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Ask Him and experiment on His words.

Not at all. Actually I made no such claim. You're moving the question here from "how do I know God exists" to "Why is God true". Those are two VERY different questions. You are bringing in a lot of more concepts here, some of which I probably have a very different view on than you, so I...

Again, I'm a scientist: lack of evidence right now does not necessarily mean that X theory isn't true, just that there's a lack of evidence for it. And that's just how a lot of hypothesis's are. And again, God speaks to people different ways. If a person is expecting to have Road to Damascus...

If a person is honestly seeking Him and honestly asking / experimenting on His words, I have found that they have found Him. Granted, it's not always at first and God does speak in different ways to different people. Some hypothesis take thorough experimenting with.

God reveals Himself to those that seek Him. Not just static words in book. God- the living divine almighty. Hence my recommending to earnestly experimenting upon His words and/or asking Him about it directly.

I don't think that there's any purpose is arguing/debating scriptures/denominations, and find that such is frequently very destructive. Discussing with the intent of listening to better understand why/what someone else believes as they do does serve a purpose.

Professional scientist and highly religious person speaking here-- Scripture alone doesn't prove or disprove God. It just can't. Science cannot prove or disprove God, because such is beyond the scope of the scientific method. If a person truly wants to address questions of "is there really a...

And what is the point of you two* pointing fingers at each other and saying "you understand scripture wrong!". Do you think that this is going to convince anyone or bring anyone closer to Christ? What is your purpose in writing here? (*This is more of a generic question, rather than referring...

He has an entire section on it in his "Kingdom of Cults" book. (Note: the entire book is completely inaccurate slander, and I no way endorse it). I'm just illustrating the foundations and methodology of this "anti cult" movement any how it can indeed be applied to Calvinism or any other...

You don't know the history of your own movement then. For example, look up the works of Walter Martian, one of the founders of the "anti-cult" movement (and also just a horrible person).

You're overlooking that the anti-cult founders also declared Catholics, SDA, Orthodox, and many other Christians branches to be "cults". The term was pretty much used for any group that was not their own, relies on fear-pandering, and has no relations to dictionary definitions and/or mainstream...

The "anti-cult" movement is one that declares any beliefs system they don't like / disagree with to be a "cult". CoreIssue doing the same here is constant with the movement. That being said, this methodology makes this word completely without meaning and only serves to throw mud around.

I think throwing around the word "cult" is downright destructive here-- all it's going to do is wedge walls between people and make communication near impossible. I'm not saying I agree with Calvinism at all (nothing could be further from the truth), but the "cult" calling it just not productive.

Honestly, I hold views very different than yours. I see the biggest origin of the different logic trains being in the questions "what is justice" and "what is power / it's use".

Ok. You've made your beliefs very clear and directly answered questions. I thank you for that. Is there anything I can answer for you?

Just to recap that I'm understanding it correctly: It was God's master plan from before the world was created that Bob would be a slave to sin, devoid of will, and sentenced to Hell for eternity. This was done to bring God maximum glory to himself. Am I understanding you correctly?

So did Adam thwart God's perfect plan, or was this fallen world God's plan all along? Ok, I see your logic there.

For the record: this is not an accurate statement as to how most non-Calvinists view God's. I can't speak for all, but as for myself and vast vast majority of non-Calvinists I've spoken to would strongly disagree with this statement.

So Adam made Bob fallen and devoid of free will? I guess I'm just not sure why God would order men to petition God for change, when God is going to just do whatever God was already planning on doing.

Ok, I"m still figuring out your logic/beliefs here and thank you for your patience and willingness to answer. Now earlier you said: Can you help me mesh these two statements in how they relate to Bob specifically? But isn't God going to do what brings him the most glory anyways? Then why...