"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." (Mark Twain)
Sure, I'm going to take spiritual advice from Mark Twain. Pfffftt
Sure, I'm going to take spiritual advice from Mark Twain. Pfffftt
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so" (Mark Twain).
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I don't know that I ever believed anything "in spite of myself." Even in the startling conversion experience I describe in my testimony, I had a longstanding (for someone who was only 20!) interest in the survival of consciousness, the nature of reality and whatnot. I wasn't a materialistic atheist who suddenly "found God" contrary all my preexisting beliefs.
I agree that faith is not of our own understanding or rational analysis. I think a problem arises when we expand our notions of what "real faith" requires to include things like Bible literalism contrary to what our minds and senses actually tell us. My faith is a broad one in the existence of God and the core truth of Christianity. If someone wants to tell me she is a Bible literalist because she believes "by faith" things about the natural order in contravention of established science and what her own lying brain and eyes tell her, I'm simply going to say "That's fine if you can live in the state of cognitive dissonance this requires, but my notion of faith doesn't require this."
My goodness, you are a tiring and boring one-trick pony with a knee-jerk propensity to completely miss the point of what others are actually saying. I humor you because you are such a delightful foil - you say precisely the sorts of nonsensical things that serve to illustrate the points I am making. If you didn't exist, I'd have to invent you.
"Real Christianity." As defined by some internet goof calling himself Behold.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
The view that the best science can help inform and strengthen one's Christian convictions is "an entirely secular point of view" not related to (your) "real Christianity" - really? Is that what the many Christians in the Intelligent Design movement believe? Is that what the myriad of scientists who are believers, including Nobel laureates, think? Do you have any idea of how many scientific breakthroughs over the centuries occurred precisely because the scientists were Christians who approached their work from that perspective? It may be above your pay grade, but I would refer you to Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga, who is not only a deep Christian but one of the acknowledged greatest philosophers of modern times: Amazon.com.
But, hey, enjoy the weird little bubble in which your Christianity exists. I don't say it isn't "real Christianity." I just say it isn't my "real Christianity" or most believers "real Christianity." Fortunately for all of us, God hasn't assigned the task of defining Christianity to internet goofs.
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One of the many who completely miss the point. Mark Twain was not offering spiritual advice. Mark Twain was a humorist, one of the handful of greatest who ever lived. He was a master of the one-line quip: "The reports of my death have been greatly exagerrated," "Wagner's music is a lot better than it sounds," "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
Twain knew the difference between real faith and pretend faith. His quip was a wry observation on the aburd "Christianity" of his day - which, alas, is exponentially more absurd in our day. I'm betting he's in heaven.
Actually I wasn't even responding to the body of your post, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. If so many people can't seem to get your point, maybe that should be a clue to use fewer words and speak more clearly.
VictoryinJesus
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Love Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
Colossians 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
I've been writing and editing professionally for 50 years and have won a number of awards for everything from humorous fiction to peer-reviewed articles in law journals, so I'm inclined to think the problem isn't me.
Yes, I don'typically write at the Joe Six Pack, fourth-grade level that was encouraged in Journalism school because these topics are deeper than a newspaper article about the Fire Department rescuing yet another cat from yet another tree. Alas, at a forum such as this, the fourth-grade Suzy Six Packs are unavoidable. I could dumb-down my posts to that level, but I prefer to write at the level I believe appropriate and let the Joes and Suzies say "I couldn't make heads or tails of it." 
I went from unbelief to belief, without even trying. Go figure. And I was humbled by this and repented for my unbelief.
I know you were talking to someone else about this, but if the carnal mind is enmity with God and can't perceive the things of the Spirit, I would think we can expect some measure of cognitive dissonance at times. Our minds need to be renewed to have the mind of Christ on things, which is His spiritual mind. What does it mean to have our minds renewed...? Well things pertaining to new and renewed in scripture depict the realm and things of the Spirit. It is not of our own. Faith and understanding is not of our own, not of the carnal natural old man, but is of the Spirit. THAT NO MAN MAY BOAST.
Sure, I understand, but I'm betting you didn't go directly from unbelief to a full-blown, fundamentalist, literalist, inerrantist, multi-dogmatic, bibliolatrist Christianity either. As @St. SteVen has suggested in some of his threads, this sort of faith is a learned and acquired one. What I call my faith is more like what you probably believed when you first believed. My quest, over the decades, has been to try to return to that initial faith, letting all the rest fall by the wayside where I believe it belongs.
LOL, okay.I've been writing and editing professionally for 50 years and have won a number of awards for everything from humorous fiction to peer-reviewed articles in law journals, so I'm inclined to think the problem isn't me.
VictoryinJesus
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Remember when Jesus Christ told them you must eat My flesh and drink My blood and some went away offended, and He asked “will you go away too?” I see a mirror where one looks and is offended and turns away after his own ways, after his own lust and his heart hardened. “Forgetting what he was like” “deceiving himself”. But in other scripture it follows this same instruction to continue in being changed, transformed “the law of Liberty” isn’t this the face of Christ?
