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2 hours ago, Tomassi said:

Oh apologies mate I didn't know your background. You said baptism and later confirmation so I'm guessing baptised as a baby and confirmed later means Catholic or Anglican? Please correct me if I am wrong. It's an interesting thing 'feeling the presence of God' and different for every believer I guess. Pentecostal churches seem to have a very heavy emphasis on this, whereas Presbyterians are very conservative and the other end of the scale, with many denominations in between. I believe that God is omnipresent so His presence is everywhere, and Jesus said where two or three gather in my name there I will be also. The Bible says Jesus is God, so He is everywhere in the Spirit of Christ. It's just His presence is made more aware when Christians gather through praise, prayer,  preaching of His Word etc. Hence why He said that.  In that sense, that's when I feel Gods presence, although I know He is always there because He claims to be omnipresent even when sometimes I don't feel like he is. I don't always trust my feelings, but I trust God's Word on this.

 

I'm glad you opened up about your background. Going to Church, reading the Bible, baptism, communion, praying etc are all good things, but it doesn't make someone a Christian. Only faith in Jesus and what He did for us makes a Christian. Which makes Christianity different to other religions as we can't get to God through good works. It's the Life of Jesus, transferred on to us through faith that he died for our sins that makes us alive in Christ (called Justification - justified before God because of Christ) and then we strive to live a life pleasing to God. We will mess up, but God works in us (sanctification) so God saves us through Jesus, grows us in Jesus, and gives us eternal life because of Jesus.

 

Romans 10:9 - because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
 

Plenty of people say I believe in Jesus, but a real faith strives for Jesus. Jesus had many fans in his time, but not many followers. A lot of his fans fell away. I would strongly encourage you that if there's any interest at all in reading Jesus for yourself, go through the gospel accounts again, ask questions of the text like why did he perform certain miracles, why did he say things to certain people etc, and find out if Jesus really is who he says he is.

 

Peace to you and thank you for sharing.

Yup. I do chruch at Easter, Christmas, and All Saints day with the family (partner is Polish), but I know I'm doing it to make them happy, nit because of faith.

 

(and, morbidly as it sounds, to see the cemetery in Poland - what a spectacle that is. Have you ever seen pictures of it?)

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7 minutes ago, Fktf said:

Genuinely no idea, because I've never experienced anything close to the feeling the presence you talk about. I can't even imagine it, because it feels so remote to the reality I perceive

Ask yourself if you have no idea what proof you need because you don’t want to become a Christian or if you genuinely would become a Christian if you had the proof. This is all moot if you wouldn’t want a relationship with God. 

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12 minutes ago, Benguin said:

You don’t have to care. God invites us all into a relationship with him through grace bought by Jesus Christ. It’s an invitation, not a demand. 

How would I know God exists if it wasn't for other people telling me?

 

If I wasn't born into a religious family and had never been to church how would he invite me?

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6 minutes ago, Benguin said:

I gave a genuine answer. I personally love God and the transformative power and grace. I understand though that many people do not love God and choose to live for themselves, that’s their decision, not mine.

You see this is the link I'm missing and it's a shame you haven't really provided an answer. You say we're all invited into a relationship with God and then when I ask why someone would want to have that relationship, what makes God so special, you haven't really provided an answer. I've never had an answer when I've asked this question. I'm quite an open person but this level of ambiguity is just off putting

 

 

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Just now, Lako42 said:

How would I know God exists if it wasn't for other people telling me?

 

If I wasn't born into a religious family and had never been to church how would he invite me?

Well for starters other people do tell you, so that point is neither here nor there. However there are wonderful testimonies of people coming to faith in countries where bibles are banned. 
 

 

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2 minutes ago, Fktf said:

Yup. I do chruch at Easter, Christmas, and All Saints day with the family (partner is Polish), but I know I'm doing it to make them happy, nit because of faith.

 

(and, morbidly as it sounds, to see the cemetery in Poland - what a spectacle that is. Have you ever seen pictures of it?)

🤣 No I haven't. Can you give me the name of the church so I can Google search, you have me intrigued 😁👍🏼

 

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2 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

You see this is the link I'm missing and it's a shame you haven't really provided an answer. You say we're all invited into a relationship with God and then when I ask why someone would want to have that relationship, what makes God so special, you haven't really provided an answer. I've never had an answer when I've asked this question. I'm quite an open person but this level of ambiguity is just off putting

 

 

I feel I have answered that question several times in this thread. 
 

