement.
Quote...danny vee....There was a man in the 1800's who went around recording people's last words before death. People said they saw Heaven and hell. And still we don't believe.
Have you ever sat with a dying person in the last days of their life and listened to their ramblings, as they speak of the people that surround them, people who they hold dear in the memory chambers of their dying brains? Or have you heard them speak of the bright lights that they see as their nervous system begins to shut down and the neurons are firing and exploding in their dying brains, before all that they are is converted back to the universal elements from which they were created?
Quote...danny vee...People didn't believe in Jesus even though hundreds of people saw Him resurrected. People won't believe no matter what.
A few men say that hundreds of people saw the resurrected Jesus, unless you can come up with the testimonies of those hundreds of people, you are asking if we can believe the words of four gospel writers who were involved in the evolution of a new religion, which men cannot even be reliably identified as men who knew the living Jesus, and whose records of the life of Jesus all contradict each other?
As for the disciples who walked with and talked with the man Jesus, even they refused to believe that he had been resurrected until they apparently saw him, and if they would not believe, how can you possibly expect the people of today to believe in the resurrection? People who, 2,000 years later, to whom it cannot even be proven beyond doubt that a man by that name even existed, let alone died and was resurrected from death?
How many ignorant people throughout the ages have sacrificed their lives and the lives of their children for a belief that we today see as ridiculous? How many mother’s hearts were torn apart as they, in genuine worship of their saviour, passed their children through the fires to the god ‘Molech?’
Quote...danny vee.....Like Jesus said, "If they won't listen to Moses, then I tell you even if they were sent a person from the dead they still wouldn't believe."
Again, you are asking whether we believe the words of Luke, who never knew the man Jesus.
The only one of the four gospel writers to mention the story of Lazarus and the rich man, was Luke, who is believed to have been born about 30 A.D. and as a young lad would have been fed the exaggerated stories of the new evolving religion, and if you don’t believe there were some terrible exaggerations circulating at that time, then my friend, you have no understanding of human nature, nor of the religious history of those days.
It’s sickening to hear some of the stories told by the church. Stories such as visible screaming putrid demonic spirits being driven out of Pagan statues by the disciples of Jesus etc, although it is not the many exaggerated stories that are sickening, but the fact that there are still people in these days of enlightenment, who are so ignorant and gullible as to believe such stories; bleeding statues, crying statues, stones that were turned white by the spilt mother’s milk of Mary, which stones have the power to heal the problems of nursing mothers, etc, etc, etc.
Most people today are like the disciples that walked and talked with Jesus, they aint going to believe that he was resurrected by our indwelling saviour, unless they can see him, which perhaps one day, when the Lord wishes to prove to the people that he does exist, they will.
But until then, I am quite content to be an observer of the past of the Omega, from which past, 'The Son of Man' the spirit that develops in the body of the most high in the creation, will descend through time, and reveal himself to the chosen ones from his dead past.
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Well the Omega or some unseen deity did reveal to Moses the consequences that would occur in the land of Egypt, from the explosion of the Island of Santorini in 1500 B.C. around the time of the expulsion of the Shepherd Kings.
In fact all the prophets, who have received visitations from those of the multi-celled spiritual body of the "Son of Man,' have predicted the events of their future, which events were in fact, events that had occured in the dead past of the Omega.
Or havent you heard that people in a state of deep meditation or hypnosis, are capable of regressing along the genetic thread of life which joins them to their origin, and to merge with a living mind of their past, even those people who live two thousand years in your future?
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I fail to see how this quote negates all the other examples given by Monster. Sure, those who believe without tangible proof may be more blessed than those who don't (or can't) believe without tangible proof, but that doesn't mean that Jesus, in those verses, refused to bless those who did need proof.
The question still stands: if God was willing to give tangible proof in the past-- with good results-- why would he abandon that method today if ostensibly it would allow more people to come to him?
Except that not only is your savior's hand invisible, so is the lifeboat, and the sinking ship, and the water that you are supposedly drowning in. Not only is there no proof that there is a God, there is no proof that what Jesus did saved us, nor is there any proof that there is anything that we need to be saved from.
In other words, would you believe a surgeon who tells you that you have brain cancer if the surgeon has never shown you his credentials and only talks to you through his secretary? This brain surgeon, of course, also with-holds any evidence of such cancer and claims that only his magic scalpel is capable of ridding you of said brain cancer. You have never seen the surgeon, or the scalpel, or proof of the brain cancer. You have only talked to his secretary. Do you trust him enough to operate?
M O N S T E R
Member
Indeed. If tangible, firsthand evidence once worked quite well, there would not have been any apparent good reasons for God to abandon using it.
Claims of frequent miracles had to be eventually, and conveniently abandoned by early Christians when too many people started to ask to see them.
