Nimos
Well-Known Member
I find that really strange, I mean you label yourself as a Christian, But I can't help wonder if you have read the bible? (And I don't mean that in a provocative way)God is an idea that we define for ourselves, as we choose, and then either trust in or we don't. The criteria of "objective evidence" is simply inapplicable.
But I really don't see how your version of what God is and that he is something that we can just define however we feel like it, fits with the bible version? He is for the most part, very clear regarding what he likes and don't like, and also what happens to those that don't do as he like. And honestly it feels like the Golden calf, of you just creating your own version of God.
If God thought that anyone should be allowed to define him as whatever they feel like, why would he make so many laws? As a lot of these are what God find morally right or a justified way to deal with these things. If you simply remove the laws for instance that you don't like and say that you don't use them when you define your version of God, how do you justify anything, because you might as well remove all the things you don't like, and what you are left with have nothing to do with the biblical God. You simply borrowed the names, characters and used it as a framework to create your own God.
I have no problem with you doing it, that is your choice, but I also can't help thinking that you are not really fair or doing Christians a favour that actually do believe in the bible, because the God you will get from what you are doing, have nothing to do with what Christians that follow the bible believe.
There is a huge difference between two Christians, or as I did above with someone else, discussing how the story of Job should be understood, to simply outright removing it from the bible, because one doesn't think that it should be there when defining God. Even as an atheist, hardly believing any of it. I would object to it, out of respect for the bible the Christians and history that comes with it. Again, I want to stress that I have no issue, if that is what you believe, but I wouldn't label myself a Christian then, because it's just confusing.
So if I try to use telekinesis to contact some Aliens somewhere in the Universe to get them to make rain here where I live within the next few month, then that is technical evidence for both telekinesis and that aliens exist, if it happens? And if I do it with trolls, pixies and fairies, then we technically have evidence for those as well, following this logic?Like praying for rain, and then seeing it rain. But this is of course a very loose and subjective understanding of evidence. Technically it is evidence, but it is very weak evidence since the correlation between asking God and receiving rain is not being reasonably established. There are people who will claim this to be "objective proof", but that does not make it so.
Im not sure, I would agree with that
Just because people make claims doesn't make it true. There are some guidelines or "golden rules" within art design that seems to make it more appealing to us. But they are not absolutes, but guidelines or techniques.People make such claims all the time, in writing, and with the presumed authority of academia. I do so, myself.
Agree, but you can compare your idea of a God with the different scriptures that tells us about certain gods and see if they fit. If your idea doesn't then you ought not to refer to your god as that of such religion. Because it again causes confusion and is incorrect.I can claim "My God is THE God" til the cows come home, but there is no way I can know this to be so (even if it IS so)
Yes and they do that based on scriptures or what they are being told by others educated in these texts. Obviously some will bend the rules slightly, ignore or interpret some parts that they don't like, but they don't change the very foundation of the religion, in that case they stop believing in it and find a new one, or become an atheist or agnostic. And if they do choose to invent their own God, I have no problem with that, but also have no interest in it, because there is no basis for their belief, except what they made up.Even those people who choose to believe that a God exists understand that there may be no such God. They are not choosing to believe based on "objective evidence", They are choosing to believe based on faith. Faith being the decision to act on what they hope to be so, even though they cannot know it to be so.
Yes, I agree, but they don't add new gods or goddesses to them, so it fits other religions, as I said above. There is a huge difference between interpret something actually written and just adding and removing stuff.Biblical text, like ALL text, must be interpreted. People who "believe the text" have interpreted it in a way that makes sense to them.
But if you agree that they are made up, why would you then refer to yourself as a Christian and not an atheist which loves the bible or something? Its really strange, if you don't believe in God of the bible and Jesus or any of the miraculous stories, why not call yourself an atheist or simply a believer in a creator, you have no evidence or reason to choose Christianity?Of course they're 'made up'. But that does not mean they cannot convey important truths to us.
I don't believe that is true, again you don't simply go on compromise with the amount of Gods in your religion, honestly im speechless when reading that. If what you are saying is actually true, religious people have less respect for their own scriptures than atheists have, and that tells a lot about the validity of religions, if that is the case, because I would refer to all those religious people that are doing that, as being straight up liars and dishonest, which have no respect for the religions that they say they follow.But there is no real "conflict" once we understand that it's ALL SUBJECTIVE. Everyone's idea of "God" is unique to themselves. Most theists understand this. Certainly all of them that I have ever come across.
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