God and evil are the two different segments. The more we read about it, the more questions come up which are left unanswered. Instead of looking for answers to these questions, it is better to find peace with them and to accept and cherish the spiritual powers around it. That’s the beauty of nature and we should try to make peace with it.
The Hard Questions
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God and evil are the two different segments. The more we read about it, the more questions come up which are left unanswered. Instead of looking for answers to these questions, it is better to find peace with them and to accept and cherish the spiritual powers around it. That’s the beauty of nature and we should try to make peace with it.
What Stu wrote is in blue and smaller letters. My response is black and larger.
First of all, thanks for the civil response. It's especially refreshing to be able to have an exchange with you without the usual insults that seem to have invariably accompanied conversations with others on this subject.
I feel the same. There’s really no point in adding personal attacks to a rational discussion. And thanks for giving a well-thought out response.
I've read through your log and after doing so have to say dude, if you are only going to argue in the form of "Scripture" It's what it says so it must be true, then we ain't going to get very far.
A way to think about it is that neither of us were there thousands of years ago at creation, or in your view, millions of years ago when something came from nothing. So, as in any event that took place in the past, we have to look for “evidences.” Courts use written records, pictures of damages, witnesses, expert witnesses, etc to be believable enough to be considered for a possible conviction. Jurors might be misled and convict an innocent or let a guilty person go free, but they have to work with what is supplied to them.
In the same way, I do not think it at all unreliable, unsound, or unreasonable to view the Jewish writings as historical documents of the history of their own people. If one thinks of it as their prophets giving witnesses to things that God had told them, then you have “witnesses” who were also bound by their own law NOT to lie to another and contained harsh warnings for anyone attempting to make up revelations not direct from God. So, as in a court case, there is evidence. Regarding the evaluation of the character of the witnesses, they have been presented as being trustworthy.
One thing I’m trying to show by using the Scriptures foretelling of Jesus is that there is a common theme written throughout the hundreds of years spanning the writings of Scripture. This by itself is an evidence. Think of a lawyer presenting his witnesses in a courtroom. He calls up prophet after prophet who wrote describing God’s revelations to them. The revelations reveal the SAME God being revealed to each prophet. The same, everlasting Good Character who will not tolerate sin, yet offers forgiveness.
AND many of them have a common theme of talking of a future coming Messiah. Jews acknowledge the multiple prophecies of a coming one to rule the world, their Messiah. Christians see that, believe that, but have also come to understand these ancient prophecies have foretold a “Suffering” Messiah as well….which is understood as being fulfilled by Jesus in his First coming and yet to be fulfilled in His second coming.
AND to have a specific event, or even several events take place in Jesus’ life that were written before by prophets who said they spoke for God….well, it’s NOT unsound or unreasonable to give careful consideration to them as “WITNESSES.” If a court can use people as witnesses for determining guilt or innocence, then it’s a valid method for determining actions that happened in the past. Now, that doesn’t mean just because someone says they are a witness, that what they say is true. Everything has to be evaluated for it’s believablility...in court as well as in life and certainly in this discussion.
So, I’m presenting this to you. You will make the decision of whether or not you will accept it’s validity, for yourself. But what you or I decide, does not determine it’s validity. What we believe has no effect whatsoever on whether or not it’s true.
To be fair though, I do appreciate you've given some explanation of reasons why you believe in God, but I do find they come accross as unreliable, unsound and unreasonable.
What I'm saying is, the Bible is a collection of (fictional)stories and you are using the contents of those stories as evidences that they are true. So we're still doing... the Bible's true because the Bible's true... thing.
To address a couple of your examples which I understand form the crux of your position.
It's true peeps carried out animal sacrifices for centuries before Bible God, and during the time when authors started writing stories about Bible God they were doing the same.
The bizarre tale about God talking to a snake (ie "protoevangelium", religion likes to use big words for its absurdities), has God first requiring animal sacrifice before he gets round to killing himself in the form of a human sacrifice while he was being Jesus.
But of course any author can write a so called prophecy like this one and fulfill it later in the story. You can't use the story as "evidences" that the story is true. That's just silly .