James 1:22-25 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. [23] For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. [24] For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like(deceiving himself). [25] But the one who looks into (Christ)the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres(continues therein), being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (Is this a lie too?)
Romans says a man (Adam) caused sin to enter into the world, and also that a man would have to redeem it from sin. Romans 5:15 says “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” Some theologians teach that only God could pay for the sins of mankind, but the Bible specifically says that a man must do it. The book of Corinthians makes the same point Romans does when it says “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:21).
St. SteVen
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Yes, @O'Darby could you dumb it down a bit? - LOL
Keep the cookies on the lower shelf. After all, it's Christians we are talking to here.
Did you forget?
/
St. SteVen
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Just curious...
What does that tell you about salvation? (1 Corinthians 15:21)
1 Corinthians 15:21-22 NIV
For since death came through a man,
the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
/
I finally gave up dumbing-down. I tried, I really did. A considerable portion of my legal career was spent as an in-house lawyer, trying to giive advice to employees of all levels in the organization. I used to keep a little resin Buddha beside my PC as a reminder to make every piece of work, even an email, an exercise in pristine, Zen-like, plain-English clarity. Even at that, it was astonishing how many people holding really responsible positions couldn't comprehend a six-line email. It was a brutal lesson in ... something, I'm not sure what. So now I just write for O'Darby and let the chips fall where they may.
Unfortunately the Continuationist position is on that presents the Scriptures as not really sufficient to bring one to a knowledge of the gospel.
St. SteVen
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The point of all such miraculous spiritual gifts was to authenticate the message of the one with such gifts. With the complete Bible, there really is nothing more needed. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom 10:17). The word of Christ is complete in the Bible.
VictoryinJesus
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Curious what your perspective is on 2 Corinthians 12:12 Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.
When was this ? “truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.”
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Rich R
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You bring up some very good ideas that got me thinking about the subject. With the scientific advancements we've made since Moses penned Genesis, it is rather obvious that the description on how God made the universe was not written in order to conform to modern science. While our science can neither prove nor disprove Genesis 1:1, the rest of the creation story clearly does not agree with our science. As I said, trying to make it do so is a futile endeavor indeed. However, I do think those who do are sincere and are at least convinced of the inerrancy of the Bible, and for that I have to respect them. Bible skeptics don't even make it out of the starting gate!
Having said that, I think we may want to consider how the science of 1,000 BC agreed or disagreed with Genesis. That is after all the era in which Moses wrote, and from that perspective Genesis is in total agreement with 1st millennia BC science.
When we in modern time visualize the universe we see something like:
This is pretty much our world view and it certainly doesn't look like anything at all in Genesis. But what was their worldview, their science? Those in Ancient Middle Universe, including the Jews, visualized the universe something like:
The verse references in this diagram align perfectly with how those folks visualized the universe. Such an image was shared, not only by the Jews, but by all those who lived in the Ancient Near East. God wrote in terms they already understood. He saw no need to bring up the big bang. Their world started in a small garden but I see the language as saying that it was God's intent that the garden should eventually spread across the entire land. And yes, as far as the Jews were concerned, the earth was flat. In fact the word "earth" is almost always translated as "land" everywhere else it is used. It is the Hebrew word "erets." We in our time see the earth as a globe which aligns with our worldview depicted in the first image above. We know that because of relatively new instruments such as telescopes. But had you and I lived in the days of Moses it would be indisputable that the land was indeed flat. We'd just have to walk outside of our tent and look around. With the scientific instruments of our eyes, it would be obvious. Case closed!
Had God communicated the scriptures last year in New York or LA, I would think Genesis would have read quite differently than it does now. Perhaps God would have mentioned atoms, quarks, Quantum Mechanics, etc. I would imagine that if God waited until the 30th century to reveal Himself, the description of the universe may well be as different from our current view as ours is from Moses' view. Speculation of course, but not out of the realm of possibility. I have little doubt that science 1,000 years from now will unlock many secrets of the universe of which we can't presently even imagine.
In general, I don't think it was God's intention to explain exactly how He brought the universe into existence. I think that what He intended was to tell mankind that it was He that brought it into existence. That of course is fully divulged in Genesis 1:1. But what was the message He wanted to convey in rest of the creation story? Without going into a lot of detail, I think it was simply that He wanted to make a suitable habitat for humans to dwell together with Him in complete harmony. As such, I think God did a great job of communicating just that, and He did it in a way that spans both time and culture. Rather ingenious in my opinion.
The walking talking snake is another interesting little tidbit in Genesis. All I'll say about that is that even we in our modern days often call some human being a "rat" or, and more to the point, a "snake in the grass." I think we all understand the message such usage of words are meant to convey. I don't know for sure how they saw it, but it was probably at least close to how we see it. In any case, I seriously doubt they spent much time in discussing how snakes used to walk and talk. Again, that is conjecture on my part, but does it really matter one way or the other when considering God's overall plan for mankind? I think not.
Thanks for the discussion.
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