<<<<<<<I believe that if God really exists and if He is truly a God of love, I will find those answers.>>>>
For someone to love you you have to communicate for "real". The love you speak of is the same as when you thought Santa Loved you... or this friend of mine had it in his head that a girl in another State loved him, he had it all worked out in his head and heart.... really feeling her love, only to find out later that she had married someone else. We can create love that is real to us from nothing.... if we "believe".
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Picture of God
Why did I come here? Well I find that many atheists believe that Christians are obnoxious people living in a fairy tale with no proof. I wanted to show that this is not always true.
Perhaps you cant see God weeping over the people of the world (he was mourning for the world as a whole) but I admire Him all the more for it. But then, a lot of people think I am gay, so maybe that has something to do with it (I am not gay, BTW, but I guess I can be rather eccentric).
I have often wondered why God does not come here in person, and I think I stumbled on the answer a while ago. Picture a factory, in it we have the workers who work well because they want to and those who just do their part and go home. Lets say that the CEO of the company decides to stop by this particular factory and see how everything is going. Now, all the workers are probably going to put on a show of efficiency. But are they really like this? Now, if God came to earth today, and hung out with us. Wed all buddy up to Him, but would we really mean it? Wed be hanging out with the big guy, trying to get on His good side. We would not be hanging out with Him because we really loved Him. He wants true friends not suck-ups.
All right, maybe you dont assume that but I know plenty of people who do, so I jumped to a conclusion, sorry referring to abiogenesis.
SD said: Tolkien was writing a fantasy. As were the authors of the JC Bible, IMNSHO.
Hmm, I disagree. I dont think that the authors were writing fiction at all. They may have added God to make it look good, but the historical veracity is stainless. People used to thing that the Bible was making up the story about the angel of God killing Sennacharib(sp?). Guess what, they later found an Assyrian record confirming it. This has happened time and time again in the Bible. For a time, it was doubted that Nebuchadnezzar existed, but because of records that were written by the Babylonians, that ancient king is now found in most history books. I could cite many other stories like this. Archeologists have given up trying to disprove the history presented in the Bible because evidence keeps getting found. So while the addition of God may be fiction, the history has not been proved false and much has been proved true.
Critical thinking made EZ and SD, you have made good points about belief. I do not believe in something that is completely baseless, I have my evidence. I am cautious to present this, but I think I should.
I have asked God to speak to me as long as I can remember. I would reason, God if you really exist, you should have no problem speaking to me. When I was thirteen, I was having a problem with something, I dont remember what, but I do remember struggling to solve it, and then, in my mind I heard something say, Leslie, this is what you need to do. I reason that God spoke to me, because the solution was perfect for that problem. Of course, I could have just tapped into a well of human intelligence waiting to be found in my brain. I choose to believe it was God and it still happens. I can tell you about the time when an invisible hand shove my small 12 year old frame out of the way of a front loader in a ware house. I live in Asia and I can tell numerous stories of what I believe point to God. In China, a woman left for church one Sabbath, she returned to find a thief by her rice bin. To her surprise, the man stayed still and did not run. She took the advantage to tell him why she was a Christian. When she finished, he was touched and told her why he was still there. Several hours before, he had finished emptying out her rice bin into a sack and found that he could not move his legs past a certain point. He figured he had too much rice, and put some back in the bin. He still could not move. He continued to empty his bag until he had no more rice in the sack. He still could not move. He stayed frozen there until the woman returned.
I can tell about healing and demons, but I wont, because they would probably mean nothing to you. Another story that happened to me (actually to people I now well) occurred while I was living in the Philippines. A small family there runs an orphanage and one day they completely ran out of food. Near lunchtime, one of the girls suggested that they pray. At the same time, a professor and his wife, from the graduate school where I was living, were finishing there shopping in the town. The professor got a strange urge to buy a large sack of rice. He brushed the thought away because he had bought rice the other day. He kept getting this feeling, when suddenly his wife turned to him and said, We need to get a sack of rice. That did it, and he turned around and bought the rice. He was wondering what to do with it and he got the feeling he should take it to the orphanage. He decided to wait and see if his wife had the same feeling. She didm and they got to the orphanage just as the family had finished praying
Now there may be other explanations for this, but as my one of my favorite authors Ellen White said, God always leaves room for doubt, but there is always enough evidence as well.
Bible prophecies have always fascinated me, and have always come true in the past. Unfortunately, Christians have had a bad habit of turning everything in the Bible into a prophecy. This of course makes it easy for critics to knock these over. But Ill show you of few of my favorites.
The prophecy of Jesus in Daniel:
In the year 457 B.C., Daniel was told by an angel that in seventy weeks of years (literally 490 years) minus 1 week (7 years), salvation would come to the world. That gives us the date of 31 A.D. the year that Jesus began his ministry. The book of Daniel was written about four and a half centuries before the birth of Christ, and it lands neatly on that date. Oh, can I cite the Koran as a reference? Since it also confirms the time and place of Jesus ministry.
The prophecy of the spread of Islam in Revelation:
Revelation speaks about a fifth trumpet and the swarm of locust after it sounds. If we compare the area where the desert locust resides to the are the Muslims conquered, the look almost exactly the same. John was also told that the locusts would hold power for 150 years. Guess how long the Muslims were able to hold power when they first rose up. The Bible also predicts the return of the Muslims as a world force later in history.
