It just seems that people do all the talking for God. Doesn't that strike you as a little odd? How can you be sure that God is actually impressing on you a message for somebody else? Considering that you are not perfect, and could get your own fleshy mind mixed up with your spiritual mind. What do you do to check against any possible biases?
A Fist Full of Doubt's
- Thread starter I.O.U
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Each morning and sometimes more often daily I go to the lowest room and strive to empty myself of all that I believe or know or all that I think I believe or know... Sometimes I need to ask God for help in doing that.
"When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;
And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.
But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Luke 14:8-11
Mantis
Well-Known Member
Actually hypocrites are hypocrites and Christians are Christians. Have you heard of the wheat and the tares? You may have dealt with the tares and that’s why you are all bitter and trying to aggravate us. You are not going to convince Christians that God doesn’t exist so why are you here? As far as I can tell you are not here to learn about or come to God. You’re feeding off us.
@Mantis The believer needs to keep "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12.2), despite his or her imperfections and illogicalities.
Mantis
Well-Known Member
@Mantis Interesting that the preceding verse in Hebrews 12 mentions the word 'patience'...
"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us..."
Mantis
Well-Known Member
Mantis
Well-Known Member
Do you not understand what you are doing? I'll ask, what you are here for then? Are you looking for God or just here to tell us we are all wrong? What do you want? Don't beat around the bush. Tell us straight. Games are for children. Just answer that question and I will decide if I am wasting my time talking to you. I can't get back the last minute I just had.
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
Would you rather die with a clear conscience or a guilty one?
Would you rather die believing you were the best you could be or filled with regrets?
Let's take away what or why other followers believe or have doubts about, and focus on why you do or don't have doubts.
How does dying for the sake of my belief help the course of history?
By leaving a good example to follow.
Vaccines and cleaner fuels may make you rich, it may improve others standards of living in the world, true.
But what about how they feel about themselves? What about having hope that all they see isn't all there is?
If this life is nothing more than, I came, I saw, I died. Eventually as a generation or two went by, people would think, why bother doing anything good, I'm going to die anyways. And as each generation comes and goes it just deteriorates more and more, because there is no hope for something better.
There is no hope for another chance to do it better.
If you believe the Apostles died for the sake of fame or fortune, what good is that after they are dead?
Knowing that those who follow them would eventually follow them to the same death.
Why believe in a God at all?
If there is only this life in this time that you have, and nothing future.. why bother being good?
Why lie?
What profit is there in promoting a lie to give others a false hope?
Money? You can't take it with you when you die. You only have today, because no one knows what will be tomorrow.
The thing about biblical historical events is that YOU can see history repeating itself right before your very eyes.
If those historical events were untrue, then the written account of what has occured before would not be happening now.
It would all be a different scenery, a different set of outcomes. There would be no such thing as prophecy.
Prophecy is a forward looking occurance. Why bother looking forward if your not going to be here to see it?
Why has mankind always been in search of a God?
Regardless if it is Jesus or Ra or Baal, why bother?
What is it in man that makes us seek something other than ourselves to guide us?
What are we searching for?
My belief is that we were created in the image of our creator to search for him/her/it.. whatever that creator is formed in your mind.
Something was given to humans to inspire us, to motivate us, to search for the reason for our being.
Otherwise we would be no different than animals that simply are born, live by instinct, never questioning or seeking something more, and die.
Why are we different than animals?
I believe man was created in a unique way. That our purpose is to seek out our creator.
Unlike animals after they are weened never to return to the nest, humans seek a place to return to.
Why?
So instead of asking yourself, why should I believe?
Maybe the question shoud be, why shouldn't I believe?
What have you got to lose?
Your going to die anyways.
What is it about YOU that you want people to remember?
Why bother?
HUGS
@Ziggy Oh that, instead of doubting, ppl would heed the exhortation of Hebrews 11, which over and over commends Scriptural examples of faith: "By faith...by faith...by faith..." !
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
Hard to explain faith to someone who has doubts.@Ziggy Oh that, instead of doubting, ppl would heed the exhortation of Hebrews 11, which over and over commends Scriptural examples of faith: "By faith...by faith...by faith..." !
Sometimes you have to start at the ground level and work your way up.
So my questions to the OP would be..
What benefit is it to doubt?
What do you gain by doubting?
Who are you trying to impress with doubt?
Is it less cool to have faith?
Who's approval are you looking for one way or the other?
Do you care what other people think if you have faith?
What are you afraid of losing if you put doubt aside?
Why is being doubtful important?
I have faith not because someone says I should or shouldn't. Not because of what people may think.
I have faith because I choose to. My faith has been tried and it's true. The evidence of that, is that I still have my faith even after having been tried.
