Lmao, OP got b& for christshilling

I am definitely a practical person, I would not believe in something if it did not make logical sense to me. God isn't an extraterrestrial being, and you see Him with your heart. It is difficult to put into words if you have not experienced it, and looking back I should have been more compassionate in explaining what I believe to you.

I believe love is real, I have felt it, I have given it, I have seen it manifest in so many forms. In the Bible it says that God is love, and it was hard to make sense of your earlier arguments because it seemed like you think of God as a specific extraterrestrial entity to believers from the Bible. The truth of the word is that God is love, and that God is all things.

This concept is very profound and difficult to grasp, it took me years of wrestling with this concept to really understand it. It wasn't until I prayed, and praying is just talking to God, that I witnessed Him. I felt Him, and I realized that He is love, but I was just too blind to realize and put two and two together. As I began to realize the profound nature of this truth, I felt compelled to pray.

I bowed my head, closed my eyes, just so I could focus better on Him. Praying is a form of meditation, which just means to focus on something very deeply. Before I even began to speak, I felt His presence in my heart, the presence of love. I asked him for mercy, for straying from His truth, and I asked for His love to enter my heart. That is the moment that I witnessed God, I saw Him with my heart, and I am transformed by His grace.

It is such a profound peace within, a perfect love that simply overwhelms you. I feel as if I am overflowing with love and is just radiating all around me. I don't feel fear, I don't feel doubt or hate, there is no longer a seed of darkness or a glimmer of uncertainty at the core of my heart. I am not fighting, and I apologize sincerely if I had convicted your heart.

I can only lay the word before you and let its truth reach your heart. I cannot make you feel a certain way, and I do not want to play games with your emotions. God is the ultimate truth, and what I want to lay before you is the path to ultimate enlightenment. If you seek the truth, if you are a very skeptic and rationalist type of person, that is okay. I am the same.

If you have ever felt love, from family, from relationships, or even from something simple like a sweet dog/cat, a homemade meal, admiring the beauty of His creation, you have felt God. However, many have made their hearts hard like stone, and they cannot see His love overwhelming the mountains and rivers, moving through all things. It isn't until you open the door of your heart that you witness Him, and it will transform you.

You won't be burdened by fear of anything, you wont be trapped into a state of mental slavery, like a rat in an emotional cage. That way of knowing is like mortgaging your life to God. In a way, we are all caged by our imperfections and our doubts/fears. The truth will set you free. To know God is something that can only make your stronger, wiser, and more loving. It is an incredible feeling and I simply wish to spread love and truth in this manner, through the grace of our Lord.

Mankind is full of imperfections, no one is perfect. We are flawed, and the world we have built is deeply flawed. I have lived on the streets, and in the ghettos of my country, and I have seen the evils that man puts upon others. Just know that the world is corrupted, it will test you and it will tempt you with its shallow temptations. The ultimate reward is found in eternity, not in the money/power/objects of this world.

You still have a heart, you are not a broken person. You see the problems of this world and you actually care. With God you can help people, you can heal the world as it says in the Bible. You can do anything through Him with just a mustard seed of faith, but you cannot put Him to the test or use Him. Instead, He works through you, guiding you and providing the things you need.

If you see the flaws of this world and you want to help people, come to God and He will give you the power to move mountains.

Thanks bro it is really inspiring to see you say that, I believe that God is calling us all to spread His truth and His love.

I just got banned b/c I posted some song lyrics in another thread right after writing a long post, so the spam filter caught it lmao.

This might be a strange place to make a post like this, but this also seems like a place where God is not so controversial or taboo like in many places.

Am going to go to places where people need hope, love, and strength and spread the message.

It is a joy to speak His truth and feel it heal the hearts of those in pain.

Going on and on about euphoric, bumbly feelings of love is not going to change things and is not evidence for the specific god of the bible. It's like you arent even reading my posts and just continuing this non-point, oblivious to the points raised.

"God", whatever that term means, may not be an extraterrestrial, but this entity is still something specific (and I'd argue contradictory, see link above) which interacted with middle eastern people millennia ago (in the literature of course, not speaking about actual history).

