The God Thread - Page 4

CTURTLE- I read your forum reply in depth and I think you were asking who I was directing the last thing I said to. I was talking to okcity.

first off i do believe in god but that god resides within all things .i cannot say though that i completly take the bible as gods word .in my opinion some of it must have been flawed and misrepresented .there are many scriptures that were rejected by the powers that be who put the bible together and i question the motives around that.

" Therefore, just because we can't understand it or explain it, does not mean that it is not so. "
Of course not, that wasn't my argument. To take a similar example, we think ball lightning exists, but we have little or no understanding of it.
I'm arguing that God is like having 9/10 people in the world who claim they saw Ball Lightning, but every time that 1/10 tries to see it, it vanishes.

But of course, if its a personal thing, there is little to argue And although perhaps it is possible to explain a God-like feeling, I doubt I could trully argue against it unless I felt it.

I guess that is faith.

I read all the way back to the begining on this thread, to get an idea of what kind of ideas everyone has. Some of it is very confusing, but some brings "new light", the point of ant "discussion forum" is to voice your own oppinion and appreciate anothers. This is fundamental, and greatly disregarded. But, enough ranting, I don't believe that I believe one way or another. I caanot prove there is a "God" and I cannot prove that there is not-this is the problem with saying that you know your belief is true. No one believed in gravity until it was proved, right? I guess the point I am trying to convey is, where is the supportive evidence? I have never seen any for either "God" or "no god" so I am in limbo.

" I have never seen any for either "God" or "no god" so I am in limbo. "
Well most of the time, we consider this anything that is not proven to be false (which is not the same thing as not explained) or at least "probably false".
For example if I started a religion which worshipped the two headed polkadot elephant Nadosum, would you consider it true or false? You of course consider it false, even though you have no proof that Nadosum doesn't exist (he's hiding on Mars or something )

I would say that if you haven't seen God, ask God to reveal himself and study his word. You will see him work in your life, thus seeing God. Don't take that literally,

Exd 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

"But of course, if its a personal thing, there is little to argue And although perhaps it is possible to explain a God-like feeling, I doubt I could trully argue against it unless I felt it."

Crimson - Thank You

Stealth

I believe we should stand firmly for what we KNOW to be true.

But we must ask our self?

Do I KNOW? or Do I think I KNOW?

These are not easy questions. They take time to answer. We have to consider what we have been taught and what we have experienced. And what did that experience really mean?

When we are done answering this question. We might surely discover - we don't really know a whole lot. There isn't much we know for sure to stand up for.

This is religion: We believe and never know for sure. That is why it is called faith. Ofcourse with 100,000 different beliefs. We're not all going to believe the same things.

But I think that if what you believe is true is important to you, then you should believe that what I believe is true is important to me. And this is the law of religion. If you study all the major religions, you will find this is a truth taught across all of them. As I would wish this for me, so shall I wish this for you.

why is it a problem for you to stand on what you believe and serve ONE God?

what is the fear of saying, "I will serve ONE God."?

what is the problem with renouncing all other Gods as false Gods?

what is the problem with God saying there shall be no other gods before me?

Faith is believing in the things not seen, and faith in God does ultimately renounces all others.
I do believe that serving any other God is wrong. I do believe however, that I can not put people in Hell (I hate when people say "You're going to Hell!!!" for being confused and or sure of serving another God.

However, I can use scripture to defend my Lord Jesus because that is what I, as a Christian, am called to do. And Jesus states the scripture clearly TWICE, IN TWO DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS, written far from each other in time!

Luk 4:8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Mat 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

1Sa 7:3 And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, [then] put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

Do you guys believe any of the past three verses to be true?

Crimson, I believe what you are saying to be true:
"...we consider this anything that is not proven to be false..."
but what I am trying to point out is that I cannot prove nor disprove the theory of a "God". It is the same as not being able to prove there is life on another planet (where the polkadot elephant god is) . No one can prove there is another intelligent life form, just like no one can disprove it, we just cannot do that YET. It is really important to me to find factual evidence in anything that I put my belief in.
I have studied alot of different religions as well as alot of different Christian sub-religions, but I do this to explore them, and what they say about cultures, not to find something to believe in.

Decius - you are right, unfortunately, I just recently joined the Unitarian Universalist church - and even they are disappointing. They have an agenda, and if you're not apart of it, you're not one of them, as I am learning. They have the truth, and everyone else is wrong.

I am tolerant of hard line fundamentalist christians. Because I used to be one. I believed that only the King James Version was the word of God. Something deep inside of you tells you that this is not true. But you deny it, for fear that the devil is tempting you. But after you've made a hundred enemies, broken about 10 bridges and been married more than once. You realize that maybe this something inside of me telling me that this isn't right isn't the devil tempting me, it's the truth trying to save me.

I'm going to go off on a limb here and say what I really believe. Some of you might really think I'm nuts. But that's ok. I have some documentation that supports what I believe - but I wouldn't go as far as calling it proof. There was a Christian church that practiced things that I never heard of before. And the gospel they followed no longer exists. We know this only by a letter from long ago that had been uncovered. Just like we know that there were indian tribes that just disappeared off the face of this earth. The true Christian church has already been resurrected before the creation of the Roman Catholic Church. That is why, though some churches claim that they go way back to the original, they can't prove it. The Roman Catholic church is the oldest documented church around today. Nobody knows for sure what happened to those Christians who lived in the catacombs under Rome. That's what I believe. And I don't know what that means for us today. but - we are now in the age of Aquarius were the truth shall be reveled. Currently there are teams working on dead sea scrolls that have yet been known to us.

Concerning this One God thing and these other false gods. You don't know - you just think you do. You don't know if these gods are a creation of the one true god or that they are different parts of the one true god. Or, that maybe god is not a person. In fact I believe that God is greater than we can know. (thou we now see everything through a smoky glass, in the end all things will be made clear.) Therefore, we don't know, we just think we do. Concerning the Word of God - I don't think it can be written down. Inspired words were inspired in their time, in there place, to a given people, under a particular situation and may not apply to today. However, words written today, may vary will be inspired and have just as much merit for instruction as the old scriptures.

I don't believe in an almighty God. As I see things, we all try to believe in something because we humans want to understand everything. Many people (including me) suffer because they cannot understand what the world is all about. Even with science we are still limited by what we can know because we are just humans. I'm sure there is a truth, I'm not saying that believers are wrong (for all I know they could be right) ,I just think the TRUTH is too complicated for us humans...

Blalm : I think there is no such thing as absolute truth. Because no matter how much you try, you're beliefs will always be shaped by your point of view and so will never be absolutely true.
We only see the universe subjectively whereas the truth is objective thus we cannot ever believe in the truth.

I do believe however that we can get closer to the truth because as science has shown that things can be disproven and proven to an extent.

"[qoute](myself) Decius - you are right, unfortunately, I just recently joined the Unitarian Universalist church - and even they are disappointing. They have an agenda, and if you're not apart of it, you're not one of them, as I am learning. They have the truth, and everyone else is wrong.[unqoute]

I was wrong. I was a bit frustrated as there was a yahoo group here in Oklahoma who claimed to be UU and were persecuting fundamentalist ideals in the name of Benjamin Franklin. Well I said was - they are no more.

We all have the right to our point of view. And we have the right to share our point of view. Even with those who dissagree. But sometimes we falsly believe that everyone else has to see things the way we do, it is then we go beyond sharing, and that is persecution. We should not tolorate, support, or be a part of any such things.