What is your religion or lack therof?

[rcanfiel]

Quote from overtooled:

absence of evidence IS evidence..

elephants are large heavy creatures. it is reasonable they would leave footprints. i haven't seen any elephant footprints (lately . it's reasonable to conclude "there are no elephants in my neighborhood."

A God would leave footprints too

This assumes great ability on the part of people to see the footprints. And it assumes great ability on our part to understand the infinite.

They have calculated that the universe is 11 dimensional. Although mathematics can represent it, as 3 dimensional creatures, we really have little clue what this actually means. We cannot comprehend it.

Scientifically, we are still in diapers.

 

[rcanfiel]

Quote from pamjoey:

You either serve God or Satan. <i>We get to make this decision for ourselves. But, to unbelievers, let me say, coming from the word of God, we serve one or the other, there is no choice. </i>

I never found what I was looking for, until, <i>I made a strong effort, to stop sinning, and seek God. </i>

I know you mean well, but you had nothing to do with your own regeneration. This is completely an act of God. We do not make this decision for ourselves, and it did not come from your effort to stop sinning and seek God. This is unscriptural.

See John 1 and analysis below:
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A key statement on the new birth is found in the prologue to John’s gospel: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12-13). Here the apostle distinguishes between the one true and several false views of regeneration.

There is a popular misconception that being born again results from a person’s decision to invite Christ into his life. This view is widely held in Baptist, Nazarene, Wesleyan, Pentecostal and independent churches. It is the view of most evangelists doing area-wide crusades. This view may be designated decisional regeneration. It is demonstrably faulty, for it contradicts the express teaching that being born again is not “of the will of the flesh.” What does this mean? The New International Version renders this: “not of human decision.” John’s point is that an individual by making a decision does not cause his own new birth.

Furthermore, this view gravely misunderstands the nature of unregenerate and unconverted man: that he is spiritually dead—utterly and hopelessly and irrecoverably dead by nature. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). In the second chapter of Ephesians the Apostle Paul paints a graphic picture of the sinner’s utterly hopeless condition outside of Christ: he is dead in trespasses and sins, a follower of Satan, given over to disobedience, the child of wrath by nature. Such an individual has not the slightest interest in giving up his sin and turning to God. He would never change except for direct divine intervention: “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved” (Eph. 2:4-5). The credit for regeneration is not shared between God and man; all the credit goes to God: “But God!” It is God who intervenes to save when man is helpless, spiritually dead and unable to save himself.

In spite of the clear teaching of Scripture, many churches teach that the deciding factor in regeneration is man. P.C. Nelson wrote, “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit cooperate with the sinner in his salvation” (Bible Doctrines: A Series of Studies Based on the Fundamental Beliefs of the Assemblies of God [Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1981], 38). No Scripture proof is offered for this astonishing statement which has absolutely no basis whatsoever in the word of God. It would be bad enough if the author stated, “The sinner cooperates with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in his salvation.” But the way the statement is written the deciding factor in man’s salvation is man himself; God plays only an incidental role. Decisional regeneration must be rejected as contrary to Scripture.

 

[overtooled]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

A theist has intimate knowledge of the limits of his human mind, and seeks something greater than the limited nature of his human mind.

That atheists are found to be most proud of their limited intellect, and limited senses (most humans can't even catch a fly with their bare hands) and seek nothing more than a limited understanding of life, and that is their choice.

Moving beyond atheism starts with the sober admission of the limits of intellect and senses to gain knowledge, and an owning up to the fact that a desire for something that is not limited continually burns a hole in the soul.

Heck, people are free to seek whatever they want, but the theists and atheists both who proclaim they have found the truth, not only for themselves but for others are completely irrational with their claims.

Additionally, making a value judgment about which is the correct personal belief for others to hold is the epitome of ignorance.

Limited senses, limited intellect, limited thinking all will necessarily yield limited conclusions and a limited existence, and if people are actually content with this (though the fact of life is that people are not seen to be content) limited life, then who is in a position to say they are wrong with their devotion to a daily gruel of limited thinking, limited life, limited happiness, limited imagination, limited love and limited knowledge.

You plant a limited seed from a limited tree you get a limited seedling, every single time.

Those who want more, seek more. That many atheists are failed theists need not be a matter of sour grapes, they can simply say "it didn't work for me, maybe it works for them."

So if you think you can be happy in a world filtered through a limited and narrow mind, then be logical and practice acceptance of others who choose a different approach.

Oh, and while sense and intellect have their limitations by their very nature, the emotional human heart has never reached a limit beyond the nature of the closed heart that is controlled by a limited intellect.

Trust in limited thinking, or trust in the nature of the heart and the practice of faith, a personal decision.

I would like to think that the atheist and the theist alike are each seeking the truth. And what can be more liberating than the truth?