Let's look at some random OT book, JoshuaThis is a very specific being referenced here, who supposedly was speaking these words to the son of Moses' aide, giving him a specific portion of land from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean sea. "Love" is not talking here, or promising land, what does that even mean. Similarly many Christians believe in the trinity and think Jesus is god- a specific being who supposedly walked the earth. There are different takes of God in the bible, which is not a surprise considering the heterogeneity of the composition. Defining God to be love does not add anything to that term (it's merely a superfluous second term) unless there is something else lurking there- e.g. those specific things mentioned above, and the evidence of those is lacking. Regardless, there is just no objective evidence to an outside observer that you spoke with God, whatever that means. No one has hard evidence of this except your word, and so such a claim is essentially worthless. This is no different than the darth vader or ET situation above....

Here is a prayer we can pray for those who once believed and strayed from the faith, we must revive the faith and breathe light into the darkness.

You may pray it on your own, speak it in your heart as you read it, share it with those close to you who believe, or anything that you feel called to do with these words.

Dear Lord, we ask that you reach the hearts of those who wander alone in the dark
We ask that you speak to them, show them the truth of your love and your grace
Their hearts have hardened, slowly, they have turned away from you
This is only to the joy of those brokenhearted who pull others towards their own suffering

The blind lead them, unsure in their own convictions
Arguing and debating without knowing the truth of love
The world tempts them, pulling them towards shallow rewards
False gods lay before them, money, power, material objects, pride, lust

They push and pull at the strings of their heart, leading them into pain and confusion
Self doubt, anger, hatred, uncertainty, they rule the hearts of those who were led astray

We ask that you knock on the doors of their heart, that you allow the light of your love to slip through the cracks and reveal itself

We pray this in your name, in the power and grace of your love, amen

It's not bubbly euphoria, it is truth in its purest form. He is simply love, and love is much more than a feeling. This truth will bring you to its mercy.

God is not something you hear with your ears, speaking words. I understand your confusion, you are not certain of the nature of God in the Bible or what the "concept" of God is exactly. You ask, "what does that even mean?", deciding against it on your own reasoning without fully comprehending. The truth of God is very simple and powerful, it's not found in rambling and contrived arguments that presume our own omniscience. You are not the ultimate arbiter of truth, in fact we know very little as humans compared to the grand scope of what we could know. That's the value of healthy skepticism, not relying on our own understanding or pretending we know everything.

It is all God's land, remember that Moses freed the Hebrew slaves of Egypt from the pharaoh and wandered the desert. Freedmen wandering without a home, and God speaks through Joshua to help guide them towards a home. In the same way, God may guide someone towards a home in their own life, towards a place where they may find a sense of belonging. Joshua understands, he gets it, he is able to allow God to speak through him, because he is one of many that knows His truth.

We could argue about how many angels would fit into the head of a needle, or about the meaning of laws and allegories in the text, but the ultimate truth of His word is not contrived nor convoluted. It is very simple, perfect in its nature. If you are seeking understanding, knowledge of God and what He means, then pray to Him on your own and you will find out. We are all flawed as human beings, we do not know all things, and our worldly arguments against Him have a lot of holes and room for debate.

I know this because I was convinced by arguments just like these. Occam's razor, finding contradictions in the text, arguing that it is all just a product of imagination. I thought I was like God, that I could decide the truth of anything just by thinking it. I was also young and cocky, full of pride in my own intelligence and determined I knew better than the foolish masses. I was so very wrong, and by grace I was saved in the hour that I first believed.

Normal, reasonable people see clear contradictions and understand it is in part due to the bible being composed by various authors in different time periods, rather than an actual event in history being contradictory. Almost all of the above is babble, and does not address that there just isnt evidence to an outside observer of claims like "I spoke with God" any more than "I spoke with and ET yesterday".....claims without substance are essentially worthless. It's that pesky evidence issue. You are free to believe whatever, and I would be free to believe in Darth Vader.....but if I titled a thread analogously "Darth Vader is real", you should be equally skeptical/critical.

You talk about pride- I find people dogmatically stating with complete certainty that they "know" almost anything regarding any of this [which if even could be defined is not associated with evidence] to be an utmost example of arrogance, this is just my opinion.

Things like the Hebrew captivity in Egypt would have to be evidenced of course- there is no reason to believe it actually happened in history without that [and to "know" it did with certainty is just silly]. To take another example, from Genesis, an honest, rational person can look at a story like Noah's ark and realize this was just a myth being told by ancient people.....it does not make sense from a modern perspective of biology and geology....it almost certainly did not happen. I bring this up because it is a way to gauge just how dishonest someone will be in their arguments in light of clear and obvious evidence to the contrary.



