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A City on a Hill / Re: The Fruit of the Vine (Poetry)
« on: October 23, 2009, 02:46:52 am »
I was going to just sit back in silent amazement and allow you to be king of the hill. I have however decided to clear up confusion…
I am sorry. However I was not attempting an argument from design, rather suggesting that contrary to what you know both my personal experience and the Bible of which has authority in my life says you are wrong. If God has not been willing to reveal Himself to you in the tangible manner that you require then I sure am not going to sit here and prove Him for you. Maybe you will be unsatisfied with this but I am just the carrier of a message. The rest is between you and God. My relationship with God and the evidence He has given me is more than sufficient for a continued walk. You see I am not trying to convince men with cleverly crafted ideas and human wisdom, I am trying to create a context in which one might encounter the living God. If that encounter should prove not to take place then I am going to move on and trust God in His wisdom to remain hidden.
Please take a moment to grease your gears because you completely pulled an accusation out of what I said that was not there... I said individuals who would rather worship there own ideas... To further clarify my meaning, I see my main mode of worshiping God as seeking to know His ways and then walking in them as opposed to walking according to my own ways. Hence the worshiping of ones own ideas as opposed to the worship of God.
Evidence comes as a God given reward for faith. I am fine with your choosing to reject that. You don't choose not to believe...whatever. If that is your philosophy in life you can have it.
Where and in what way did I suggest you or anyone else is silly? Am I not allowed the same confidence as you demonstrate in the flaunting of your beliefs or would it be better for me to look at my feet and stutter? A martyr? Better yet a living martyr? All it took was a poem...so what exactly is your point?
In the way you are suggesting belief in God, no that was not my suggestion at all. Now if we want to use the Bibles definition for belief in God then yes, and if they truly did believe in God at one point then there is no hope for them because they have trampled underfoot the Son of Man and put Him to a public shame therefore making repentance, which is a gift from God, impossible for them a second time. In which case I am in no way involved in the matter. Genuine belief biblically suggests the perfection of what Jesus came to accomplish in the believers life. I do not even claim to fully believe in God in this sense. According to the bible a simple acceptance or idea of the possibility of a god or the God is insufficient and not genuine belief.
If you are going to continue in the trampling of my garden spend a little more time trying to understand what it is I am saying and a little less time puking all over the place.
An attack on myself? More and more you demonstrate lack of understanding in the faith I profess. I am not sure what your 18 indoctrinated years accomplished but I truly hope that the years you have left are much more fruitful in your natural path.
After sifting through the logorrhea before me I have found two things worth noting: an assertion that God can not be proven as to exist based upon a criteria which rejects the context in which God has chosen to reveal Himself, and a finely tuned inability to communicate.
There are a few ways I generally respond to a claim like this.
I was religious for 18 years of my life. I sincerely believed in the existence of God. However, in retrospect, his existence was never "clear" to me. For this to be true, I require meaningful, tangible evidence. This is why I gave up the belief: there is none.
Not really. This is a form of argument from design. Instead of regurgitating all of the counter-apologetics, here:
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Argument_from_design
I am sorry. However I was not attempting an argument from design, rather suggesting that contrary to what you know both my personal experience and the Bible of which has authority in my life says you are wrong. If God has not been willing to reveal Himself to you in the tangible manner that you require then I sure am not going to sit here and prove Him for you. Maybe you will be unsatisfied with this but I am just the carrier of a message. The rest is between you and God. My relationship with God and the evidence He has given me is more than sufficient for a continued walk. You see I am not trying to convince men with cleverly crafted ideas and human wisdom, I am trying to create a context in which one might encounter the living God. If that encounter should prove not to take place then I am going to move on and trust God in His wisdom to remain hidden.
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I'm not sure if you were just quoting a bible verse verbatim here, but these are the kinds of accusations that really grind my gears. I don't worship anyone's ideas. I don't, in fact, worship anyone in the place of God. I don't "choose" to not believe in God. I am a type of person who naturally cannot believe in something that has no evidence. It may have taken me 17 years to realize that there is no evidence for the existence of God, but when I finally did, my faith rapidly faded.
Please take a moment to grease your gears because you completely pulled an accusation out of what I said that was not there... I said individuals who would rather worship there own ideas... To further clarify my meaning, I see my main mode of worshiping God as seeking to know His ways and then walking in them as opposed to walking according to my own ways. Hence the worshiping of ones own ideas as opposed to the worship of God.
Evidence comes as a God given reward for faith. I am fine with your choosing to reject that. You don't choose not to believe...whatever. If that is your philosophy in life you can have it.
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You seem to be making yourself into some kind of martyr. Yes, I'm going to criticize your beliefs. I think they're entirely unjustified, and you flaunt them around as if they're obvious facts and that everyone around you is silly for not realizing what you've so clearly convinced yourself of.
Are you suggesting that any atheist has never "really believed in God?" I'm pretty sure this is a beautiful example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
An aside: what evidence do you have for the existence of God? What arguments have you used to convince yourself God is real? That Shiva, Zeus, or Allah isn't?
Where and in what way did I suggest you or anyone else is silly? Am I not allowed the same confidence as you demonstrate in the flaunting of your beliefs or would it be better for me to look at my feet and stutter? A martyr? Better yet a living martyr? All it took was a poem...so what exactly is your point?
In the way you are suggesting belief in God, no that was not my suggestion at all. Now if we want to use the Bibles definition for belief in God then yes, and if they truly did believe in God at one point then there is no hope for them because they have trampled underfoot the Son of Man and put Him to a public shame therefore making repentance, which is a gift from God, impossible for them a second time. In which case I am in no way involved in the matter. Genuine belief biblically suggests the perfection of what Jesus came to accomplish in the believers life. I do not even claim to fully believe in God in this sense. According to the bible a simple acceptance or idea of the possibility of a god or the God is insufficient and not genuine belief.
If you are going to continue in the trampling of my garden spend a little more time trying to understand what it is I am saying and a little less time puking all over the place.
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I was not interpreting it as an attack on non-believers. However, it does seem to be an attack on yourself.An attack on non-believers...where do you get this stuff? You lashed out at me for a poem which suggested the personal experience of a believer in the Holy Spirit in the trials of life. I in fact see all you have presented as nothing more than a circular argument. I have done nothing but poetically express a personal experience which is backed by the Bible and Spirit in which I draw inspiration.
An attack on myself? More and more you demonstrate lack of understanding in the faith I profess. I am not sure what your 18 indoctrinated years accomplished but I truly hope that the years you have left are much more fruitful in your natural path.
After sifting through the logorrhea before me I have found two things worth noting: an assertion that God can not be proven as to exist based upon a criteria which rejects the context in which God has chosen to reveal Himself, and a finely tuned inability to communicate.