But I also know that people may hold their opinion for reasons other than truth seeking, for more personal reasons. However, I suspect more theists (not all) hold their belief for reasons other than simple truth seeking, because their reward (infinite life) is much more immediately gratifying to the psyche. The atheist has nothing to look forward to so to speak

Your argument says, correct me if i am wrong, that simply the "desire for more" is sufficient to know God? The mere desire for more brings knowledge? The theist, as contrast the atheist, desires more and is promptly rewarded with infinite knowledge? ahahah, ahaha LOL

 

[rcanfiel]

Quote from Bubble:

I base my atheism on perhaps "lack of evidence" more than anything else.

I have seen death and critical patients and I honestly think there is nothing at all to worship. The light just goes out when they die. Period.

Religion and heaven are figments of someone's imagination. A way to explain the unexplained. Comfort in the face of certain death. Somehow I think the religious are scared. They take comfort in rituals that honestly make no sense.

The how and why we are sentinent beings has not been explained. Science is limited to what we can sense.

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"I have seen death and critical patients"
Do you work in the medical field?

 

[overtooled]

Quote from rcanfiel:

This assumes great ability on the part of people to see the footprints. And it assumes great ability on our part to understand the infinite.

They have calculated that the universe is 11 dimensional. Although mathematics can represent it, as 3 dimensional creatures, we really have little clue what this actually means. We cannot comprehend it.

Scientifically, we are still in diapers.

I understand what you are saying, but does this mean we shouldn't try to comprehend? An atom is pretty complex and wall street too should we just throw up our hands and say the hell with it all? Or should we use what we have at our disposal, make our best guess and keep learning?

 

[Bubble]

Quote from rcanfiel:

"I have seen death and critical patients"
Do you work in the medical field? [/B]

No I don't....but I spend a LOT of time in hospitals.

 

[overtooled]

i would dearly love to be convinced of a supreme deity or two. but i want the truth! i want to live forever too in paradise my emotional brain wants it real real bad but my rational brain says hold on there just a moment bub..

of course, as Z aptly points out, ultimately doesn't really matter what we think.. it's all decided for us

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from rcanfiel:

...Scientifically, we are still in diapers.

I agree. However, how does your comment validate religious faith as being anything other than a feel-good mechanism? A mechanism that may help some people get through their day, but which places your weaker-minded brethren at the mercy of those predisposed and quite prepared to manipulate them.

Anything which requires that we dispense with the few critical faculties that we do have should not inspire confidence. However primitive our faculties may be, they are all we have and we would be fairly naive to suspend them.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

Your argument says, correct me if i am wrong, that simply the "desire for more" is sufficient to know God?

You are wrong, that's not what I said at all.

A hungry man seeks to find food, but the hunger itself is not sufficient in itself, effort to find the food is necessary.

People have the freedom to choose to believe whatever they want. They can believe that the limited intellect, and limited sense are all that there is, or they can believe there is more to life.

Personal choice.

What the atheists don't seem to understand, perhaps due to their stubbornness, is that you can use the sense and intellect to understand the nature of this limited world and limited material existence, and at the same time seek something more.

Granted the material senses and material intellect are for interacting with the material world, but some seek more than the material world, as they long for something that is not temporal, impermanent, and limited in nature.

So they seek using other tools available to human beings.

At every stage of human development, a person can say based on their limited experience, limited understanding, limited intellect, and limited sensory input...that what they observe and know as a result of limited instrumentation is all that there is.

History has demonstrated that such an approach is flawed.

The limited conclusions may be all that they know, but all that they know is not all that is knowable via human experience.

Quote from overtooled:

I would like to think that the atheist and the theist alike are each seeking the truth. And what can be more liberating than the truth?

But I also know that people may hold their opinion for reasons other than truth seeking, for more personal reasons. However, I suspect more theists (not all) hold their belief for reasons other than simple truth seeking, because their reward (infinite life) is much more immediately gratifying to the psyche. The atheist has nothing to look forward to so to speak

Your argument says, correct me if i am wrong, that simply the "desire for more" is sufficient to know God? The mere desire for more brings knowledge? The theist, as contrast the atheist, desires more and is promptly rewarded with infinite knowledge? ahahah, ahaha LOL

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

We don't have to dispense with critical thinking, we just have to reserve critical thinking for where it is applicable.

Great men and women in the past have shown the ability to use both heart and mind simultaneously to know both God and this world.

If you want to limit yourself to only one part of life, personal choice.

Quote from Thunderdog:

I agree. However, how does your comment validate religious faith as being anything other than a feel-good mechanism? A mechanism that may help some people get through their day, but which places your weaker-minded brethren at the mercy of those predisposed and quite prepared to manipulate them.

Anything which requires that we dispense with the few critical faculties that we do have should not inspire confidence. However primitive our faculties may be, they are all we have and we would be fairly naive to suspend them.