What? Did I understand you correctly? “any author can write a so called prophecy like this one and fulfill it later in the story”
That’s right! Just like anything you read, the author can make a prophecy and fulfill it. In this case, the people authors spanned several hundreds of years, claimed God told them what to write, that He was the Author….and God DID fulfill His own prophecy.
What’s also amazing is that SO MANY witnesses, or authors, had a part being the mouth for God in predicting Jesus.
Similarly with your argument that the Bible declares a "God with us" Jesus character will be born in Bethlehem, then tada, in the very same Bible, the "God with us" Jesus character is born in Bethlehem. What? If that is a prophesy fulfilled, anyone can do it. Write a story, make a prophesy in it, then a few pages later, or even in a separate story altogether, make it come true.
Anyone can write a prophecy and make it happen? Micah, the verse in my earlier post was written around 700 B.C. and is accepted by the Jewish people of today as being from their prophets.
It is not anything like you have a rational let alone logical argument here dude.
OK, if you weren’t going to listen to Micah, a witness from 700 years before Jesus was born who told that the Ruler of Israel would be born in Bethlehem and that He existed previously, then maybe you will consider this:
Isaiah, a different “witness,” wrote between 740 B.C and c. 686 B.C. The book of Isaiah in chapter 53 details a coming Substitute for sin:
4 Indeed, he bore our illnesses, and our pains-he carried them, yet we accounted him as plagued, smitten by God and oppressed.
5 But he was pained because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his wound we are healed.
6 We all went astray like sheep, we have turned, each one on his way, and the Lord accepted his prayers for the iniquity of us all.
Let me interject here that as Jesus was was dying on the cross, He was praying and interceding for all and specifically for those who crucified Him. “Jesus kept saying, “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.” Luke 23:34 International Standard Version
I took the Isaiah 53 translation and link below from a Jewish (not Christian) site to show that the book of Isaiah and this translation is respected by the Jewish community as an accurate translation.
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15984
I know someone who is a Jew who converted to Christianity. He told a group of us that he read this passage from Isaiah to his mother. She responded by getting upset with him for talking to her about his new belief in Jesus. She was very surprised to find out that it came from the book of Isaiah, which is a book, or I think he said scroll, that is kept in her synagogue. The point, once again, is that it's not like Jesus or his disciples inserted these prophecies into the Scriptures also held sacred by Judaism.
Another thing to think about is that all the early disciples and the large number of those who first became Christians were Jewish. They would have known the Scriptures well and known if they had been tinkered with. But what happened is that many believed and some even gave their lives for that belief.
I feel sure religious faith would encourage you to believe otherwise and that's ok if it's what rocks your boat, but if you are to be honest, it's most likely just not going to be possible for you to support what you believe with any reasoning.
On your end points, I really don't think your assertion that something cannot come out of nothing because it would take an Imaginary Giant Sky Goblin to intelligently magic everything, is at all compelling.
OK, but remember, it’s not dependent on what you or I want to “think.”
The law of conservation of mass states that matter is neither created nor destroyed.
The law of the conservation of energy is that energy is neither created nor destroyed.
These were combined after Albert Einstein discovered that the total amount of mass and energy in the universe is constant. https://www.chemteam.info/Thermochem/Law-Cons-Mass-Energy.html
Is it more reasonable to believe that God has always existed and willed to bring forth creation, so that our matter and energy came from a Source, or to believe that contrary scientific laws, matter and energy came about from nothing?
Nevertheless, many thanks too for the discussion. I'm open to hearing any logical and reasonable reasons why Christians believe the Bible. But ones other than the reliance upon blind uncompromising religious faith please, which serves only to distort and delude what would otherwise render itself to be no more than fiction, fantasy and fairy tale.
I believe what I’ve presented is logical and reasonable. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to defend my faith from the accusation that it is unreasonable.
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Apparently Randy Alcorn wrote a book about heaven, with corresponding resources being made available online. I will be posting some of his thoughts excerpted from the Internet here. He cites the Bible passages on which he bases his conclusions, but I'm going to omit them so as not to interrupt the flow of thought. Also, I'm copying and pasting these entries simply as a reference for myself and NOT because I necessarily agree with what Randy has to say...
Heaven is a real, tangible reality:
Heaven is an actual place, in an actual location, designed by God with people in mind. Beings have traveled to and from heaven, including Christ, angels, and humans.
