Theists - How can you believe? Seriously ...

Religion is really just very good marketing. I mean, it promises you eternal life. Beat that!

 

Seems to me that our default is ignorance on pretty much everything. As Babies we don’t have any idea about quantum physics either. Do you think that necessarily means quantum physics don’t exist?

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But you see: God earns my trust with every breath I take, every ray of sunshine that tickles my nose, every bird that sings … if you viewed the world with my eyes you’d see God’s love everywhere, even in your darkest and seemingly God-forsaken hours.

 

there is no value judgement associated with our default setting (atheism), either way, nor is there a suggested implication either way. it's just what is. kids LEARN god (as an attempt to exploit the search for patterns), just as they LEARN maths.

I view the world with the same eyes we all view it, given we're lucky enough to have the time and leisure to stop and smell the roses. That is to say I adore it's every natural wonder, and constantly marvel at the beautiful chaos of it. The only difference between me and you is that for me, nature itself is such a marvel that I can't imagine ever getting to the end of my wonder at what it is. You, while clearly finding it wonderful, feel that there must be more to it. It's not enough, in other words. It's enough for me. It would be enough for a thousand lifetimes, all spent on just this one little planet.

 

I'm not opposed to Spirituality or belief in a Higher Power, I don't see evidence for this position, but why RELIGION in that this holy book (any of them) is the divine word of gawd or gawdesses. Especially when said book has little or no support from sciences such as Archeology.

 

IF God exists miracles are no big deal, and you can't prove He doesn't exist. If God wanted to make a donkey speak at one point in space and time to accomplish a specific purpose, it would be only slightly more miraculous than the fact humans speak, alone among creatures.

You prefer to think nothing times nobody equals everything? A 'simple' cell has more information than the Encyclopedia Britannica. Where else do we find information that wasn't put there by someone?

 

Not really, according to Nelson Glueck, former president of the Jewish Theological Seminary at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and one of the greatest archaeologists of the last century, in all of his archaeological investigations he had never one found one artifact of antiquity that contradicted any statement of the Bible.

IMHO, if we can trust the Bible on archaeology we can trust it on the other stuff too.

http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19631213,00.html

 

I would say kids grow up to be agnostic because that's all they know in many households.

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It teaches human depravity also, what is the attraction of that? Why is it that almost all cultures throughout history had some concept of eternal life? Are they all nuts and the few atheists sane? Or maybe the other way around.

 

Agreed, the personal experience of the Christian God from millions of people counts as evidence.

 

What all those cultures at least agree on is that A god exists. The fact there are numerous concepts of God means they can't all be right, but it doesn't mean one idea of God can't be objectively true. For me, it is the Judeo-Christian God.

I am more liberal on this issue than you. You believe, that that long list of cultures is 100% wrong on what is most important to them. I believe they have some some truth, but where they and Christianity disagree Christianity is right and they are wrong.

 

'IF' equates to the tiniest likelihood, in the case of gods. I believe the OP is asking; why would you choose something so incredibly unlikely to be true?

and I hate to break it to ya, but parrots talk - and I'm not talking about the repetition of sounds. check out the African Grey. They use words independently, in the same way we do.

 

evidence of what?

emotions? that people are human? that appeals to popularity are idiotic (unless you believe McFatsos is the finest cuisine in the world - because millions of people eat it every day)?

 

what are these artifacts that this THEOLOGIAN has found which support anything other than prosaic ME history? do these artifacts prove miracles happened?

meantime, that the times and places mentioned in the bible correlate to known history merely indicates that we can assume it was put together in a certain time and place. NOTHING more. all stories and myths have settings, some actual places and times, some fictional. Harry Potter was set in the UK, so does this mean there are real wizards and flying broomsticks?

 

I would ask you in all seriousness, when your mother ceases to exist, where does that love go? Does it exist only in the past?

I ask in the context of the Deist, where there may have been a god of the universe that created all, but is either no longer present or, at least, interested in our daily affairs

 

I would hardly classify people who believe in men getting swallowed by whales and living, a boat with two of every animal on earth, or a man of virgin birth walking on water as "normal".

 

And that grand purpose is....?

 

Where do you see your god's love when you see innocent babies dying horrible deaths of poverty and disease and genocide?

 

the stock answer is that it's man who causes those things, and god allows it as some sort of lesson. it's interesting that they claim this, then pray for job promotions (see thread on prayer) rather than heed the lesson. think about this for a minute .... they believe their god is letting little kids starve to death, to teach them not to be self-indulgent, and they pray for job promotions.

 

Ask God. Matthew 7:7

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Same place it always is.

 

To me Matthew 7:7 sounds like a magic genie that grants wishes. Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Ask and it will be given to you. I pray to be cured of CFS. So when can I expect God to answer my prayer? Seek and you will find. I seek a cure for CFS, so where can I find it? Knock and the door will be opened to you. I just did... my wife looked at me really strange and the door did not open.

 

And many other kids grow up to be agnostic because of what they have experienced in their own household. There are a lot of pseudo Christians out there who do not walk the talk, so no wounder some kids turn away from religion because of the example of their parents.

 

Yes and no. Deism is not about following... Deism is about finding your own way... asking questions and finding your own answers. Yes my take of Deism is not the norm as I do believe that God interacts with His creation to a limited degree but I also admit that it may be a leftover from my Christian indoctrination. I believe in prayer but only as a source of strength... not as a magic wish dispenser.

In Deism textbooks are our Bible and the pursuit of knowledge is our religion. We reject dogma and believe that God gave us a brain to use and He expects us to use it. We each seek our own answers and because of this no two Deists will see God in exactly the same light... nor are we required to.

 

I am in the deist category. Science still can't even begin to explain we much less lower lifeforms formed as the odds of even replicating RNA forming by random chance are so astronomically high as to be inconceivable. However, I find it equally inconceivable that an entity that created the universe actually cares about whether or not I go to church on Sundays or whether or not two gay people marry. It just seems very silly to think an all powerful being would give a damn about anything beyond possibly whether you were a good person or a bad person. And that is assuming that there is an afterlife set up for us.

 

You make him out to be a genie. You must first take a leap of faith. If you don't approach God with trust I don't think you will get anything. God doesn't fix things via magic, but by inspiration.

 

Took the leap of faith in 1987... so now what? Now that I have established that I have faith in God, I trust God, how does this inspiration you speak of cure me of my CFS?