Let's see proof of creation (prophets, Vatican, Lord, Savior)
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Because, if we lump agnostics in with atheists, everyone else in the world believes in a God of some name and description, atheists cling to their faith in their belief that there is no such entity as God. They cling too to a hope that life/consciousness ceases when the physical body dies.
To me that's not a reasonable belief considering all the evidence washing over and through them every waking moment like undetected radio waves, undetected because they fail to tune themselves in.
In some courts of law it requires only the testimony of two people to convict and sentence to death a victim of lawyers. Yet it is likely that most atheists scorn and ignore the testimony of everyone in the world other than that of fellow travelers who share the atheist beliefs.
Ok, controversial statement, fire away if you must, just keep in mind that your right-living brothers and sisters love you.
Because, if we lump agnostics in with atheists, everyone else in the world believes in a God of some name and description,
Citation required. How do you know the rest believe in a god of sorts? That is pretty presumptuous don't you think?
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atheists cling to their faith in their belief that there is no such entity as God. They cling too to a hope that life/consciousness ceases when the physical body dies.
That is not a faith, it is a reality based upon the lack of evidence and contradictions we see in the bible and more specifically by its adherents.
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To me that's not a reasonable belief considering all the evidence washing over and through them every waking moment like undetected radio waves, undetected because they fail to tune themselves in.
Oh but many of us were "tuned in" for decades, three in my case but then something "went wrong" with the receiver, I guess. It all happened when most of us studied the buybull and early church history.
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In some courts of law it requires only the testimony of two people to convict and sentence to death a victim of lawyers.
Lemme guess, that only happens in a theocracy? Your buybull has the same text "by the testimony of two or three witnessess..." 2 Corinthians 13:1
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Yet it is likely that most atheists scorn and ignore the testimony of everyone in the world other than that of fellow travelers who share the atheist beliefs.
Yes we do don't we? Ever wondered why we also proselytize?
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Ok, controversial statement, fire away if you must, just keep in mind that your right-living brothers and sisters love you.
So what is not right living of atheists? Oh I forgot, they are not like you - my bad.
1. If anything, your "soul" is your brain. Your consciousness and morality are produced by your brain (I really have no better way to explain this).
2. The taste of salt is how our brain interprets that information. You can describe what salt taste like, albeit it won't be very descriptive most of the time.
3. I really won't bother too much with responding to this because basically this means, "You can't understand things of the spirit (or God) if you aren't spiritual (or saved)." A logical fallacy indeed.
4. No, because belief - or rather, a large number of people with the same belief - does not equal objectivity or truth.
That is a subjective question by nature. There is no way to (effectively) peer review subjectivity which changes depending on who you talk to.
5. That is not atheism! Atheism simply means that you do not believe a God to exist. Literally "without belief." That's it.
6. And you're using the fallacy of popularity. Just because a large segment of society believes something does not make it true nor right.
1. Yes, I understand that you have "no better way to explain this" other than to state your own belief that the soul is the brain and what I call the "conscience" or "light of Christ" is produced by the physical brain. Just your beliefs that's all.
The scientific method and manufactured tools are not designed to and cannot detect the soul. (Though I read a long time ago of an experiment where an actual minute weight loss was detected at the moment of death.)
2. Yes, of course the taste of salt when it arrives at the conscious level is a function of the brain. The point is that there are things that are very difficult to describe adequately to someone who has not yet experienced that thing for themselves.
3. Did I say something about "saved"? I tend to compare spiritual impressions to radio waves. In order to detect and interpret them in conscious awareness you must turn on a receiver. Atheists deny that they have such a thing as a built in receiver so they don't tune in, or at least don't fine tune to the point where spiritual promptings become intelligible, or they consider them to be a function of the physical brain, or perhaps they just ignore them because such things don't fit into their world view. As scriptures say: they have eyes to see but see not, and ears to hear but choose to hear not.
4. My suggested experiment has little to do with belief, and everything to do with what the subjects consciously experience. (Though I don't think such an experiment would be practical because there are some qualifications to receive communication from God, including humility and sincerity.)