The channel name is amusing, people familiar with god debates will get it

Also one on some of those contradictions

I've read all of what you read, you definitely took the time to rewrite the same things in the first paragraph. I don't think it's arrogant to believe in love. I know what love is, I've felt it, I've given it. That's all it is, if you know love you know God. God is love. Is it arrogant to believe in love?

I definitely don't agree with anything that everyone says about God, because people have twisted and corrupted His message for their own gain. Remember, people are flawed and imperfect. I am certain of knowing love, you are uncertain and believing in things according to what is "most likely", basing your life on guesses and conjecture.

Many "new atheists" find a sort of arrogant pseudointellectualism in refuting fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible. The Bible is full of allegory and metaphor, do you really think we all believe in talking snakes or a 5,000 year Earth? People far more educated than either of us are believers in God, but do they pretend to know everything? You are beginning to understand, a large part of Genesis is an allegory for the advent of agriculture. The Bible is not simple. It is complex, rich, and full of wisdom far beyond the capacity of a single man.

I don't have "God debates", I just want to lead people towards love and healing. I'm sorry if this sounds rude, because I am not perfect, but that sort of video is the sort of cringey adolescent pseudointellectualism that greatly simplifies the philosophical themes and ideas in the Bible. Would you really let some weird kid's cartoon decide the most fundamental beliefs of your existence? What good does that bring into your life? How weak is the foundation of your beliefs if it's influenced by youtube videos?

In my belief in love there is no compromise, and so my faith in God does not compromise or fall into the trappings of haughty debates and weird stuff people post on their youtube channels and personal websites. I found these arguments seductive in my early years, because I was afraid of feeling stupid or misled for believing the wrong things. This is the true meaning of arrogance, exaggerating your own mental abilities.

I can tell you value intelligence, you have a sincere love for mathematics. Maybe you want to become a mathematician, or you just enjoy learning. Galileo was a very important mathematician, and his findings about heliocentrism even created conflicts with the church. You would assume Galileo was just like you, he was too intelligent for God and this is why his scientific truth was in conflict with the church. However, this is not true. Galileo once said, "Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe”.

In fact, the vast majority of scientific progress rests on the works and shoulders of believers.

Maybe you have a chip on your shoulder about people who argue about fundamental interpretations of the Bible, which is missing the message of God. The message is love. Love is not bubbly euphoria, it is much more, and maybe you have not known love or witnessed its power. Let me ask you this:

Do you know love?

If the answer is yes, you know God.

If the answer is long and convoluted, then you may spend your whole life jumping from branch to branch. Impressionable and uncertain, influenced by random websites and videos, just as those before you were influenced by books and haughty men. Climb down from the branches, go to the roots of the truth and you will find God in his perfect glory and love. It's not incompatible with your knowledge of natural science, and the truth is not a product of intellectual brain-measuring contests with unnecessarily complex words.

There was another smart guy named Einstein, another believer in God, that said, “If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough”. Well, I can explain my beliefs and understanding of God in only three words: God is love.

Do you really understand what you believe to the point that you can explain it in few words? Or is it a messy web of ideas and arguments from various sources of dubious origin that may or may not align with each other? The truth is simple, and it will set you free. It will emancipate you from mental slavery.

^^^

You are really stressing about "intelligence" in your posts.....I dont even care for that term. You are trying to make this about intelligence, not me.

Not going to address most of this, because there isnt that much to address, but it seems the point originally brought up that merely equating the term "God" with "love" is not adding anything besides a superfluous term, and in fact saying "love exists" does not in turn mean "the god of Judeo-Christianity exists"- no, there is something more specific there in the latter claim, and we just dont see the evidence. Either way, there is certainly no evidence to an outside observer that you spoke to said being. It sounds like Im repeating this point, but it's because it hasnt changed since my original post lol. All these round-about responses arent really touching on any of this.

You are writing a ton of words in your posts just the same, but your 3 word "explanation": "God is love" just isnt saying much. First, "love" would have to be defined and understood, but also you are merely equating "love" with "God".....this is saying almost nothing meaningful, and at most is adding a second term to an entity already known: love. I could summarize the skeptical approach in a sentence: "claims should not be believed without supporting evidence".

