Wanted: Honest intelligent productive thinking to resolve the issue God exists or not.

a reply to: Willtell

I don’t believe this...

Maybe extraterrestrials don’t visit earth because earth is a run away biological weapon created by extraterrestrials?

I would ask Pachomius if aliens could create an earth from energy, if those aliens have become gods. But it just would get ignored.

a reply to: neutronflux


In a nutshell, that’s the Gnostic view that “God” of the Bible is actually the devil or demiurge who created this fallen and bent world.

ET is just a word that means multi-dimensional existence something we all assumed God was already.

originally posted by: neutronflux
a reply to: whereislogic

Really don’t care dude. Worry about your own soul. I don’t care what Zacharias did in 1971 if he had his peace with God. Your so quick to judge based off writings other than the Bible.

If that's what you want to read into my commentary, all I said was don't follow his teachings (like the doctrine of the Trinity). Not surprising you don't care. But it's more than that otherwise you wouldn't have felt the need to accuse me of being judgemental for quoting something factual/truthful from wikipedia about Ravi Zacharias, Christendom's support of wars and military service up till this very moment, true Christianity's incompatibility with military service, so-called "Christian philosophy", Christendom's teachings and how the actual teachings of the Bible and the example of the early first-century Christians compare (to all those subjects).

John 8:42-47, 54,55:

Jesus said to them: “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I have not come of my own initiative, but that One sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? Because you cannot listen to* [Or “accept.”] my word. You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a murderer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie. Because I, on the other hand, tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Who of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why is it that you do not believe me? The one who is from God listens to the sayings of God. This is why you do not listen, because you are not from God.”
...
Jesus answered: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, the one who you say is your God. Yet you have not known him, but I know him. And if I said I do not know him, I would be like you, a liar. But I do know him and am observing his word.

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know.”​—John 4:22.

“For you are great and are doing wondrous things; you are God, you alone. Instruct me, O Jehovah, about your way. I shall walk in your truth. Unify my heart to fear your name.”—Ps. 86:10, 11.

The eighty-sixth Psalm is a prayer of David. Though first uttered three thousand years ago, it carries a wealth of meaning for all lovers of righteousness today. It extols the One who alone has the solution to the distressing problems of this space age. Hear David’s petition as he pours out his heart to the great God who is worthy of all praise: “For you, O Jehovah, are good and ready to forgive, and the loving-kindness to all those calling upon you is abundant. In the day of my distress I will call upon you, for you will answer me. I laud you, O Jehovah my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify your name to time indefinite, for your loving-kindness is great toward me. . . . You, O Jehovah, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and trueness. . . . For you yourself, O Jehovah, have helped me and comforted me.”—Ps. 86:5, 7, 12-17.

What other God has ever called forth such heartfelt praise as Jehovah, the God of David? Let Catholics and Buddhists take their rosaries, and chant the Ave Maria or the O-Kyo a thousand times over. Let Protestant clergymen raise sanctimonious voices to a God whose name they do not know. Let the world’s thousands of religious sects petition, each according to its creed. Can any of their prayers even start to voice the depth of appreciation that David had for his God? David knew his God. In contrast, such religious persons do not know the Holy Bible. They do not know the divine Author of the Bible. Surprisingly many do not even know his name. They know the personal names of the non-Biblical gods whom they have been taught to worship, but not the personal name of the Bible’s God. Still, His name is there in the Book. To find it, they merely have to take the most popular English translation of the Holy Bible, the Authorized Version, as authorized by King James I of Great Britain to be read in all the churches of the land, and turn to Exodus (the second book of the Bible) 6:2,3. There they will read:

“And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”

If this one case of the divine name in their own copy of the Bible is not enough for them, they can turn to Psalm 83:18, and there they will read: “That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.” They can also look up Isaiah 12:2 and Isa 26:4, AV.

So the personal name of the One who is God and “the most high over all the earth” is Jehovah. In the original Hebrew Scriptures, generally called the Old Testament, that divine personal name occurs around seven thousand times and is spelled with four Hebrew consonants. Since God’s own personal name is used so frequently in the Bible writings, we today are authorized to use that name, in a reverential way, not taking it in vain. Thus we can designate the God whom we mean and give credit where credit is due, unlike so many who profess to be Christians but won't. His personal name is different from that of his beloved Son, Jesus, which name means “Jehovah Is Salvation.”*

*: see The name Jehovah and its theophoric names.

a reply to: whereislogic

What does any of that have to do with:

Sum up? Your going back to 71? Ravi died in 2020.

Do you have any evidence he didn’t ask for forgiveness for his sins that dog all humankind?

From his teachings and sermons for the last twenty years (since 2020) , can you quote and cite anything blasphemies and unforgivable?

a reply to: neutronflux

I'm not going to respond to questions that are based on your desire to read or paint something in my commentary that isn't there so you can justify being overly critical of my commentary and justify your apparent need or desire to defend and/or promote some televangelist-like teacher who immediately reminded me of Benny Hinn and Jimmy Swaggart in terms of his style of presentation, way of talking and body language when I looked up a couple of his talks on youtube (minus the miracle healing thing and the excessive or more blatant false teachings, basically Benny Hinn lays it on more thick, and Jimmy Swaggart is perhaps somewhere in the middle in that regards).