Jesus, speaking as the bridegroom to his beloved bride, said to us, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also." Heaven is that place.
The New Earth, where the heavenly city will be brought down to and relocated, will be a vastly improved form of the present earth and will have much in common with it, such as light, water, trees & fruit, people, and animals. The New Earth will be a far better version of the old earth, but with the same essential components.
Heaven will exist within the realm of the New Earth and will therefore be very earthly in its properties. Since it is not only the dwelling place of God, but it is fashioned by God to be populated by people, the present heaven is also people-friendly, designed with their God-given desires and interests in mind.
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What heaven is like:
Heaven is both a country and a city. A country is typically a large territory of various geographies, with citizens of diverse cultures and vocations, sometimes even languages, under one government that provides a common identity. A city is a place of many residences in near proximity. A city's inhabitants are subject to the common government. Cities usually have varied and bustling activity, community events, education, arts, and visitors.
Heaven is and will be a place of great beauty, both natural created beauty and architecture, including streets of gold and buildings of pearls and emeralds and precious stones. Heaven will have the advantages we associate with earthly cities, without the disadvantages (e.g. crime, pollution, corruption).
Heaven's gates are always open. People will travel in and out, some bringing treasures into the city. Travel outside the city shows that the city is not the whole of heaven, but merely its center. The great city is the capital of an endless empire, called a heavenly country.
There is a universe outside the city's gates, to which its citizens have free access. (Cities are characterized by visitors coming in and occupants going out for various reasons.)
Heaven is both a country and a city. A country is typically a large territory of various geographies, with citizens of diverse cultures and vocations, sometimes even languages, under one government that provides a common identity. A city is a place of many residences in near proximity. A city's inhabitants are subject to the common government. Cities usually have varied and bustling activity, community events, education, arts, and visitors.
Heaven is and will be a place of great beauty, both natural created beauty and architecture, including streets of gold and buildings of pearls and emeralds and precious stones. Heaven will have the advantages we associate with earthly cities, without the disadvantages (e.g. crime, pollution, corruption).
Heaven's gates are always open. People will travel in and out, some bringing treasures into the city. Travel outside the city shows that the city is not the whole of heaven, but merely its center. The great city is the capital of an endless empire, called a heavenly country.
There is a universe outside the city's gates, to which its citizens have free access. (Cities are characterized by visitors coming in and occupants going out for various reasons.)
What will people do in heaven?
Rest from our labors on earth. Heaven's labor will be refreshing, productive and unthwarted, without futility and frustration. Perhaps it will be like the work Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, before sin brought the curse on the ground, with its thorns. Our work will be more purposeful in light of Christ's redemptive work and the glory it will have brought.
Eat and drink and celebrate at the table with Christ and the redeemed saints from earth, communicating and fellowshipping and storytelling and rejoicing with them. Communication, dialogue, corporate worship, and other relationship-building interactions all take place in heaven. Saints and angels and God himself will interact together, building and deepening their relationships.
Worship God. Multitudes of God's people, of every nation, tribe, people, and language, will gather to sing praise to God for his greatness, wisdom, power, grace, and mighty work of redemption. (Expiated's comment: To my ear, worship sounds like it is all about stroking God's ego. But in my experience, worship is a two-way transaction/interaction during which I receive more from God than what I am offering to Him.)
In heaven we will serve God. Service is not passive, but active. It involves fulfilling responsibilities, carrying out duties, expending effort, and having energy and creativity to do work well. (This will be work with lasting accomplishment, unhindered by decay and fatigue, and enhanced by unlimited resources.)
In heaven we will exercise leadership and authority, making important decisions. We will reign with Christ in heaven. This implies specific delegated responsibilities for those under our leadership. We judge or rule over the world and we judge and rule over angels.
The concept of endlessly floating on clouds doing nothing but singing or strumming a harp is not rooted in Scripture.
Rest from our labors on earth. Heaven's labor will be refreshing, productive and unthwarted, without futility and frustration. Perhaps it will be like the work Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, before sin brought the curse on the ground, with its thorns. Our work will be more purposeful in light of Christ's redemptive work and the glory it will have brought.
