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There may well come a day or a moment of crisis, quiet or traumatic, when you realize just how very much you want to believe that God is actually there for you talk to also.
And in that same instant you may be horrified to think he won't listen or hear you because of all that "big city noise" and your prior choices to reject him.
But when that happens, my hope for you (and I mean this most sincerely) is that you will remember I said this to you - God loves you. He is always waiting right there, right next to you for an invitation into your life. Even in your last second of life on this earth it is not to late to reach out for Him.
Laugh or ridicule me now if you need to - but please remember I told you this!
I might wish there was something at that moment.
But I know it won't be true.
Go ahead and use that false hope of an afterlife to suppress the horrors of death.
I'm not saying it won't help in comforting you in your last seconds.
But it would still be a lie.
The Bible doesn't preclude the existence of other Gods. It does, in fact, confirm the presence of other gods.
Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before me."
It doesn't say there are NO other Gods it merely points out that he is the most important one.
Exodus 3:22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
God himself says there are multiple Gods.
Precisely. Judaism wasn't even monotheistic until monotheism became trendy. Judaism started out henotheistic.
I might wish there was something at that moment.
But I know it won't be true.
That's really a good point: All the foot stomping and whining incessantly that one specific God that someone is promoting is "the" one God is little more than reflection of hopes by flawed, scared humans. We know we cannot control our lives - nature won't brook with such arrogance - so we desperately cling to the idea that someone or something is looking out for us, monitoring and controlling nature. It's a lie many of us tell ourselves just to be able to sleep at night - just to shake free of the paralysis that oppressive fear would inflict on us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alacran
Go ahead and use that false hope of an afterlife to suppress the horrors of death.
I'm not saying it won't help in comforting you in your last seconds.
But it would still be a lie.
I too don't want to dissuade folks from using whatever fantasy they'd like to foster their own peacefulness - but when those false hopes are corrupted into rationalization for doing things in the public space that infringes on the benefits to others from make those decisions for themselves (i.e., making any part of our society operate in a manner whereby belief in one religious fantasy - say, Christianity - gains benefits, or belief in other religious perspectives, fantasy or real, is disadvantaged), then that has to be opposed. I'm all for Christians (in our society) being and living Christian, as long as they let Jews be and live Judaism, Muslims be an live Islam, Sikhs be and live Sikhism, Buddhists be and live Buddhism, Hindus be an live Hinduism, Unitarians be and live Unitarianism, Agnostics be and live agnosticism, Atheists be and live Atheism, etc., all benefiting from their participation in society in precisely the same measure as Christians.
And I'm not talking about similar gods from religions with similar roots.(Muslims, Christians, Jews)
I mean Gods like Ganesha, Ra, Quetzalcoatl, Thor, Zues, etc.
Why are they fake and your God is not?
Think outside your Western world box.
There's 7 billion people on this planet.. Some who live in remote areas and have never even heard of your God.
What happens to them?
I believe that over time God has revealed himself repeatedly, in ways that have been interpreted and reinterpreted to those to whom He made his revelations.
Tell me, my friend, do you speak to a two year old the same way you speak to an adult?
I believe that God acts indirectly, inspiring us, but leaving us with our free will. It is not His place to force us to take particular actions. Why else do you think He allowed the tyranny of medieval Western European Christianity to exist? Or slavery? Or the Holocaust? Think free will. And think how you as a god might deal with the dilemma of free will versus The Right Path.
That is why God continues to inspire us to seek and attain the next level. It may take another thousand years, but with any luck it will happen, just as God inspired the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
I believe your premise is false on the face of it because it assumes there really are multiple "gods" when there can be only one. Think elephant and the blind men. Perhaps you may begin to see.
Originally Posted by Eusebius Quoting atheist scientist's books gets you nowhere.
They are just books.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alacran
Nobody quoted a science book in this topic.
But if you insist.
Quoting and using information from a reviewed and established science book does get you "somewhere"
It got you the computer you're using right now.
It got you the meds you're taking.
It got you the building your living in.
It got you the food you eat. Without ammonia/nitrate crops couldn't be grown and half the world would be dead.
No "God" would save them
No God would build you a safe house with heat and plumbing.
No God would cure you.
I was hoping to get some good answers, but all I get is "because the bible says so" or "I know/believe/my heart"
And if that's the case then mods might as well close this.
No point.
There are plenty of examples of peer reviews books down through the ages in which the thesis of the scientist has proven to be false. So far you can't disprove the thesis in the Bible:
God does not exist
that God does not love us
that God would not cure us
As to your first post, I don't believe in other gods because the God I serve is the one true God Who created all. So why go to lesser gods of wood, stone and metal?
Nobody quoted a science book in this topic.
But if you insist.
Quoting and using information from a reviewed and established science book does get you "somewhere"
It got you the computer you're using right now.
It got you the meds you're taking.
It got you the building your living in.
It got you the food you eat. Without ammonia/nitrate crops couldn't be grown and half the world would be dead.
No "God" would save them
No God would build you a safe house with heat and plumbing.
No God would cure you.
I was hoping to get some good answers, but all I get is "because the bible says so" or "I know/believe/my heart"
And if that's the case then mods might as well close this.
No point.
To those that perceive "God" as the fount and essence of everything: God IS the computer...God IS the meds...God IS the buildings...God IS the food, the crops they came from, and anything used to help grow those crops. There is nothing that isn't God.
There are no "Other Gods"...God is whatever anyone perceives to be God.
That it doesn't fit the perception of God someone else has, is inconsequential...each has their own perception that is unique to them. There are as many different perceptions of God as there are people that have ever contemplated the concept...since no two will perceive exactly the same thing.
Also...you don't need to be "religious" to perceive God. Many perceive a "Creator", "Higher Power", "Great Spirit", or some other generic Source Entity, without any ties to religion.
To those that perceive "God" as the fount and essence of everything: God IS the computer...God IS the meds...God IS the buildings...God IS the food, the crops they came from, and anything used to help grow those crops. There is nothing that isn't God.
There are no "Other Gods"...God is whatever anyone perceives to be God.
That it doesn't fit the perception of God someone else has, is inconsequential...each has their own perception that is unique to them. There are as many different perceptions of God as there are people that have ever contemplated the concept...since no two will perceive exactly the same thing.
Also...you don't need to be "religious" to perceive God. Many perceive a "Creator", "Higher Power", "Great Spirit", or some other generic Source Entity, without any ties to religion.
There are plenty of examples of peer reviews books down through the ages in which the thesis of the scientist has proven to be false. So far you can't disprove the thesis in the Bible:
God does not exist
that God does not love us
that God would not cure us
As to your first post, I don't believe in other gods because the God I serve is the one true God Who created all. So why go to lesser gods of wood, stone and metal?
That's the beauty of science. It can be disproved if a better idea with proof comes up.
You can't prove bigfoot doesn't fly on a skateboard.
You're forcing me to prove that an imaginary thing does not do a certain thing.
Of course it's impossible.
We can do an experiment though.
Inject a population with the rabies virus.
We'll have a week before the virus sets in.
I use science and technology.
You use god and prayers.
So in other words, you cling desperately to the arrogant illusion that you can declare truth by personal fiat.
In other words, you cling desperately to the arrogant illusion that you cannot disprove my position.
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