One definition for "judgemental" is: having or displaying an overly critical point of view.

I'd rather talk about the God who gets no credit, nor praise, nor love from either Ravi Zacharias or Benny Hinn, or any of the teachers in Christendom, past and present. You know, the “One” (not 3-in-1) spoken about by Jesus at John 8:42 when he was clearly speaking about someone else and not himself. And the One I spoke about in my comment concerning the definition for "God":

...
Now for the definition of the God you probably are asking about, and not merely the meaning of the word or words translated to the English "God":

The True God Jehovah. The true God is not a nameless God. His name is Jehovah. (De 6:4; Ps 83:18) He is God by reason of his creatorship. (Ge 1:1; Re 4:11) The true God is real (Joh 7:28), a person (Ac 3:19; Heb 9:24), and not lifeless natural law operating without a living lawgiver, not blind force working through a series of accidents to develop one thing or another. The 1956 edition of The Encyclopedia Americana (Vol. XII, p. 743) commented under the heading “God”: “In the Christian, Mohammedan, and Jewish sense, the Supreme Being, the First Cause, and in a general sense, as considered nowadays throughout the civilized world, a spiritual being, self-existent, eternal and absolutely free and all-powerful, distinct from the matter which he has created in many forms, and which he conserves and controls. There does not seem to have been a period of history where mankind was without belief in a supernatural author and governor of the universe.”

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: neutronflux


In a nutshell, that’s the Gnostic view that “God” of the Bible is actually the devil or demiurge who created this fallen and bent world.

ET is just a word that means multi-dimensional existence something we all assumed God was already.

the Gnostic view doesn't have to do with ET...

Its more of a god that we've known in the past that wasn't actually God

a reply to: whereislogic

I'd rather talk about the God who gets no credit, nor praise, nor love from either Ravi Zacharias or Benny Hinn, or any of the teachers in Christendom, past and present.

Ravi talks about god and the Bible Ike you. Is that false. On media like you? Is that false?

Are you a “false Prophet” like Ravi who commits his time to Jesus and God?

I am more than willing to ignore you to read the Bible.


Shrugs..

a reply to: whereislogic


originally posted by: neutronflux
a reply to: whereislogic

A Memory and A Hope: Saigon Then and Now

Article By
Ravi Zacharias

www.rzim.org...


Friends, God moves in mysterious ways—and his ways are always perfect. I am so filled with his presence and blessing for giving me the opportunity to return to Vietnam. The dots are connecting with Spirit-anointed reality. If He gives me the chance, I will return again with my teammates and who knows what blessing He has in store if my work is not yet done?

Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your support. I am ever grateful for your love and encouragement. Pray for Vietnam. They are a lovely people. God can bless this land anew. What a victory that will be, not for a political theory but for the City of God.

Seems like Ravi likes to talk about being a servant of God?

originally posted by: Pachomius
...there is neither good nor evil, it is all pure existence.

Ignoring the contradiction that comes right after it...

Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell observed: “It is true that there is evil in each of us, but adding together even large numbers of individual evils does not explain an Auschwitz . . . Evil on this scale seems to be qualitatively as well as quantitatively different.”* It was none other than Jesus Christ who pinpointed this qualitatively different source of evil.

Not long before his death, Jesus explained that the men who were planning to kill him were not acting entirely of their own volition. An unseen force guided them. Jesus told them: “You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a manslayer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth.” (John 8:44) The Devil, whom Jesus called “the ruler of this world,” clearly has a prominent role in fomenting evil.​—John 16:11; 1 John 5:19.

*: On the attitude of Christendom’s clergymen toward such mass murder, Dagobert D. Runes observes:

“Innumerable photographs of Christian men and women led by Catholic priests and Protestant ministers are available to those seriously interested, giving irrefutable evidence of the thunderous enthusiasm rendered Hitler and his gang. These pictures show the benign and cheerful countenances of Christian churchmen not only blessing the arms of the murderous Hitler storm-troops, but welcoming them at the Nazi festivals, Nazi-sponsored church affairs, Nazi public gatherings, Nazi receptions, Nazi-sponsored musicals and Nazi-arranged victory celebrations. In fact there is no public event during the Hitler decade in Germany and in Austria in which the Christian churches did not cheerfully participate. The Cardinal of Vienna, Innitzer, during that era signed all his correspondence with ‘Heil Hitler!’ And the Bishop of Rome himself, Pope Pius XII, a former papal nuncio in Berlin, refused even to utter a plea of pity in behalf of one million Jewish children being put to death in airtight trains and gas chambers.

“. . . Austrian and Italian clergymen who failed to see the bleeding children at their doorstep lived on to praise Jesus. Indeed, if you raise this issue now, as I do and others did before me, these clergymen become rather annoyed with our unwillingness to forget.”​—The Jew and the Cross, pp. 50-52.

