Yes I read the post, and I understand the point of shifting the burden of proof. It wasn’t my intention to argue the supposed necessity of faith in atheism although I certainly see how my inability to relate my thoughts has given it that appearance; rather I was making it clear that what you hold to is a joke as far as I am concerned and all of your attempts to discredit me will have absolutely no effect on what I am doing.
What I hold to is a joke? The only thing I hold to is not believing in something when there's no good reason to believe in it, and trivially, not to believe in something when there's no good reason to believe in it and there's a good reason to not believe in it.
I don't really care if you change your mind. I have absolutely no problem with religious people, as long as their beliefs don't affect them in a way I consider to be detrimental to their health, or the health of others. Going to church, praying, having a high standard for morality, and being a generally enjoyable person are some of the traits I associate with people like you. I don't really think any less of you for maintaining your beliefs, but I don't understand why you find them consistent with reality.
I'm simply trying to have an interesting discussion. If it is uninteresting to you, or you're becoming offended, I'll understand.
You hold to something that is more probable because you lack an encounter with God which I myself and thousands of others claim to have had and continue to have. It is not indoctrination that I am holding to; it is a supernatural revealing of a God who refuses to prove Himself to you according to your definitions but has responded to the genuine faith of many.
You claim to have had a supernatural experience. Of course there's nothing I can do to discuss this in a meaningful way, I'll just leave it at "I don't think it was a supernatural experience." I'm reasonably confident that all of the things you've described on the forums can be attributed to psychological phenomena.
My standard of evidence is entirely reasonable, and I'd find it absolutely absurd if you disagree. Remember that I told you I was genuinely faithful for more than a decade, and I never had anything close to a supernatural experience. If you want to reject the claim that I was faithful, then I'd ask you what you're doing differently.
I could relay a multitude of experiences in which the Holy Spirit in the form of a voice or a dream or a vision has told me a thing was going to happen, and it did. I am talking times, places and events. I could tell you of miracles I have witnessed with my own eyes. I could go on and on, and odds are you would not believe me or you’d just skirt around them and stick to your box that God must prove Himself within but has refused.
I hope you realize that dreams are a rather silly thing to refer to unless something was revealed to you that would've been impossible for you to know while awake. They're nice and fuzzy, but I've had dreams where I was being chased around by a monster on top of the roof of my house. That doesn't mean that a monster of the roof of my house exists.
I don't really know what you mean by "vision", but if it's anything similar to daydreaming, then the same restriction above applies.
Hearing voices is probably different and more meaningful, but you'll have to understand my skepticism. Your word on such a thing just doesn't mean much. If a bunch of independent sources told me they heard the voice of God, then of course I'd take it more seriously, but a handful of personal experiences is meaningless to me unless the person experiencing them is me.
Whether you like it or not according to both the objective faith I hold as well as my subjective experience He is not going to do that, and therefore our arguments are unfruitful in the work God has called me to, and the means by which He is going to fulfill his purposes in this world. Understand that I am not going to follow you down the path that you are trying to lead period, and all your comments to try and make me look inapt mean nothing to me.
Objective faith? What does that even mean? You objectively believe in the existence of God?
Again, I'm not really trying to convince you of anything. I'm merely asking you why you believe what you believe, and telling you why the reasons are either unsound (this hasn't really happened) or meaningless to me (e.g., personal experiences).
I don't really care what you think I believe, unless you have a legitimate, objective criticism that isn't "it's inconsistent with what I believe". So far, you've done nothing to make any sort of reasonable criticism of my beliefs.
Such philosophies are certainly stripping the faith out of a Christian who has had nothing more than some mental agreement with what the Bible claims to be true or have clung to the corrupt traditions of the church, but for those of us who have had dramatic experiences of which the Bible defines as the norm for the true believer your arguments will not strip us of our allegiance to the living God. You assume that because such a high percentage of the western world and in particular America claims to be Christian that they are in fact actually saved and recognized by God as a son or daughter in His kingdom and submitted to Christ. I do not hold to that assumption, and actually believe that the converts to Christ in said Middle Eastern and Asian countries are actually of a higher percentage of true disciples.
This is an interesting point. However, I'm still quite certain that there are maannnyy more people like you in America than in Iran. You're also presented with more opportunities that lead you to the beliefs you hold and less scrutiny should you choose to take advantage of them.
Of the Christians in Iran, a higher percentage of them may have beliefs that are closer to yours, but unless you assume that some ridiculously small percentage of American Christians are "saved" (and I assure you, I've met a ton of people who share beliefs quite similar to yours), you're still a long way from defeating my argument.
Within the boundaries of my profession all of your arguments are irrelevant because it is not how God has chosen to operate according to both experience and that which has been objectively revealed in His word. As far as I am concerned my experience, and the experience of people who I know and don’t know around the world are sufficient. Do you still not get that I do not care about everything you continue to post, and that I am sticking with the argument that God is in fact revealing Himself and granting people encounters in response to there faith?
Objectively revealed in his word? What do you mean by that?
Look, I don't give a crap if you chalk a bunch of dreams and voices in your head to God. I'm just telling you that it's meaningless to me, and that until I heard voices in my head, I'm rather convinced that God is a figment of your imagination.
I do believe that a supernatural being can and often is behind popular mythology and or prominent religions. I also believe revelatory experiences are possible if I had put faith or called out to one of them. Yahweh is however the creator of all, and the supernatural beings who fell from there original place in His kingdom are now responsible for deceiving the world. There is a lot out there that is nothing more than the imagination of the human mind, and there is a lot that could potentially be real, but once again not deterministic to my profession.
what is this "profession" you keep speaking of? you're a missionary, aren't you? ech...
I don't think this answers why you don't believe (I'm assuming) that God throws lightening bolts out of his house in the clouds and has a son named Hercules that went around lifting heavy stuff. And it definitely doesn't answer why you don't believe in Leprechauns or Santa Claus.
The point I'm making is that unless you fall back on your personal experiences (which is fine, but is, again, irrelevant to what I believe), you're making a special exception for believing in God. There's no good reason to not believe that Leprechauns or Unicorns exist, but I'm guessing you don't believe in them.
If God has defined the context in which you or Muslims or anyone else may enter into an encounter with Him and that is rejected, whether because of some innate tendency or not, it says nothing about the love of God. Man lives according to his own free will and these innate tendencies are sin and God will not accept them. Gods love could be better seen in what He is doing today despite mans choice to continually reject His terms of salvation. Therefore what I am saying about the supernatural evangelism of Jesus Christ in the Muslim world which has fiercely rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ and Gods opened invitation to live for eternity is in fact relevant to my profession. It is relevant because there is widespread claimed encounters with God through Jesus Christ that match the experiences I claim to have. This is the road I am going to continue to walk, and it will not be a work of my own hands but rather a partnering with God as He continues to move in the supernatural in response to genuine faith.
That's nice, but unless you make the assertion that it is no less likely that a person in Iran is saved than a person in America is saved, then we have a problem.
God either:
1) Puts more people that won't be saved in Iran than he does in America, or
2) Makes it harder for people in Iran to be saved, and fewer of them are saved as a result of this.
Are you going to make that assertion? If you are, I have a bone to pick with you.
This is the parting of our ways as you will continue to tread your path and I mine. Yes I believe we will all stand before the bema seat of Christ, and while not sure I necessarily hold to traditional doctrines or descriptions of hell I absolutely believe God will be just in sentencing people to an eternity of separation from Himself. It’s His will, not mine and not yours.
Why don't you believe in the traditional notion of Hell?