It is no surprise that someone, a scientist or not, would be a believer in God around the time of Galileo- almost everyone was. It is very amusing when people arguing for religion use this as some kind "gotcha" fact- it is not at all. In fact, it should be noted that people like Galileo made their famous discoveries preciselynotby approaching the issue religiously, or following established dogma, but by actually observing the universe around them in accordance with the scientific method. Galileo was using telescopes to look up at the sky, he made observations about free-fall, this is all in the spirit of science. Likewise Newton who also believed in God (remember almost everyone did), was most productive when he was approaching issues scientifically (it was when he wrote about theological and biblical matters that you will find the worst of his work). When Gregor Mendel, a catholic monk, discovered the gene concept, he did this precisely because he was doing science (breeding pea plants), andnotsitting in a room profoundly thinking about theological concepts.

Einstein almost certainly did not believe in any personal God or religion, not that it would mean much if he did anyway.

Phucking NumberGuy straight going off on God in every thread LMAO.

Would rep, but on r/c.

Tours over.

Also wtf? Beliefs influenced by youtube videos? I just found that video like yesterday and thought it was amusing contrasting the story in genesis with the modern understanding. You know, a funny video. It's not like I decided just yesterday that the Noah ark story didnt happen in history, lol.

A side note: I dont see any direct citations anywhere Galileo said that quote about mathematics being the language in which God has written the universe (not that it matters). If you can provide the source, let me know. He does have a quote, which is sourced, about the Universe being written in the language of mathematics, but no reference to God.

Finally, just as some famous scientists happened to believe in God, which is no surprise given the historical context, it should also be noted that many famous theologians took positions on scientific matters that look silly in retrospect, such as the denunciation of heliocentrism by Martin Luther and Calvin, to take two examples (not to mention most of the catholic church for awhile there). As always, the truth of the nature of the universe will become more clear by investigating and observing it, rather than by philosophizing about what it "should" be according to whatever textual authority.Hey been awhile since this sub had a good ol fashioned God thread, ha....a break from the current events

No one knows if God exists. Religions describing God(s) are myths that anybody could've came up with.


/thread

The God of Judeo-Christianity is love, according to the texts of Judeo-Christianity. You can call Him God, Yahweh, Brahman, Love, the Great Spirit, and many other names. It's not exclusive to Judeo-Christianity, I just sincerely love Jesus so I'm Christian.

Love is the evidence, that's the "argument", but it's more like that's what's written in the Bible.

If you think love is just bubbly euphoria then I'd posit that you are not intimate with the experience of real love. It is something far more profound than a "euphoric" feeling.

Einstein publicly believed in the Spinoza "concept" of God. He believed God was a "singular self-subsistent substance, with both matter and thought being attributes of such".

It's more profound than an "extraterrestrial being" and it's not easy to wrap the mind around without a personal relationship with God.

As for Galileo, he wrote this as well in a letter to Grand Duchess Christina:

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

My point is that God is not incompatible with science, and the most important people in science, who actually created the mathematics and science you admire, believed in God.

I'm not equating science with religion, I'm saying that people far more advanced in the field on which you base your argument are not convinced by your argument.

And it wasn't "some" famous scientists, it was almost all of the most important ones, whether they were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, etc.

In fact, the church itself takes a stance that scientific discoveries are a gift from God's creation, do you have the same intellectual authority as actual scientists and mathematicians who have made real and important discoveries? I don't, I'm more learned in history, politics, and economics than anything else.

What I'm saying is that your understanding of God as a "concept" is very childish and simple. Your understanding of stories like Genesis is the same, and a lot of "new atheists" base their entire worldview on very simplistic interpretations of the Bible, like "lol talking snakes".

These arguments, just like the ones you have tried to make, don't take into account things like allegory, symbolism, or more mature concepts that people extract from literature. It's a very shallow understanding of what is arguably the most influential text in human history.

You've made it clear that you reject a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible and base your anti-theist argument on this. I'm not trying to get into semantic debates, I'm just very familiar with your view on God. It's really common on the internet, and people are very haughty about having this view.

Stepping back from debates about religion vs. science, what I am trying to do is guide you towards understanding God's love. To understand God is to understand love itself, and a lot of people are not yet familiar with this. Honestly I would be depressed if I thought love was "bubbly euphoria" and nothing else.

So it doesn't come from a place of trying to outsmart you or "win" in a debate. I sincerely love you, and that's what Jesus taught me. I love you and I want you to understand God so that you can experience enlightenment.

^^^

For someone not trying to "win a debate", you sure seem to be writing novels in the same tired effort to argue for god. This is all almost meaningless banter, not really that interesting in terms of content either.