5. No problem, define your package of beliefs as you will, you are much more familiar with them than I am.
6. You write: "Just because a large segment of society believes something does not make it true nor right." But when that "segment" of society happens to be everyone in the world except those relatively few persons who choose as you do to believe that there is no God, it should give thinking atheists reason to wonder about what it really is they have placed their faith and hope in. (No God when almost everyone else in the world over the ages says there is? No life after the death of the physical body, when there is a gathering body of evidence that there is, and none that there isn't? Seems like a pretty shaky foundation to me...)
I bear you my absolutely firm testimony that God lives and Jesus is the Christ. But you choose to ignore that. You bear your testimony that God and Jesus Christ are myths. But that is not persuasive because you have nothing to back that up and I have my personal relationship with God witnessing His existence to me each time I pray/talk to Him.
But I respect your right to believe as you will...
Last edited by justamere10; 09-30-2009 at 08:31 AM..
No....If you hear the voice of god, it is only the delusion you want to hear.
Seems like a pretty weak belief to me, a delusion perhaps?
There are many ways in which God speaks to His children on earth in addition to His awe-inspiring creations. When the Holy Spirit for example responds to a humble sincere prayer containing a request for help with a real world problem, many times you not only sense the inflow of knowledge you were not previously aware of, but at the same time you become aware of an intense feeling of joy and love sent from Him that permeates your body.
If you really believed that this was the correct way to establish the true nature of god, you'd convert to Islam or Catholicism immediately. Why are you still LDS?....
These cargo-cult versions of real epistemology are great as rationalization for people who already believe, but they do nothing for anyone else. There's no reason to think that we have unobserved spirits, that searching for god is any different than exploring anything else which has effects in the universe, or that simply asserting things you believe is an argument. You've admitted as much yourself by ignoring how your argument applies equally to the truth of Hinduism.
My suggested "experiment" was not to establish the "true nature of god" but to help provide additional information for those who doubt and deny that God actually exists. That seems to be the topic of discussion.
I am a Latter-day Saint because I am perfectly content to be.
On the contrary, I think there is every reason to think we have unobserved spirits. The problem for atheists is that they somehow think that the methods and tools of science are going to prove to them that either God exists, or He does not. Wrong methods, wrong tools...
Re your Hinduism comment, once again, this discussion, as I understand it, is about the existence of God, not what He looks like or acts like, or is called in different cultures.
1. Citation required. How do you know the rest believe in a god of sorts? That is pretty presumptuous don't you think?
2. That is not a faith, it is a reality based upon the lack of evidence and contradictions we see in the bible and more specifically by its adherents.
3. Oh but many of us were "tuned in" for decades, three in my case but then something "went wrong" with the receiver, I guess. It all happened when most of us studied the buybull and early church history.
4. Lemme guess, that only happens in a theocracy? Your buybull has the same text "by the testimony of two or three witnessess..." 2 Corinthians 13:1
5. Yes we do don't we? Ever wondered why we also proselytize?
6. So what is not right living of atheists? Oh I forgot, they are not like you - my bad.
1. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems logical to me that if atheists are people who do not believe in god and agnostics are people who aren't sure if god exists, then everyone in the world except atheists and agnostics believes in god.
2. So, is it common among atheists to define "reality" as that which there is not a lack of evidence for? I thought science existed to discover things as yet unseen and unknown. As the saying goes: the lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
As I see it, contradictions in the bible and differences in specific beliefs of people who believe in god has nothing to do with whether He exists or not; they can disagree with each other about anything else and still believe that god exists.
3. Yes, I understand, organized churchianity does not necessarily equate with a personal relationship with God. For many people, the Bible has been the path to establish such a relationship. For others, it and unsatisfying experiences with organized religion is a path to atheism, as you describe. The 'trick' as I see it is to as you are reading, prayerfully tune in to the same Spirit that moved upon those who originally wrote the words of scripture. When you have personally felt the presence of God you can still ignore and eventually quench that memory, but it's very real at the time and if you continue to seek His presence in your life, and do your best to keep His commandments, you will have it. God wants to be your friend, He reaches out to you over and over, His door is always open. But like a former friend whom you cease to make contact with and whose calls you refuse to take, you can with your negligence sever and eventually destroy that friendship.
