Satanism

Hmmmmm.....nobody wants to play no more????

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Aviendha: I could have guessed that you were raised in a Christian home. Please don’t take offense to this Cerek, but it seems that 90% of the Christians I have met in my life, have at least one parent that can be considered a Christian.

I was working in a church in Singapore last year. 14 000 active members. 80% are converts from Buddhism/Taoism within the last five years.

David Yongi Cho runs a church in Seoul with approximately 1 million people from a similar background.

In the church I'm helping in New York City most of the members are converts with non-christian backgrounds. Sikh, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu and Athiest.

[K T Ong]

Interesting that we never bumped into each other, Yorick.

Well, maybe we did, except we didn't know each other.

Originally posted by K T Ong: Interesting that we never bumped into each other, Yorick. Well, maybe we did, except we didn't know each other.

Surely you would have noticed an egg with legs walking around the city.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Aviendha: [QB]Cerek, I have read through your response and am going through it all trying to understand your point of view. These are some of the thoughts that I have about what you have had to say. First of all, I would like to discuss the event that you mentioned in the first part of your response, Adam and Eve. In your opinion, did this event ever actually occur, or is it simply a parable about man’s fall from grace?

I believe the Creation of Man did occur just as it is written in the Bible. I'm one who believes the Bible IS the literal, inerrant Word of God. I beleive every event occurred exactly the way it is described. I've debated these very same issues with two of my personal friends from college. Both of them were raised in Christian homes, but have since decided that Christianity is too illogical and ridiculous for them to accept. These examples you list are common ones.

Here is a link I found to answer several of the most prominent arguments against (or questions about) Christianity.

Christian Answers

It gives a very reasonable (and logical) explanation of how Noah could have built the ark and housed the animals.

I also find it interesting that science pretty much agrees that a "global catastrophe" killed off the dinosaurs. Most believe that a giant meteor crashed into Earth and created an ice age. Some scientists disagree, though, because some of the fossils show evidence of having been covered in deep water very quickly. They don't know how to account for that, but the Bible gives an account of a "global flood" that would easily explain it. The Flood would also have killed off most of the dinosaurs by drowning them, rather than having them slowly freeze to death from the "global dust cloud".
There is a good section about this topic on the site above.

Next, why is the Bible written in the form of parables and "short stories". Why not just a straightforward manual on what God wants and where He can be found? (I'm trying to summarize your Post as best as I can and still address your main concerns).

As I grow in my relationship with God, the Divine Design of the Bible becomes much clearer and more impressive (heh, "Divine Design, I like that). The parables and stories lend themselves to be easily adapted into a format children can easily understand. That way, they can learn about God from an early age and get a basic understanding of who He is. As I grew older and started going to church, I discovered a deeper message to some of the stories and that gave me a better understanding of how God wants us to conduct ourselves. Jonah was cast into the belly of the whale as punishment for trying to ignore God's mission for him. Noah stands as an example of how Christians should "keep their faith" even in the face of harsh criticism and ridicule (Hey Dramnek! [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img] )

(BTW, there IS scientific evidence of a large flood in the entire Mideast/Persian/Egyptian plain, so there is some "knowledge" available to back up my faith).

This helped guide me, but until I was Saved, and then filled with the Holy Spirit, I realized that I had just been "scratching the surface" of what the Bible has to offer. Almost every single account of an event or action in the Bible has a deeper allegorical meaning to it. When Herod released Barrabus in place of Jesus, that was a real life symbolism of His atonement for our sins. Jesus was wrongly persecuted by the Pharisees because He challenged their hypocritical nature. Barrabas was a convicted criminal. But the criminal (or sinner) went free while the innocent man was killed. This symbolizes Jesus' Sacrifice for ALL sinners. Just as he literally replaced Barrabas on the Cross, so too did His death literally atone for the sins of ALL Mankind with His Father.

