Choosing to believe

I suppose that technically I could be wrong, but I look at it much the same as I look at my belief in you. I don't know for a fact that you are who you say you are.Although I have talked to you and received answers, there is a small possibility that you never existed and that either an impostor or a sophisticated computer program really provided me with a dialogue. The chance is so small, however, that I don't consider it. Its the same way with God. How can I have a personal relationship with someone that I am unsure exists?

Is it also up to me whether God lives or dies? If I threw Him away, would I cease to exist?

Nator, I would like to start a Faith/Belief based topic on some sort of discussion concerning these relational issues...be they real or imagined.I am leaning towards starting a new topic on addictions. My Christian counselor and I agree that addictions cannot be dealt with on the classic disease model alone. What do you think? Should I start a topic on them?

You often say that many "Biblical" Christians are dishonest. For example, lets look at this guy, a biblical christian whom I just now found on the internet--Bishop Jim LoweHe fervently teaches that the "Word" will not return to us void---if honestly pursued and applied. This is, as you say, a world of teaching based strongly on emotion and experience. There is little logic.

quote:

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KEYS TO THE HUNDREDFOLD RETURN

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1. Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
a. Here it says God’s word is alive and active
b. A thing that is alive can reproduce itself. The word of God is alive and will reproduce in the life of a believer everything God has purposed for it to do
Isaiah 55:11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
c. The word is so powerful Jesus had this to say regarding it
Mark 4:23-25 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Consider carefully what you hear, he continued. With the measure you use, it will be measured to youand even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

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This parable is repeated in three gospels and by meaning in John 15

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Mark 4:1-8 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.

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Mark 4:13-20 Then Jesus said to them, Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a cropthirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.

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I am at a point where I question whether the Bible is inerrant. Thus I am not being dishonest if I use a scripture to make a point. I don't simply believe that redactors changed the Bible to fit their own biases and stuff like that. There is no conclusive evidence either way. What I will honestly admit is that I myself have my own personal bias. I want GOD to love me enough that He favors me. I believe that Jesus death,burial and resurrection are very important for the state of humanity today. I am confused about the doctrine of Original Sin. I am beginning to question that premise. Question--if we take original sin out of the equation, does that alone change the importance of the death, burial and resurrection theology of much of the church today?

So are you claiming that God didn't raise him from the dead?

perhaps i felt heat from it, though i never actually touched it. so...yes.

what if I had never actually felt heat from the fire but had seen pictures of fire and heard stories that it was hot?

It depends on who is telling me the stories. I tend to trust stories from people whom I trust.

nope. I would need evidence. Everyone knows that fire is supposed to be hot.

I suppose when I threw something in the fire and it burned up. I chose to believe initially because the fire consumed me. Not propaganda, though Tangle will argue I NEVER would have become a Christian in another culture, though many of those Catholics never got the fire to begin with. They went through the rituals, bells, smells, kneeling, etc. They may have had good Priests with the fire, though in the Catholic tradition being "on fire" is rare.If they caught it (The Spirit/Fire) at all, it would have come from either another Catholic with the Spirit or a Protestant friend. Rarer still, God Himself could have chosen them God does NOT personally intervene with every human on the planet. He prefers that we help spread the fire in our own unique ways. Having said that, I believe that God chooses everyone yet we have to choose Him back. The whole planet is not simply automatically saved. (Though perhaps some day He could step in and do that too!)I have found that people who are lukewarm either eventually warm up to God(Jesus) or they get colder and become antitheists. Which of course is a form of the antichrist spirit. Just sayin....

True.There are also many paths up the mountain but there is One top. Not many.Imagine a Guru living in a hut at the top. When He looks down the mountain He sees many many paths up to the top. Meeting Him is the goal of climbing the mountain by whatever path you have.Surely you wont argue that there are three or more Gurus at the top wearing their teams colors!

I didn't follow that train of thought did. I? My new answer is if the room gets cold then the fire is cold. This is self evident

In my opinion, belief (mine at least) is not simply yin and yang. Hot and Cold. Good and Evil. Though it is evident that our world has both elements, (Dualism) I do not see polar opposites of equal power or persuasion. Ellis Potter explains it here in a topic I wrote a few years ago. 3 Theories Of Everything by Ellis Potter

Take this argument to Message 16 and we can discuss it there.

All Im arguing is that Ellis Potters argument is most certainly Christian, rational, and philosophically sound.