4. What I was trying to convey is that billions of people over the ages and all over the world believe that God exists. And yet just two of those billions would be taken seriously by pretty much everyone except atheists, possibly for many because they don't want to believe so they ignore even scoff at the testimonial evidence that is all around them.
5. No, I don't wonder why atheists "proselytize". They want to share their beliefs with others, as do those who believe in God.
6. What I intended to convey is that there are many Christians who accept the teachings of Jesus, including those known as the "Sermon on the Mount" but fail to live up to those teachings, including loving one another. But those who are "right-living" (meaning actually doing their best to live up to the lifestyle teachings of Jesus) will love you regardless of your beliefs. My guess is that many atheists also strive to love and respect the beliefs of others, Christianity does not have a corner on love, or civility.
But you can conduct an experiment in which people humbly ask of God if He exists. And then compare their experiences. If a significant percentage had a similar experience, that would be replication and concurrent peer review would it not?
That would be possible but it would be very weak evidence of God's existence, for the same reason that this (http://tinyurl.com/yd5p45b - broken link) is very weak evidence of God's existence: an alternative, superior* explanation is available.
* because it does not contradict other well-supported scientific theories like the existence of God would.
If anything, your "soul" is your brain. Your consciousness and morality are produced by your brain (I really have no better way to explain this).
No, that is not true. The life/soul is in the blood, not in the brain -see below.
Morality =conscience [with-wisdom] is the Light of Christ, which every human being that comes into the world has, innately.
From the time that you become aware of right and wrong, and can choose evil or good, of your own freewill [which is the time of your coming to be "awake and aware", biblicaly speaking], you have that Light, "conscience", lighting you; whether you continously reject that Light, or begin to seek that Light [and He who seeks, finds Christ] determines your eternal state in the future regeneration of the heavens and earth.
After Cain killed his brother Abel, the brain of Abel was not alive [buried in a grave, with no electric signals], but the soul/blood of Abel was in the earth [in Sheol] crying out with his voice, to YHWH, for vengeance for his blood.
Gen 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood [the voice of your brother's soul] crieth [is calling out ] unto me from the earth/adamah [from Sheol, of earth's hollow]. Gen 4:11 And now [art] thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth [the mouth of Sheol opens to receive the departed souls of earth] to receive thy brother's blood/soul/life from thy hand;
Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul.
Enoch sees the soul/life/blood of Abel, crying out to YHWH, from Sheol
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1 Enoch
[Chapter 22]
1 And thence I went to another place, and he mountain [and] of hard rock. 2 And there was in it four hollow places, deep and wide and very smooth. How smooth are the hollow places and deep and dark to look at. 3 Then Raphael answered, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: 'These hollow places have been created for this very purpose, that the spirits of the souls of the dead should 4 assemble therein, yea that all the souls of the children of men should assemble here. And these places have been made to receive them till the day of their judgement and till their appointed period [till the period appointed], till the great judgement (comes) upon them.' I saw (the spirit of) a dead man making suit, 5 and his voice went forth to heaven and made suit. And I asked Raphael the angel who was 6 with me, and I said unto him: 'This spirit which maketh suit, whose is it, whose voice goeth forth and maketh suit to heaven ?' 7 And he answered me saying: 'This is the spirit which went forth from Abel, whom his brother Cain slew, and he makes his suit against him till his seed is destroyed from the face of the earth, and his seed is annihilated from amongst the seed of men.' 8 The I asked regarding it, and regarding all the hollow places: 'Why is one separated from the other?' 9 And he answered me and said unto me: 'These three have been made that the spirits of the dead might be separated. And such a division has been make (for) the spirits of the righteous, in which there is the bright spring of 10 water. And such has been made for sinners when they die and are buried in the earth and judgement has not been executed on them in their 11 lifetime. Here their spirits shall be set apart in this great pain till the great day of judgement and punishment and torment of those who curse for ever and retribution for their spirits. There 12 He shall bind them for ever. And such a division has been made for the spirits of those who make their suit, who make disclosures concerning their destruction, when they were slain in the days 13 of the sinners. Such has been made for the spirits of men who were not righteous but sinners, who were complete in transgression, and of the transgressors they shall be companions: but their spirits shall not be slain in the day of judgement nor shall they be raised from thence.' 14 The I blessed the Lord of glory and said: 'Blessed be my Lord, the Lord of righteousness, who ruleth for ever.'