Claims of frequent miracles had to be eventually, and conveniently abandoned by early Christians when too many people started to ask to see them.
ayani
member
well, Romans 1:20 says that He has given the created world as evidence of His handiwork.
i've talked with many, many people who may not "believe in God", yet they freely admit believing in a "Creator". so yes, they believe in Him, yet not in a personal way. they see His handiwork in creation, and have come to the conclusion that there is a unifying, meaningful Something which began the world and is evidenced through it.
a Christian would indicate that God clearly broke into our human reality is a real and supernatural way in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. who was a Jewish miracle worker, claiming to be the Messiah.
now Jesus said clearly that His powers, which included withering trees, healing the sick, walking on water, feeding thousands with a tony amount of food, and raising the dead were powers granted Him by His Father, the Master of the Universe, who sent Him as a prophet and savior to all nations.
so a Christian would point to the person of Jesus Christ not only as evidence of God, but evidence that God is clearly Someone knowable, and relational. through Jesus, one can know and see the God of the heavens and the earth.
ayani
member
actually, no. miracles are still worked in Jesus' name today.
miracles were common then, and are still common now. many people, however, lack faith and lack the inclination to give His claims the benefit of the doubt.
i've personally seen two people healed fully in His name. one was myself, the other a neighbor.
HoldemDB9
Active Member
Evidence of GOD's existence or evidence of the existence of a specific God i.e., the Christian God?
Just as I mentioned above to tomspug, are you speaking of God or Jesus?
What about those who are just as sure, who had an equally honest and passionate belief in a false God? What is the difference (in Gods eyes) between these people and Christians? What are the Christians doing that all non Christians are not doing, that will cause God to favour them?
HoldemDB9
Active Member
In other words, blessed are those who take a wild guess and happen to be right.
There is not just one religion Heneni. There are hundreds of others that are offering me the same offer. Which do I choose? Do I just guess and hope to be right? Is that how God rewards and punishes - based on who guessed right and who guessed wrong? Based on sheer luck?
Because whether or not a belief that is based on faith is true, is nothing but sheer luck. Like I said, there is not just one religion. There are hundreds of others that are offering to save me. You are saying that those who get saved are those who chose to have faith in the one that happened to be true, in other words, those who get saved are then ones who got lucky and were right.
Who would God favour? Someone who has complete blind faith that Jesus is the real one that saves, or someone who actually really tried to find the truth, but who came to the conclusion that Jesus was not the one?
You have to put your faith in the religion which turns out to be true. You have to guess right to be rewarded - this is what you are saying.
The rest tried just as hard as the Christians. The Christians did nothing better then those who went down. The Christians just merely happened to choose the right one, they got lucky. You are saying that those who got lucky get rewarded, unless you can tell me what Christians are doing that will cause God to favour them over non-Christians. Just ONE thing!
Why is it that almost all people born in Saudi Arabia have had this confirmation in their spirit that it is the God of Islam who has saved them?
ayani
member
because Islam is the dominant religion there.
generally, we are able to believe only what we are raised to believe, what seems true to us, or what we conclude to be true based on our own reasoning and research.
alternately, we can come to faith because of a sudden understanding or revelation in answer to prayer and seeking, promoting a change in belief.
many people come to Islamic faith because of what they see as very logical reasons to do so. many are raised Muslim, are taught to see the world and other religions from an Islamic viewpoint. should they objectively compare claims to truth as an older person, many still find Islam to be most credible.
Where did I say that?
No, he's able.
It's just that we're unable to accept the proof. It's our problem, not God's.
HoldemDB9
Active Member
I completely agree. But a Christian who believes that God will favour them over Muslims ONLY because their faith happened to be true, does not agree. To them, the Muslim has had a fair and equal chance to become Christian and therefore can be held accountable for rejecting - and be sent to hell. The Christians have done nothing better than the Muslims, its just that their EQUAL beliefs happened to be true.
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Then how do you explain people who say they've gone to Heaven in an NDE even though the meter measuring their brain activity (EEG) was flat, measuring zero brain activity? And most of the people who have these NDE's are convinced of their truth. Many live their entire lives on Earth obeying what they heard and saw in their NDE.
Four gospel writers? There is more evidence than that. What about Paul of Tarsus? He gives his own testimony to his conversion in 1Cor 15:1-10 and Gal 1:11-14. He also talks about his conversion in 1Cor 9:1, and Gal 2:2. These letters were written by him, first-hand. And he claimed to have seen Jesus, and he told of his previous wanderings in Judaism and how he had turned. Also, would he lie about the hundreds of men, who he said had seen the resurrected Jesus, in 1Cor 15:1-10? Have you read any of these records of Jesus? They don't contradict each other. They all tell of the resurrection, they all tell of Jesus' life, Luke, Matthew, Mark in agreement with each other, and John telling from a different point of view. Not contradicting though. Also, the Gospel of Thomas, one of Jesus' disciples, regarded as heresy in early Christian times, was found just this past century and included many parables identical and almost identical to the Gospels parables.