About the Holy Spirit - The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Holy Trinity (the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). God is our Creator and Final Judge. Jesus is His Son, who came to Earth to be a living example of God's Word and how to apply it. He is also our Mediator. We are unworthy to approach God on our own merits, so Jesus intercedes for us, just as He did on the Cross.
The Holy Ghost/Spirit is the spiritual form of God and it enters into the heart of every person that accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior. It acts as a little piece of God inside all of us, showing us whether our actions please or displease Him. Before I was Saved, there were certain things I would do that I knew were "kinda wrong", but they never really bothered me. After being Saved, though, I would feel a tremendous amount of guilt and conviction if I did the same thing. That was God's way of showing me that HE did not approve of that action. I then saw my sin through HIS eyes, not mine.

The same is true for the Bible. The Holy Spirit gives us a certain amount of "Divine Inspiration" when reading the Bible. I notice certain points or lessons in stories that I never saw before (as mentioned above).

It's a very difficult concept to explain. It is just something you have to experience to fully understand.

AFA "proof" of God's existence, you're right, I do "see it all around me". However, my proof goes deeper than that. I have received direct answers to my prayers on many occasions. I've even been privileged enough to actually "hear God's voice" in response to a prayer before (only once so far though).

Here's just one example. My wife and I struggled financially for years. We had decent jobs, but I have a chronic illness that had run up some major medical bills. On payday, we would pay what bills we could. The day after payday, we would be broke again and still have some bills left over. I prayed about our situation a lot, but I often tried to "fix the problem" myself by seeing where we were "wasting money" (we weren't - we never had any left to waste). I also would pray for God to help me out the way I wanted Him too. That didn't work either. This lasted for well over 5 years time. Finally, I changed my prayer one night and simply told God that I trusted Him to provide an answer. I admitted that I was not able to "do it on my own" and I asked Him to change my situation in any manner HE saw fit.
The VERY next day, I got a call telling me about a managers job available at another location close to my home. It doubled my pay and I'm still there three years later.

Concerning the "test" all adults have to face. You actually gave a pretty good summarization of our purpose here. I do beleive one of our primary goals is to serve God in a fashion that pleases Him. When a child dies (or anyone for that matter), the ramifications of that loss go far beyond God "hand-choosing" who gets into Heaven. Every death affects a number of people, sometimes in ways that the family themselves may never know.

I found a website last year run by a Christian family that learned their 5 year old son had a brain tumor. He had the same name and was the same age as my oldest son, so I followed his progress closely (the mother posted updates every few days). He died just 2 days before my sons' birthday. I cried as if it were my own. The mother still operates the website and her continued updates now center on how this Christian family has grown closer to God through this tragedy. NOT that it was a pleasant experience by any means. They are still heartbroken over the loss of their child, but their faith in God grew stronger and the mother serves as a wonderful witness of how God will carry us through tragedies that we think we could never survive.

My own Salvation came as a result of the untimely death of a man that everybody considered to be "one of the best Christians you could ever meet". He was very young (29) and seemed to have an extremely bright future, but it was cut short. Why did God allow that to happen? Well, one reason is that it finally gave me the jolt I needed to make the commitment to Him that I had been fighting for so long. I finally realized that I could die tomorrow, and I would NOT be in Heaven if I did, so I decided it was time to "get right with God". There were over 400 other people at the funeral. How many more lives did God change through the death of one of His best? Only He knows for sure.

I'll stop with that for now for the sake of brevity. Please feel free to continue Responding with any more questions you have. I will always do my best to answer them for you.

Thank you once again for the discussion. I truly am interested in your point of view, and am amazed with your honesty and your ability to handle other peoples constant denial of your beliefs. I must continue with this though, as I have many more questions. Thanks for the link, but to be honest, I just hate receiving information in that fashio. I would much prefer to have a two way discussion about such important things.
Anyway, I should get on with this, as I will end up writing a novel otherwise.

Cerek Quote : “I also find it interesting that science pretty much agrees that a "global catastrophe" killed off the dinosaurs. Most believe that a giant meteor crashed into Earth and created an ice age. Some scientists disagree, though, because some of the fossils show evidence of having been covered in deep water very quickly. They don't know how to account for that, but the Bible gives an account of a "global flood" that would easily explain it. The Flood would also have killed off most of the dinosaurs by drowning them, rather than having them slowly freeze to death from the "global dust cloud".”