The transformative power, love and grace are some of the things I love about God. For a more in depth look at what that meant to me have a look at my testimony a few pages back. 

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1 hour ago, Benguin said:

What I can say is that if you genuinely seek him, he will reveal himself.

 

 

I know they've had 1000's of years to put these endless loops into Christianity but fair play it is good work. 

 

So you're either predisposed to believe the horoscope, the conspiracy theory or the message from god, or you aren't. If you aren't you won't see it, if you are, you will. 

Edited by Babylon
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15 minutes ago, Tomassi said:

🤣 No I haven't. Can you give me the name of the church so I can Google search, you have me intrigued 😁👍🏼

 

It is a nationwide thing. 'Poland All Saints Day' will bring up a heap of images. We always visit after sunset, and you'll see why when you look.

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14 hours ago, Fktf said:

Would you share your personal experience of this? 

 

Edit: genuinely trying to understand what this would look like, as I've always thought god doesn't reveal himself - hence it is a faith

 

4 hours ago, Benguin said:

Go back to the question I asked earlier. If you had absolute proof it was true, would you become a Christian? 

 

40 minutes ago, Fktf said:

I can't see how anyone, or at least the vast majority, would say no. But I guess what I'm trying to get at is, what would does absolute proof actually look like?

 

38 minutes ago, Benguin said:

What would be absolute proof to you? 

 

35 minutes ago, Fktf said:

Genuinely no idea, because I've never experienced anything close to the feeling the presence you talk about. I can't even imagine it, because it feels so remote to the reality I perceive

 

28 minutes ago, Benguin said:

I can’t speak for how he answers to others, only how he answered to me. What I can say is that if you genuinely seek him, he will reveal himself.

 

 

 

26 minutes ago, Benguin said:

Ask yourself if you have no idea what proof you need because you don’t want to become a Christian or if you genuinely would become a Christian if you had the proof. This is all moot if you wouldn’t want a relationship with God. 

I'm stuck in a loop. I want to understand what believers have taken to be absolute proof - but the answer (which gets phrased as a question) seems to be 'find out for yourself, once you've decided you want to accept the proof'. Like @Babylonhas been saying, it sounds like belief (or lack of) determines whether people attribute events to being related to God (or not). How could a non-believer ever break the cycle, if accepting proof means you first have to believe.

 

Which brings me back to the question - what does absolute proof look like? 

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If people have roamed the earth for 6 million years, yet the oldest known religion is 5-6000 years. Where was God the rest of the time? 

 

And where do the dinosaurs fit in? Coz I met a super religious yank at uni who honestly thought they were a test of faith. 

 

I mean that's just ****ing bonkers!

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21 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

I started typing a post about the morality thing last night but it was a bit shit so I left it, thankfully @Dahnsouff has already pretty well covered my thoughts in more elegant terms than I was coming up with.

 

@Benguin I think one big problem with your arguments is the recurring theme that God is an absolute measurement of goodness.  How does that work?  Is there some 'God scale' by which all Christians can objectively measure and apply an empirical number to the ethical value of an action?  If not, how is God objectively the absolute measure of good?

Still waiting on an answer to the bottom bit here.  For all the talk of absolutes there's little demonstration of understanding what that actually means.

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14 minutes ago, Fktf said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm stuck in a loop. I want to understand what believers have taken to be absolute proof - but the answer (which gets phrased as a question) seems to be 'find out for yourself, once you've decided you want to accept the proof'. Like @Babylonhas been saying, it sounds like belief (or lack of) determines whether people attribute events to being related to God (or not). How could a non-believer ever break the cycle, if accepting proof means you first have to believe.

 

Which brings me back to the question - what does absolute proof look like? 

Your asking me to quantify what absolute proof is for you. I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking. If Jesus appeared before you and allowed you to poke your fingers through the holes in his body from where the nails were, would you become a Christian? I’m not asking whether you would believe if you had proof, I’m asking if you had proof, would you follow? 

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57 minutes ago, Benguin said:

I can’t speak for how he answers to others, only how he answered to me. What I can say is that if you genuinely seek him, he will reveal himself.

 

 

Speak for it then.  How did they (not he, I don't subscribe to the chauvinistic notion that god is Male, I doubt God is gender binary at all) reveal themselves?

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3 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Still waiting on an answer to the bottom bit here.  For all the talk of absolutes there's little demonstration of understanding what that actually means.