But were the members of the various religious organizations and their clergy thereby imitating Jesus? Not at all. Jesus encouraged his followers to display genuine neighbor love, citing this as the second greatest commandment in the Law. (Matt. 22:39) He directed that even enemies be shown love, saying: “Continue to love your enemies . . . that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens.”​—Matt. 5:44, 45.

a reply to: whereislogic

What are you babbling about?

What does any of that have to do with:

Sum up? Your going back to 71? Ravi died in 2020.

In the context of Ravi:

Do you have any evidence he didn’t ask for forgiveness for his sins that dog all humankind?

From his teachings and sermons for the last twenty years (since 2000) , can you quote and cite anything blasphemous and unforgivable?

Please read the text below under the caption [For your orientation], you will get to know what the thread is all about.
_______________________________



Dear posters, thanks for your contributions to the thread, even though some are not relevant to the thread.

I am concerned with proving the existence of God, in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

Here are my definitions of God and of universe:

For God, my definition is the following: God in concept is the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

For universe, my definition is the following: universe in concept is everything observable to man, in particular to scientists to study - most importantly in regard to its origin.

What about you, do you have any information on definitions of God and of universe, because I like to first for us to work together to come to concur on definitions - otherwise we will be talking past each other's head.

We will work on our respective definitions to arrive at the mutually agreed on definitions.


Now for this morning I will submit the following postulation:

"It is more intelligent to accept the fact that God exists, in concept as the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning, than to deny."

It is more intelligent because otherwise you will have no ultimate explanation for the presence of babies and roses and the nose on our face, and all things with a beginning.

You see, without God your nose could fall off your face uncertainly anytime and anywhere.




[For your orientation]

"God in concept is the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning." -Pachomius [17 words]

This is the title of the thread from Pachomius:

Wanted: Honest intelligent productive thinking to resolve the issue God exists or not.


And the OP is as follows:

[ posted on Jun, 25 2020 @ 01:12 PM ]
On the assumption that mankind sincerely seeks knowledge, I submit that it is possible for any person to come to resolve the issue God exists or not, with honest intelligent productive thinking, i.e., thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas. Now, honest intelligent productive thinking on the said issue must start with working together to concur on the concept of God. What do you dear colleagues here say?

[ End of post ]

a reply to: Pachomius

Are you a bot?

a reply to: Peeple

Maybe a probe named Nomad?

The Changeling (Star Trek: The Original Series)


en.m.wikipedia.org...(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)

Kirk arrives and again confronts the probe, questioning it about its mission. When Nomad declares that its directive to sterilize imperfections allows no exceptions, Kirk points out that Nomad itself is imperfect, since it has mistaken Captain Kirk for its true creator Roykirk. He then claims that Nomad has committed two other errors, by not discovering its own mistake, and by not sterilizing itself as imperfect. Nomad begins to analyze the implications of Kirk's claims, a process that causes noticeable stress to its systems. Kirk and Spock carry Nomad in a rush to the transporter room and, with a final command from Kirk to "exercise your prime function," beam it into deep space. Seconds after transport, an explosion is detected near the Enterprise and Nomad is no more. The episode ends on a humorous note, with Kirk observing that he is proud that his "son" Nomad, having healed Mr. Scott, would have made a good doctor.

a reply to: Pachomius

Hypothetically, God is the cause of all things. (8 words)

notice the bold words: God is

tada! done, proven!

Universe: Everything; including the space in which everything exists.

Okay. Now what?

originally posted by: pthena

Okay. Now what?

Find Him

Anyone actually intelligent won't play that game.

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
Anyone actually intelligent won't play that game.

Either go the whole way, or never start

a reply to: cooperton

I'm simply trying to get the OP (Pachomius) to move on to the next step, by seeming to concede.

but since you suggest what seems would be a logical next step:
a gnostic once put this verse in my face:

John 3:8 "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

After many hours of thought, I concluded that those born of wind(spirit) are as ignorant of origins and ends as anyone else.

Those who know(gnostics) are of the opinion that they know because the God caused them to know. Implying that those who know not know not because the God has not caused them to know.

Is the knowing synonymous with being born of wind? I don't know.

But if they are synonymous, and those born of Wind are ignorant still, then wouldn't it be foolish for someone to claim to know?

I may seem to lump all Gnostics (knowers) into one group. I'm sorry. It seems evident that one gnostic knows one thing and another gnostic may know something different and contradictory to the other. Such is the way of things.

a reply to: sligtlyskeptical

Anyone actually intelligent won't play that game.

Most responders aren't playing the OPs game, opting rather to play their own.

a reply to: pthena

Jesus used that metaphor to explain how worldly people would perceive people who were born again. They would come and go like the wind. I think the Gnostic path could be summed up like this:

"my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going." John 8:14

There's also:

Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.'

If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.' Gospel of Thomas v.50


A great and alluring mystery to anyone called out of Egypt