The dinosaurs is an interesting topic for you to raise. If the bible is completely literal as you have suggested in your post, then God created the world in 7 days. Man was created on the 7th. Now are these days supposed to be literal? We wouldn’t want to have exceptions to the rule, so I will take it that they are. Did the dinosaurs only live for a couple of days without humans beings in existence. It seems very unlikely that man would have existed since the begininng of the dinosaurs, and in fact, science has proved that this is simply not the case. I have had many christians tell me that they don’t believe the dinosaurs even existed, because the bible makes not mention of them. Are they kidding? You obviously believe that they did, and therefore that they, like all other creatures of that time existed when the flood came, hence your explanation of their extinction. Well if they existed at the time, why were they not included in the animals that Noah put on the Ark. Because they were too big? Because they were too dangerous? Because they weren’t one of God’s elite? The elephant obviously got on there! As did the tiger, the platypus, the Cobalt Blue Tinctorius frog and the Stuthio Camelus. Do you really believe that Noah and the dinosaurs existed at the same time, but it was God’s will that Noah ignore the dinosaurs in his collection of animals for the Ark and just go for the easier ones to catch?
And the natural evolution for this discussion must now move onto…well, Evolution. I went to the museum the other day. It has a whole section on the evolution of man from apes. Now if man did evolve from apes, that puts a pretty big hole in the literal theory you have of the bible. It states that God created man out of his image on day 7, and that Eve was created out of one of Adam’s ribs, not long after. It does not allow for evolution. Once again, Christians tell me that they don’t believe in the apes to man evolution theory, but we see the same sort of evolution amongst many other animal species. We also have an unbelievable amount of scientific evidence that points to this evolution process. Surely, when there is physical proof of evolution right in front of our faces, we cannot simply dismiss it!
It seems that anything can be explained by the bible if you really want to. You can take something completely out of context to the advantage of a discussion, or read into something in a very abstract way to find the answer you seek. The Horroscopes in the morning paper are designed to work in the same way. Allowing you to get whatever it is that you want out of them.

Cerek Quote : “The same is true for the Bible. The Holy Spirit gives us a certain amount of "Divine Inspiration" when reading the Bible. I notice certain points or lessons in stories that I never saw before (as mentioned above).”
And “The VERY next day, I got a call telling me about a managers job available at another location close to my home. It doubled my pay and I'm still there three years later.”

I’m going to tell you a story. I was struggling to find a career path. I tried different things, University, accounting, amongst other things, without finding something that I liked. I was getting very down about it and then one day, I got offered a job in IT which I had always wanted. I had no experience and no qualifications, but I went for it and got it. Now by all means, I consider this to be a great stroke of luck. If I were a Christian, I would definitely say that God was watching over me and looking after me. I’m not, so I just feel really lucky. Why must Christians, whenever anything good ever happens, say that it was God’s hand, and that they couldn’t have done it without God. We see Olympic athletes who win a gold medal, the first thing they say is, “I just want to thank God for making this happen to me. Oh thank you God! I couldn’t have done this without you.” Hey guess what! The athlete did all the training, all the hard work, and when they finally get exactly what they deserve, they say that it had nothing to do with there own effort, and in fact, it was just God’s will. What, did God not like the guy who came second as much?
You tell a story about how you were financially in trouble, and then got out of trouble. Well good on you! How can you possibly know that it was a God that made that happen, and that it wasn’t just good fortune. People who have terrible car accidents and live, say “thanks to God” for allowing them to live. Well, God allowed them to have the terrible car accident, so he must be pretty pissed at them to start with!
Whenever anything bad happens, Christians say, God works in mysterious ways.

September 11! Why did 1000’s of people get killed while they working? Christian Answer : God works in mysterious ways!

September 11! How did all those people that survived get out of the building? Christian Answer : It was God’s divine hand!

It doesn’t matter what happens, Christians can explain anything by using these two statements to suit there purposes. Now if we looked at it from the enemies viewpoint, they may reverse the statements to suit there purposes!
Your other example of a 29 year old dying, and the purpose of that death also fits this category perfectly. He dies, and people question why. Your answer is that it was so other people could come to see God, including yourself. You happen to be talking about a Christian on this occasion, but what if he was not! I wonder what your answer would be then. God works in mysterious ways perhaps? Further to this, I wonder how many of the 400 people that attended the funeral came away with the same resolve as you. Personally, I know people who have turned away from God when something like that happens.
You also mention that it is the Holy Spirit that helps you to understand the Bible. Why isn’t it your brain? Do you not think you are capable of making those assessments yourself? I’m sure I have made may point fairly clearly now!

