Choosing a faith

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Nothing influences your Christian beliefs does it? You feel that you have a personal communion with Christ. How could any actual facts disturb that? You find excuses to wave away all evidence counting against that belief. I don't understand why you bother with these discussions, nothing we can say can penetrate your delusion.

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I think that you are wrong. GDR is VERY insecure in his belief. That is why he needs all the desperate attempts to prop it up and make it appear rational. Which drastically backfire, since they only reveal and underline the irrationality of the belief.It’s also why he has to indulge in the absurd pretence that he is looking for the truth, when in reality he is scrabbling around and trying to hide from it. And why he gets so angry when the truth is pointed out.It’s pitiful, really.

Jesus knew that there would be wars and rumors of wars all throughout time. I'm trying to wrap my head around global politics over in the War In Europe topic, but have drawn no conclusions except to say that when Romans says that None Are Righteous that means ALL. Not Left vs Right. Not Government vs Private Money.
Not Republican vs Democrat. Money is universal. It Greases all palms. It can also feed ALL poor. Or Not.Love is also universal. Love is more powerful than Money.

I am not fond of the genocidal prick Jesus is made to be, but if I do as you do, I can justify his genocides and his homophobia and misogyny as well.Way to make Jesus fit any description other than the evil prick he is.I like the Gnostic Christian Jesus. He has decent morals.Regards
DL

Whose? Jesus??? I suppose I can understand some of your confusion since you believe that Jesus is a human created construct. I don't ever recall Jesus as neing genocidal or homophobic. He likely would have cured a lot of gender confusion simply by His love. If you are looking for a villain, look no further than organized religion and the bastardization of Jesus.In my belief, Jesus lives eternally and is far greater than the god within.You may argue that your kum ba yah inclusive god is more loving, but all I see is a bunch of noise and a fake cloud, a fake church (secular humanism) and a fake God. WE are not God.

Seems you are the confused one, given that you think only of one person when he is supposed to be 3, including Yahweh, the vilest satanic God going.What was that about your useless and not to bright noise?Up your apologetics or be ignored.Regards
DL

Tritheism-Trinitarianism-Im still studying. I DO know that Tritheism is a heresey.

George Carlin called "it" the Big ElectronCant you just hear the universe talking? I AM that I AM.

And such a stance goes against the evidence of the things we know.We have millions and millions of scientific papers showing how such things have evolved naturally and do not require any pre-existing intelligence.
Not only that, all of the research and knowledge shows us that the idea of any pre-existing intelligence has no link to reality whatsoever. What is that makes you think the thought's "effect on the brain" isn't the same as "an actual thought?"
Because our best research shows that such observations are observing "actual thoughts."
Especially since we can induce actual thoughts by replicating these effects. Seems to me that you've found Love.
And we can link Love to reality - it's a feeling humans have.
We can identify that our brains and the processes in our bodies allow us to feel Love - even greater than what you've described here.
We can identify certain people (ie - psychopaths) that are incapable of these brain situations and processes in our bodies - and they are also incapable of feeling Love.What link to reality do you have for God?
What explanation (again, linked to reality) do you have for people like psychopaths that cannot find God/Love like everyone else can? And millions and millions of papers of our best-known-method for identifying the truth of reality don't just claim that you're wrong... they show that you're wrong. Nope.
I actually think it's a pretty shitty way to answer questions. We can't even know that we're 100% right.
But I do think it's our best-known-method to answer such questions. It's certainly waaaaay better than our personal perception or opinion or feelings or common sense or any other method you've touched on that's shown to be much, much worse.I actually wish and hope that someone will eventually identify a better method to answer questions - then I'll switch to that one. It just hasn't happened yet. Why would I accept something that's easily shown to be false?
I follow our best-known-method for identifying truth.
You do too. Except for certain things. For certain things, you reject our best-known-method for identifying truth and use an alternative method that's known to be wrong. Also easily shown to be false.This, actually, would be evidence for me to believe in God - if it could be shown that Christians "do better" in general than atheists and other religions. But, they don't, do they? Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies

• I wouldn't put too much stock in the flashy title on this one - it's more of an article than it is a study, so the title is intended to 'grab you'
• This one isn't so much showing theist vs atheist, it's more showing that more-religious areas "do worse" than less-religious areas. "Less religious" here doesn't mean "atheist" (although more atheists would be in those areas.) It means things like non-Bible-Belt states. Christianity is still the more popular religion, but not as prevalent and not as fundamental.
• The idea shown here is that moving towards secularity does not hurt society. And, in fact, it helps it.

This one is really interesting: Are believers happier than atheists?

• An actual study on theists vs atheists in Puerto Rico (think Bible-Belt or even worse for societies that prosecute atheists.)
• If interested, I highly recommend reading the Discussion section at the bottom. It reviews the Results (don't even need to read the Results section) as well as explaining and providing context.
• Results are, basically, that atheists and theists are pretty much the same as far as Quality of Life measurements go... and this is in areas where "being atheist" can get you savagely beaten or even killed.
• Both atheists and theists are measured as being "extremely high" in life satisfaction and psychologically flourishing. This is the part that completely shows you're wrong - being an atheist does impact one's thinking and the way they lead their lives - just as much as it does with Christianity.
• Christians scored slightly higher for life satisfaction
• Atheists scored slightly higher for psychological flourishing
• Again - this is in an area where being an atheist can cause extreme social discrimination leading to depression - imagine if that wasn't the case!