I do apologise, I’m sure you can appreciate that I’m in numerous conversations on this thread and also have a life outside of foxestalk, so please forgive me for missing this.

 

An absolute standard of good, power, truth etc is the definition of God. So if absolute standards exist, God exists. If the atheistic worldview is correct we wouldn’t expect absolute standards because of the points you made. 

 

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4 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Speak for it then.  How did they (not he, I don't subscribe to the chauvinistic notion that god is Male, I doubt God is gender binary at all) reveal themselves?

Through love, peace, grace and transformation. If you go back a few pages I’ve written of my personal testimony in more detail. 

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17 minutes ago, RobHawk said:

If people have roamed the earth for 6 million years, yet the oldest known religion is 5-6000 years. Where was God the rest of the time? 

 

And where do the dinosaurs fit in? Coz I met a super religious yank at uni who honestly thought they were a test of faith. 

 

I mean that's just ****ing bonkers!

Im sure you’ve asked this and I’ve answered already. Bare with me I’ll have a look, if not I’ll reply.

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24 minutes ago, Fktf said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm stuck in a loop. I want to understand what believers have taken to be absolute proof - but the answer (which gets phrased as a question) seems to be 'find out for yourself, once you've decided you want to accept the proof'. Like @Babylonhas been saying, it sounds like belief (or lack of) determines whether people attribute events to being related to God (or not). How could a non-believer ever break the cycle, if accepting proof means you first have to believe.

 

Which brings me back to the question - what does absolute proof look like? 

I think it can happen, I know a few people who found god later in life and I've seen a fair few documentaries, read a few things. (Now, it's a very thin amount of evidence here, so I'm not suggesting this is the case for everyone). But they all pretty much had the same thing in common.

 

They were in a bit of a mess in different ways and looking for a way out of it. From drink and drugs, break downs in multiple relationships, extreme feelings of loneliness and the like.  They weren't believers, but life circumstances meant they were looking for something else. A way out, company, help etc. 

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5 minutes ago, Babylon said:

I think it can happen, I know a few people who found god later in life and I've seen a fair few documentaries, read a few things. (Now, it's a very thin amount of evidence here, so I'm not suggesting this is the case for everyone). But they all pretty much had the same thing in common.

 

They were in a bit of a mess in different ways and looking for a way out of it. From drink and drugs, break downs in multiple relationships, extreme feelings of loneliness and the like.  They weren't believers, but life circumstances meant they were looking for something else. A way out, company, help etc. 

I don’t think the “people believe to escape their sad lives” argument is based on evidence at all.

 

- Firstly all most all people have a sob story. 
- Those that have more hardship and are transformed by Jesus are far more likely to be telling their stories.

- if Jesus didn’t transform peoples lives, we’d expect church to be full to the brim of misery, not heartfelt worship. 

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I am a bit woolly on the whole absolute term, what IS an absolute in terms of proof or morality - in whose judgement is this proof recognised? I assume God? Or could we include mathematicians, scientist? 

 

 

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37 minutes ago, Benguin said:

Your asking me to quantify what absolute proof is for you. I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking. If Jesus appeared before you and allowed you to poke your fingers through the holes in his body from where the nails were, would you become a Christian? I’m not asking whether you would believe if you had proof, I’m asking if you had proof, would you follow? 

I'm not posting clearly enough, sorry. If proof is proof for me, but not for someone else, I wouldn't call it absolute proof. Now the example you've given would be absolute proof - because it would probably work for anyone.

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20 minutes ago, Benguin said:

I do apologise, I’m sure you can appreciate that I’m in numerous conversations on this thread and also have a life outside of foxestalk, so please forgive me for missing this.

 

An absolute standard of good, power, truth etc is the definition of God. So if absolute standards exist, God exists. If the atheistic worldview is correct we wouldn’t expect absolute standards because of the points you made. 

 

So we define God as a universal constant and therefore he must exist because we can observe things like universal laws of physics?  Holy confirmation bias, Batman!  Those universal constants are results of our understandings of the physical world based on testable observations. What testable observation upholds the universal constant of God's goodness?

 

This is just a rehash of the argument that God is perfect, that one requirement for a thing to be perfect is that it must exist, therefore because we previously defined God as perfect we've proved he exists.  It's circular logic. You can't define a parameter you wish to test then use that parameter as evidence for itself.

 

 

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