I still have my doubts, but I do feel more comfortable knowing I have a base to rest on. This is not mean to convince you, it probably cant and I wouldnt want it too. But I just wanted to give you a sample of the evidence that makes my faith.
[This message has been edited by Freego (edited May 05, 2001).]
Perhaps you cant see God weeping over the people of the world (he was mourning for the world as a whole) but I admire Him all the more for it. But then, a lot of people think I am gay, so maybe that has something to do with it (I am not gay, BTW, but I guess I can be rather eccentric).
I have often wondered why God does not come here in person, and I think I stumbled on the answer a while ago. Picture a factory, in it we have the workers who work well because they want to and those who just do their part and go home. Lets say that the CEO of the company decides to stop by this particular factory and see how everything is going. Now, all the workers are probably going to put on a show of efficiency. But are they really like this? Now, if God came to earth today, and hung out with us. Wed all buddy up to Him, but would we really mean it? Wed be hanging out with the big guy, trying to get on His good side. We would not be hanging out with Him because we really loved Him. He wants true friends not suck-ups.
All right, maybe you dont assume that but I know plenty of people who do, so I jumped to a conclusion, sorry referring to abiogenesis.
SD said: Tolkien was writing a fantasy. As were the authors of the JC Bible, IMNSHO.
Hmm, I disagree. I dont think that the authors were writing fiction at all. They may have added God to make it look good, but the historical veracity is stainless. People used to thing that the Bible was making up the story about the angel of God killing Sennacharib(sp?). Guess what, they later found an Assyrian record confirming it. This has happened time and time again in the Bible. For a time, it was doubted that Nebuchadnezzar existed, but because of records that were written by the Babylonians, that ancient king is now found in most history books. I could cite many other stories like this. Archeologists have given up trying to disprove the history presented in the Bible because evidence keeps getting found. So while the addition of God may be fiction, the history has not been proved false and much has been proved true.
Critical thinking made EZ and SD, you have made good points about belief. I do not believe in something that is completely baseless, I have my evidence. I am cautious to present this, but I think I should.
I have asked God to speak to me as long as I can remember. I would reason, God if you really exist, you should have no problem speaking to me. When I was thirteen, I was having a problem with something, I dont remember what, but I do remember struggling to solve it, and then, in my mind I heard something say, Leslie, this is what you need to do. I reason that God spoke to me, because the solution was perfect for that problem. Of course, I could have just tapped into a well of human intelligence waiting to be found in my brain. I choose to believe it was God and it still happens. I can tell you about the time when an invisible hand shove my small 12 year old frame out of the way of a front loader in a ware house. I live in Asia and I can tell numerous stories of what I believe point to God. In China, a woman left for church one Sabbath, she returned to find a thief by her rice bin. To her surprise, the man stayed still and did not run. She took the advantage to tell him why she was a Christian. When she finished, he was touched and told her why he was still there. Several hours before, he had finished emptying out her rice bin into a sack and found that he could not move his legs past a certain point. He figured he had too much rice, and put some back in the bin. He still could not move. He continued to empty his bag until he had no more rice in the sack. He still could not move. He stayed frozen there until the woman returned.
I can tell about healing and demons, but I wont, because they would probably mean nothing to you. Another story that happened to me (actually to people I now well) occurred while I was living in the Philippines. A small family there runs an orphanage and one day they completely ran out of food. Near lunchtime, one of the girls suggested that they pray. At the same time, a professor and his wife, from the graduate school where I was living, were finishing there shopping in the town. The professor got a strange urge to buy a large sack of rice. He brushed the thought away because he had bought rice the other day. He kept getting this feeling, when suddenly his wife turned to him and said, We need to get a sack of rice. That did it, and he turned around and bought the rice. He was wondering what to do with it and he got the feeling he should take it to the orphanage. He decided to wait and see if his wife had the same feeling. She didm and they got to the orphanage just as the family had finished praying
Now there may be other explanations for this, but as my one of my favorite authors Ellen White said, God always leaves room for doubt, but there is always enough evidence as well.
Bible prophecies have always fascinated me, and have always come true in the past. Unfortunately, Christians have had a bad habit of turning everything in the Bible into a prophecy. This of course makes it easy for critics to knock these over. But Ill show you of few of my favorites.
The prophecy of Jesus in Daniel:
In the year 457 B.C., Daniel was told by an angel that in seventy weeks of years (literally 490 years) minus 1 week (7 years), salvation would come to the world. That gives us the date of 31 A.D. the year that Jesus began his ministry. The book of Daniel was written about four and a half centuries before the birth of Christ, and it lands neatly on that date. Oh, can I cite the Koran as a reference? Since it also confirms the time and place of Jesus ministry.
The prophecy of the spread of Islam in Revelation:
Revelation speaks about a fifth trumpet and the swarm of locust after it sounds. If we compare the area where the desert locust resides to the are the Muslims conquered, the look almost exactly the same. John was also told that the locusts would hold power for 150 years. Guess how long the Muslims were able to hold power when they first rose up. The Bible also predicts the return of the Muslims as a world force later in history.
I still have my doubts, but I do feel more comfortable knowing I have a base to rest on. This is not mean to convince you, it probably cant and I wouldnt want it too. But I just wanted to give you a sample of the evidence that makes my faith.
[This message has been edited by Freego (edited May 05, 2001).]