I know what it is to doubt. I know what it is to believe the world when it tells me the whole thing is a scam.
I checked it out, and found it wanting in the balance.
Doubting does not give me peace. It does not give me hope. It does not give me joy. It provides nothing solid to stand on.
It makes me feel like something is lacking. Something is missing. It makes me feel empty. And cynical, and uncaring.
Why would I want doubt, when I can have faith?
Just thinking..
Hugs
I have studied at great length to obtain the information I currently discuss. Even I didn't want to accept the cold hard facts of the cumulative effects of beliefs, because I was dependent on them for coping with what I didn't know. So letting go of all my beliefs did eventually destroy everything I thought I knew about myself and the world I lived in. But throughout that process I became mentally rebalanced, and stopped suffering the effects of schizophrenia. I'll be blunt here. My research is true, since I have been able to navigate off antipsychotic medication over 2 year's, and right under the noses of the Australian Queensland mental health services.
Should I say more?
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Is it not true that everyone outside your particular belief and belief group is wrong? So you're 99% of the way to accepting all other beliefs as the culprit. But your still stuck with your 1% belief being absolute truth.
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
I can't say I spent a lot of time studying how to disclaim one's beliefs in a god, any god.
History shows us that man made gods for many reasons.
To control people mainly through fear.
Fear of bad crops, no rain, pestilence.
Some used it as a power grab over others.
Some used gods to promote and justify their behaviors, like human sacrifices to appease the gods.
I'm not ignorant of these things.
But I've had plenty of time to question myself why I should or shouldn't believe in a god.
Sometimes you have to let everything go and begin again.
Perhaps your research is true for you. And if you have found comfort in your truth, then by all means stay in it.
But your truth may not be my truth. Perhaps I was given a different insight than you.
What cured you, I found was harm to me.
What I found as truth, may not be the same that you walked away from.
That first sentence.. I have studied at great length to obtain the information I currently discuss... reminds me of something someone once said to Paul:
Act 22:27 Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.
Act 22:28 And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.
If your doubts give you freedom, then by no means do I seek to enslave you.
At the same time, my Faith gives me freedom, and you should show the same respect towards others that you receive.
Fair?
Hugs
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
Are you speaking to me personally or as christianity as a whole?
If your speaking to me personally..
I believe that the God that created each of us, uses whatever means to speak or make himself know to that individual creation.
And not every person is made aware in the same way.
Paul is walking down the road. Sees a blinding light and hears a voice.
He has no clue who it is that's blocking his way.
Who are you?
Jesus made himself known to Paul in his own way.
Moses knew him as Jehovah.
I can't speak to other religions because I haven't studied them.
Ultimately there is only One creator of us all.
This creator is the force or the author of life itself.
Some call it the big bang, something somewhere got the ball rolling at some time in history.
Now the Bible says that God made himself known to Moses.
Abraham called him Lord, Isaac and Jacob called him Lord because Abraham called him Lord.
But by the name Jehovah only Israel knew him.
And through Israel we learned his new name Jesus.
There may be many other names he told to other peoples that we don't know.
And because we don't know, we say it must be untrue. But we don't know.
What we do know is what the Bible tells us.
And we either have faith in what that book says or we don't.
Some people only know him as God. They don't know who Jesus is.
Doesn't mean Jesus isn't true. Just that they don't know his name.
Even Elijah gave people a choice.. you could follow the Lord or you could follow Baal.
Elijah proved Baal was no God at all by a challenge.
We can either believe this or deny what is written.
Everyone has this freedom to choose.
I believe when the Bible tells me you will know them by their fruit (character) , then that is how we can recognize who believes in good or evil.
God is good.
That which is good is of God. That which is evil is not God.
Lot of people say they don't believe in God and yet have good fruit.
Lot of people say they are believers and are very wicked.
So me, personally.. I determine ones beliefs by the characteristics of their life.
Christianity as a whole... varies by denomination.
I believe being a Christian is an individual path that is shared by other individuals walking the same path, in the same direction, to the same destination. And this is what the definition of "church" means to me.
I don't have a "religion" , I have a "relationship" with my creator.
But everyone is different and all come from different circumstances.
And as the saying goes, all roads lead to rome,
I believe ultimately all roads lead to God, because there is no other place to go.
I'm not a judgemental kind of person. God has his ways and his reasons.
And it's not my job to question him about other peoples paths.
Hugs
I would if those who are insistent for the right for the freedom to believe without persecution would stop pestering me with their beliefs. Do I really have the right to exercise my beliefs as you do? I don't think so. Because my personal beliefs would infringe on the beliefs of the majority who have already established the ethical social norms, that I have to believe in myself.
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