Well let's look at my last couple posts, and see what's changed.

-Einstein almost certainly didnt believe in a personal god busy interacting in the lives of man? Check, not changed. A mysterious cosmic "god", which he likely identified with, say, physical laws of the universe, is not a personal interacting god.

-Galileo didnt say that quote about God and mathematics being the language of the universe? Check, you didnt provide a source and Galileo likely did not say that.

-There is still no evidence to an outside observer that you spoke to god? Check.

For the record, and for some reason I have to repeat this, but it doesnt matter what scientists like Galileo or Einstein believed or did not believe about God, this is a mindless tangent and has no implication on the truth of the claim.That will be decided by the evidence or lack thereof, period. Things arent true or not because people in the past (in some cases where almost everyone believed in god traditionally) believed in them. The evidence, as always will be the guide and the great weeder out.

Great minds have argued for nonsense in the past all over the place. Aristotle thought comets were in the atmosphere, believed in geocentrism, and thought heavier items fall faster. Kepler believed the solar system was intimately linked to the nesting of platonic solids and subscribed to the music of the spheres (all nonsense). Newton in his spare time was known to delve into mysticism and alchemy. Note that we dont conclude today that heavier objects fall faster "because Aristotle said so".....hell no. We look at the evidence! We measure objects falling and conclude the mass doesnt matter and they accelerate downwards more or less at the same rate.

Also I do not "base my anti-theist argument" on the rejection of biblical fundamentalism. If it is based on anything, it is the lack of evidence. The errors in the bible, both scientific and internal ones (not to mention the extremely questionable morality suspiciously local to the time period) are just reasons to believe the text is not divinely inspired by some god of the universe, and rather just a compilation of works of man who lived in the near east in ancient times. But in general the truth of the claim "God exists", if that could even be defined, will depend on the evidence or lack thereof.

Is science and religion compatible? Over the ages science has slowly chipped away at the role of god. The ancients needed gods to explain lightning, the sun, floods, droughts and what not....we now have an answer for these things from science. For thousands of years man looked around and saw all these distinct lifeforms apparently designed perfectly for their environments. After Darwin we have an eloquent answer for this biological diversity and adaptation in his theory of evolution by natural selection. We now know there wasnt some "first couple" humans made from scratch, from which all humanity descended (which is rather crucial in, say, Christian theology and the fall of Man). But most of all, we know the earth is in no special place in the universe, demoted to the outskirts of one galaxy out of trillions, orbiting one star out of some billion trillion stars. This incomprehensibly vast scale of the universe, contrasted with the local, man-centered myths from a couple thousand years ago is one of the biggest problems that the science has raised regarding man-made religion, imo. As always, it is religion trying to adapt to the science, and not the other way around (note that once we learned the earth is some 4.5 billion years old, then people started squeezing things into Genesis about a day being an eon, etc).

As to the main point, which you still have not really addressed since my original post, let me just ask this:

IfDarth Vader is defined as evil (forget where or how), that is, if we identify the term "Darth Vader" with "evil", then does the following hold: "there is evil in the world. Thus Darth Vader is real". That's all I want to know, yes or no. Not some huge response about love.

Gods OP plural

Einstein seemed to believe in Spinoza's conception of God. In that light, asking if God is real is like asking if reality is real...it doesn't make sense.

The question is more what is God like, which is explored through the natural sciences and an individual's personal spiritual journey and experiences.

Does any of this predict the coming WWIII and billions dead?

Proof WW3 is coming please.

All sources are welcomed for review.

the source is the Bible.

It literally predicts what is happening now as well WWIII/Mark of the Beast/Antichrist

if you want proof, all you have to do is wait.

Bible doesn't count. Its predictions are ambiguous at best, and can be implied to many scenarios, because the authors were so vague.

Can you tell me two of its predictions now without looking it up?

Here is a simple one for you, kid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigris...s_river_system
https://endtimestruth.com/tigris-and...are-drying-up/

If you can't even argue this simple fact, then you have no business arguing about God or creation.

inb4 climate change, lmao

If you can provide me with sources, in regards to WW3.

You clearly ignore everything religion. What good would explaining to you religious prophecy when you simply wouldn't care?

I just gave you a very simple explanation of the coming drought in the middle east.

You will ignore it.

Ok, how many times has the Tigris experienced a drought since the prophecy was made?

Srs.

**** that's a good question. I don't know