Eat and drink and celebrate at the table with Christ and the redeemed saints from earth, communicating and fellowshipping and storytelling and rejoicing with them. Communication, dialogue, corporate worship, and other relationship-building interactions all take place in heaven. Saints and angels and God himself will interact together, building and deepening their relationships.
Worship God. Multitudes of God's people, of every nation, tribe, people, and language, will gather to sing praise to God for his greatness, wisdom, power, grace, and mighty work of redemption. (Expiated's comment: To my ear, worship sounds like it is all about stroking God's ego. But in my experience, worship is a two-way transaction/interaction during which I receive more from God than what I am offering to Him.)
In heaven we will serve God. Service is not passive, but active. It involves fulfilling responsibilities, carrying out duties, expending effort, and having energy and creativity to do work well. (This will be work with lasting accomplishment, unhindered by decay and fatigue, and enhanced by unlimited resources.)
In heaven we will exercise leadership and authority, making important decisions. We will reign with Christ in heaven. This implies specific delegated responsibilities for those under our leadership. We judge or rule over the world and we judge and rule over angels.
The concept of endlessly floating on clouds doing nothing but singing or strumming a harp is not rooted in Scripture.
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I thought only God judges and rules. What's with all these other people passing judgement and dictating rules? That would however offer some explanation of why the world is so screwed up. Too many cooks spoiling the pot.
Nice story about heaven though. Not a shred of actual evidence that such a place exists, but I suppose we all need something to hang on to during difficult times.
I just attended a wake for a friend which brings me to ask the only real question that matters. Is he gone as in nothing left, gone for good to the nothingness, or whatever his life force has morphed into simply gone to another place, whatever that place may be? Those are the only two considerations, both quite disconcerting when you think about it given there is no evidence of either being true, but one must be.
I debated whether to respond to your post. Perhaps it is a mistake, but I'm going to go ahead and do so...
"Nice story..." can be applied to God as much as to heaven, so I'm struggling to understand from what point of view you are writing your comments. Why would you think only God judges and rules if there is no heaven, in which case, it would follow that there is no God who is judging and ruling, or at least, not the God of the Bible?
If you mean that you know there is no God, but you thought that Christians believe only the God of the Bible judges and rules, from where are you getting that? The Bible itself is the primary evidence on which I personally base my belief in Yahweh and what I understand Him to be like. And according to this document, God intended for human beings to rule from the very beginning. For God said...
"Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
And of course, there is...
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it..."
2 Timothy 2:12A says to believers "...if we endure, we will also rein with him."
In Revelation 3:21, Jesus says "To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne."
Revelation 22:5B states: "They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever."
The parable of the ten minas in the 19th chapter of Luke implies that Jesus will give his followers authority in heaven in accordance with what kind of stewards they were for God while here on the earth.
And in 1 Corinthians 6 the Apostle Paul asks, "Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels?
I can't tell if you are basing what you believe about spiritual things from one or more sources, or if you are just making it up yourself. But being someone who is relatively familiar with Scripture, it doesn't sound to me like you are basing it on the Bible.
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Captain Obvious wrote: "Those are the only two considerations, both quite disconcerting when you think about it given there is no evidence of either being true, but one must be."
First of all, I want to say I'm sorry for your loss.
As far as your statement that there is no evidence to be sure of what lies beyond death, I would like to bring to your attention that there are some good reasons that support Christians' beliefs in the Bible and God.
One person I have personally found to be a good scholar on the subject is Lee Strobel. He was an atheist and an investigative journalist for 14 years with the Chicago Tribune. He has degrees from the University of Missouri and Yale Law School
He has written a detailed account of how he decided to investigate Christianity to prove it wrong and ended up becoming a believer.
This you tube video, Lee Strobel: The Case for Christ, is a documentary of that journey.
The time stamps for places in the video I thought were particularly interesting are as follows:
12:00 The reliability of the gospels
15:12 His objections to belief because of apparent contradictions within the gospels
17:25 Better manuscript attestation to the New Testament than any other ancient document
31:40 Reasons to believe the miraculous Jesus did actually happened
46:00 Jesus rising from the dead
57:45 Other reasons that support Jesus rising from the dead
1:06:00 Lee Strobel's conclusion. ”In light of this avalanche of evidence pointing to the truth of Christianity it would require more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a follower of Jesus Christ.”