I have a question for you Cerek! What is heaven like? Is it a place where everything that is good will happen. I believe this to be impossible, as everyone has their own opinion of what good is! If I believe that Soccer is a really great thing, then will I be able to play Soccer in Heaven. I mean I should be able to score a goal every time I kick the ball because only good things happen in Heaven. But then again, what about the goaly. He would always stop the ball! Oh well, I guess there's no soccer in Heaven. So what is there? Fluffy white clouds? Futhermore, if I love someone but they are not a Christian and I am, how can Heaven be perfect if that person would not be there with me? If we are striving so much to get to Heaven, surely we have some idea as to what is there!

I will once again leave this post with another question. It is one of the biggest things that I struggle with, and I have touched on it in my previous posts.
I strongly believe that you cannot make yourself believe something without deluding yourself. If I wanted to believe that I could fly, then it doesn’t matter how much I told myself that it was true, and how much I ended up believing it to be true, it would still be a delusion of the truth. I cannot fly! I believe that I could even make myself absolutely believe that I could if I told myself enough. That is part of the human nature. It’s like when people do something wrong. In the time after they did it, they will try to convince themselves that it in fact did not happen. They can even get to the point where they themselves, truly believe that it did not happen.
I do not believe in God. As you can see, I have tried. I continue to try. I want to understand. But I haven’t even come close. You can tell me as much as you want that God exists and that I should ask him for forgiveness, but in my heart, I do not believe in him. If I was to suddenly decide that, just in case it is true, I’m going to be safe and ask God for forgiveness, he would know that I do not believe in him. Beyond that, I would be deluding myself. The only way that I can see, that I would become a Christian, is if God gives me direct proof of his existence. To this point in my life, this has not happened. If it does not happen before I die, and there is in fact a God, then I will go to Hell. Now one of three things could happen as far as I can see. 1. God could give me my own personal sign of his existence. 2. God will give me no sign, and I will burn in Hell for all of eternity 3. God will give me no sign, but he will give me entrance into heaven, because he know’s that he gave me no choice.
Number 1 seems to be unrealistic as you say that he has given us all the proof that we need and now we have to make a choise
Number 2 seems worse, because if God is a merciful God, which the bible says he is, and he created me knowing that I would not believe in him without proof, which he will not give me, then that’s a completely hypocritical concept.
It seems that I will have to cling to number 3. Just give up and hope for the best when I die.

Later,
Aviendha.

[K T Ong]

To Cerek (and everyone else who's interested):

I shall not be raising any further 'objections' to the Christian religion. There's already enough of that in the posts above. . Here all I want to do is direct your attention to this special online bookstore/publisher which specialises in books on world religion and philosophy, including many titles on Christianity. As far as I can tell, all the books published by this house are written by authorities in their respective fields. You might therefore like to take a look, maybe even purchase some of their publications. I intend to.

One more thing, Cerek; have you read Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Aviendha: *Snip*

You cannot expect to get anywhere by attempting to examine or engage theological arguments on their own ground, Put simply, this is all you need:

No one can prove the existence of any God,
Personal Experience counts for nothing, since it is wholly subjective.
Neither does “you must have faith first” since post hoc reasoning and failure filtering flaw this.
If you cannot prove god’s existence, Occams razor dictates that the most likely outcome is that God Does not exist, given our current state of knowledge.
There is no need to pay any attention to theology since its fundamental premise is therefore flawed as if you cannot prove anything’s existence you cannot claim to be able to interpret it.
Therefore as a result of the above we can dismiss religion out of hand, without even needing to go into any complicated issues.

[K T Ong]

According to the above, science will have to be dismissed out of hand, too.

Originally posted by K T Ong: According to the above, science will have to be dismissed out of hand, too.

Not necessarily, since we can prove the laws of science to a certain extent, for example I can take a glass of water and put it over a flame. When the water gets hot enough it will boil, therefore I have proved something, since this fact is also independently verifiable and non-subjective and can be repeated in the future
Much the same applies to other scientific knowledge.