Abel's prophecy of vengeance for his blood/life/soul by YHWH, was recorded in Jasher [Moses wrote the main body of Jasher as a compilation of the patriarch's records, from which compilation Moses redacted the Genesis account]:
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Jasher 1:15-
And it was at the expiration of a few years, that they brought an approximating offering to the Lord, and Cain brought from the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought from the firstlings of his flock from the fat thereof, and God turned and inclined to Abel and his offering, and a fire came down from the Lord from heaven and consumed it.
And unto Cain and his offering the Lord did not turn, and he did not incline to it, for he had brought from the inferior fruit of the ground before the Lord, and Cain was jealous against his brother Abel on account of this, and he sought a pretext to slay him.
And in some time after, Cain and Abel his brother, went one day into the field to do their work; and they were both in the field, Cain tilling and ploughing his ground, and Abel feeding his flock; and the flock passed that part which Cain had ploughed in the ground, and it sorely grieved Cain on this account.
18 And Cain approached his brother Abel in anger, and he said unto him, What is there between me and thee, that thou comest to dwell and bring thy flock to feed in my land?
...
21 And Cain said to his brother Abel, Surely if I
slay thee this day, who will require thy blood from me?
22 And Abel answered Cain, saying, Surely God who has made us in the earth, he will avenge my cause, and he will require my blood from thee shouldst thou slay me, for the Lord is the judge and arbiter, and it is he who will requite man according to his evil, and the wicked man according to the wickedness that he may do upon earth.
23 And now, if thou shouldst slay me here, surely God knoweth thy secret views, and will judge thee for the evil which thou didst declare to do unto me this day.
24 And when Cain heard the words which Abel his brother had spoken, behold the anger of Cain was kindled against his brother Abel for declaring this thing.
Jesus calls Abel a prophet, whose blood would be requited from "this evil generation" =the sons of wrath/sons of the devil, who became sons of the devil by allowing the devil to control them by believing his lies;, which Jesus [as God the Word, pre-incarnate] warned Cain about, in Genesis 4: Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee [shall be] his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
Cain did not rule over him =satan, lying at his "door" [his heart's door] telling him lies about his brother and about YHWH, and so "satan entered Cain", as he entered Judas, and Cain became a "child of wrath", as Judas did.
Luk 11:49,50 Therefore also said the wisdom of God [the writings of Enoch, in 1 Enoch], "I will send them prophets and apostles, and [some] of them they shall slay and persecute": That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation [the children of wrath are one generation of sons of the devil, according to Scripture, just as the children of God are all brethren and one generation of the righteous, in Scripture];
So, no, the brain is not the soul, and as long as the blood is flowing through a body, the soul is in that body.
My suggested "experiment" was not to establish the "true nature of god" but to help provide additional information for those who doubt and deny that God actually exists. That seems to be the topic of discussion.
No, the topic of discussion is evidence for creationist claims, such as your idea that "evolution only happens within species". Since that evidence doesn't exist, we get diversions into the question of why non-believers ignore obvious spiritual evidence that's flowing all around us completely undetected.
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I am a Latter-day Saint because I am perfectly content to be.
So you ignore the testimony of billions of people - the very evidence you say atheists are ignoring. Why the inconsistency here? Seems like popular opinion stops being useful when the popular opinion disagrees with what you'd like to believe.
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On the contrary, I think there is every reason to think we have unobserved spirits.
Such as?
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The problem for atheists is that they somehow think that the methods and tools of science are going to prove to them that either God exists, or He does not. Wrong methods, wrong tools...
Please prove that you need a totally separate approach for gods than for anything else in life.
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Re your Hinduism comment, once again, this discussion, as I understand it, is about the existence of God, not what He looks like or acts like, or is called in different cultures.
Why does popular vote stop being a useful way to determine truth about god when the answer stops being what you want it to be?
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