As the studies show - it's either equivalent or better.

I completely agree.
I see no other reason why someone would continue to insist on things after being shown that they are incorrect.
A persistent cycle of denial and "forgetting" about the contrary facts.Anyone who actually was secure in their beliefs wouldn't need to align themselves with current consensus on identifying the truth.
They would simply consider their beliefs "something that hasn't been shown yet" and accept that holding their beliefs is a higher priority to them then identifying the truth.

Revelation is a book using hyperbolic apocryphal language. It is about the renewal of all things. The Gospels passages that are often used are about what the romans will do in reaction to a violent revolution. I have gone over that with OT references earlier in this thread. I keep getting asked the same questions. Ya like love your enemy, turn the other cheek, those who live by the sword die by the sword etc.

I note that you quoted yourself, instead of my response. Nonetheless.

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Revelation is a book using hyperbolic apocryphal language. It is about the renewal of all things. The Gospels passages that are often used are about what the romans will do in reaction to a violent revolution.

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Again, you need to read the Revelation. As for your interpretation of the Olivet Discourse, that is your interpretation and it is at odds with the scriptural references you see there.

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I have gone over that with OT references earlier in this thread. I keep getting asked the same questions

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You never offered a sensible answer to those points. So far as I can tell you just assume that the Bible says what you want without bothering to read or understand it. You still haven’t produced anything justifying your assertion that Jesus meant that the Romans would be the ones to destroy the Temple either.

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Ya like love your enemy, turn the other cheek, those who live by the sword die by the sword etc.

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In fact like his association with Judas Iscariot (quite likely a violent revolutionary) and the story of the Gadarene swine (“my name is Legion”).

I don't that my relationship to Christ is uniquely personal. I believe that the "still small voice of God" is there for everyone including Tangle. I guess it's personal in that we all choose how to respond to it. I've used this quote from our liturgy previously. (Christianity is) "so complex so simple, so clear so mysterious" The clear simple part is that God loves His creation and that we are called to love and serve His creation in return. Working out the theology and the doctrine around that is mysterious and complex. As a Christian I see Jesus making it least less complex.I actually speculatively see God creating the universe roughly this way. As I said earlier, I see our universe as being an emergent property of a greater reality. In that regard it simply always existed, but not necessarily the way we perceive it. I see God as having been responsible for the rise of life and for creatures that perceive our universe in the manner that we do.I am not claiming that as a fact, or that it is even likely, as for one thing I have no evidence to support it. However it does fit with all that I have read. I am convinced though that God is responsible for life and the world in the way that we perceive it.I'd add that my views in general are pretty consistent with a large chunk of the CofE, aside of the thoughts regarding creation.

Jesus taught that ultimately love is more powerful than evil.

That is nonsense. I don't deny that there is considerable evidence on how things occur naturally. What evidence do you have that all of these things that have evolved natural came about mindlessly. You have concluded that all that happens naturally is the result of more natural processes.. You base it on the fact that all that we have found that happens naturally simply happens without invoking a creative intelligence, but you don't have evidence on a root cause of why they happened. It requires a virtually infinite regression of processes. So you are then saying that a thought is physical. I'm certainly out of my depth here but a scan will show thought in the brain and we can deduce certain information regarding that thought but it doesn't tell us precisely what a thought is. I don't see it as not being able to find but about being able to ignore it. Certainly our thoughts are heavily influenced by life experience and also by a brain trauma. A damaged brain like will certainly mess up our ability to be able to love. You just keep saying that but it is simply wrong and I've explained over and over why that is the case. Studies have also shown that those who are generous are on average more content than those that are less so.Here is a study from the secular Hoover Institute on charitable giving. Religious Faith and Charitable GivingHere is a quote from that article.

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Socioeconomically, the religious and secular groups are similar in some ways and different in others. For example, there is little difference between the groups in income (both have average household incomes around $49,000) or education level (20 percent of each group holds a college degree). On the other hand, the secular group is disproportionately male (49 percent to 32 percent), unmarried (58 percent to 40 percent), and young (42 to 49 years old, on average). In addition, the sccbs data show that religion and secularism break down on ideological lines: Religious people are 38 percentage points more likely to say they are conservative than to say they are liberal (57 percent to 19 percent). In contrast, secular people are 13 points more likely to say they are liberal than to say they are conservative (42 percent to 29 percent).

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A thought is an electrical cascade through parts of the brain. That electro-chemical action produces the brain wave pattern we record. Of course the thought results in an electrical signal. They are physical electro-chemical processes.Their meaning depends on the which neurons the cascade goes through. Thoughts are physical processes with physical results. Machines That Read Your Brain Waves - Scientific American