LordReed:


Never said you did, however thats what you accusing me of and I show you how ridiculous that argument is.

You lied. You introduced book (Harry Potter) first after I said you're making an argument for God.

LordReed:


The same way I can make a case for the existence of Harry Potter by quoting sections of the books and pointing out issues.

I haven't used any book to make my argument for the existence of God.

brocab:
{Ephesians 4:5} One Lord, One faith, One baptism.
{People coming together as a Church in one accord}
{Romans 12:1} Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
{The Church is People coming together as a living sacrifice}
{Romans 12:4;5} - Members of the church are to all be like members of the same human body
{The Church is made up of one mind, one heart and one soul in Christ}
{Romans 12:6,7,8} - Every Christian should use his or her gifts selflessly for the benefit of the rest of the church
{Some pastors, some evangelist, some teachers and made up together to edify the Church}

But there are over 33,000 churches who mostly disagree with each other. So, where's the one church?

LordReed:


Ah so special pleading, your god doesn't honour its own words. Such a contradiction. LoL

You notice you're making argument for God?

brocab:
We are blessed to be saved, but we are not all Catholic!
{Ephesians 4:11-16} And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
We are either Jew or Gentile=so Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, CHRIST. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

The body of Christ is the Church. One body, one church. "And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one" (John 17:22).... "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5).

LordReed:


Leviticus 19:11 King James Version (KJV)
11 Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.

1 Kings 22:22 King James Version (KJV)
22 And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.

Your god said don't lie then proceeds to give orders to a spirit to go and lie. LoL!

Lol. That's a simple one. Why would God who says he is "the Life" but smites people to death!! A God that kills innocent people including babies!!! Right?

brocab:

This is what I have been saying all along-someone who claims to be religious is practicing what he learns/ Someone claiming to be religious, and not practicing religion is talking into space..

Gbam! Exactly.

Honoring to be somebody, won't get you anywhere unless you have the evidence to prove your skills--once somebody have a relationship with God-there is never a self righteous retirement.
The Lord said: until the end, {Matthew 28:20} Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
People just don't retire from their faith, if the disciples retired who would deliver the message, what will happen to the Vatican if the Pope's decided to retire, the Church couldn't stand alone!

It is a privilege to be Catholic. "Blessed are those who are called to the wedding feast of the lamb" (Rev 19:9).

LordReed:
This is reason in the very page you linked:

Every interview I have seen involving the topic of
God, includes presuppositions that as infinitely inferior creatures we still
have the ability to infer the power and mind-set of the being that we endow
with omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience and perfection. I don’t know if
there is a God, but even if I did, I could not begin to imagine his
possibilities or purposes and intentions. We may never be able to fully
understand such mortal phenomena as; time (beyond basic conceptuality),
gravity, extra dimensions and a host of other facets of our ‘reality’, so to
postulate on the faculties of a supreme being, especially with smug certitude,
is offensive to me.

If a God created; time, the universe, the Earth and
me, and has, and always will exist, then his nature is beyond my scope and that
of every other human’s. That doesn’t and shouldn’t prohibit anyone from
exploring their own theories or sharing them, but championing them as THE truth
is arrogant and potentially dangerous. (As with radical religious individuals
and groups.)

I believe that we would all like to ‘know’ that there
is a God and to know his nature. But I think to even come close; we would have
to be gods ourselves.

I strongly agree that it is preposterous to assume that mere humans can "know" god. I see no reason to believe they could even recognize GOD, when and if GOD ever appears right before them. Could a mere human really tell the difference between a being that could create a galaxy, but still fall far short of creating an entire cosmos consisting of billions of galaxies? I think not.

But I would have to disagree with your comment that "we would all like to ‘know’ that there is a God and to know his nature". I believe that most people only want to "know" god, if and only if god conforms to their preconceived beliefs about god. Gods that do not conform, are more likely to be conceived of as demons and/or superstitions, to be avoided, rather than "known". In this regard, the question becomes not "How could god interact with the world?", but "How does the world (humans) interact with god?" More than a few of the theologians/philosophers interviewed by Kuhn, have stressed the importance, to themselves, of having a god that is worthy of worship. But few are inclined towards worshiping something they regard as a superstition. Consequently, if god exists, then god appears to have interacted with the world, by creating humans, that are inclined to construct a set of beliefs, and then proceed to believe and worship their construction.

Excellent reasonable argument both!

....Which brings us to the next level, the meat of the matter.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcH_5Iecu5s

LordReed:
The mere fact that your god does not follow it's own standard is demonstration enough that there is in fact no such absolute standard. Your god has used lying and killing to further its aims and at some point even utilised human sacrifice. The very things it says it is against.

What standard? Let's start with an example. Give me one.

And I asked a follow up question here:

LordReed:
...so how are you are you going to figure out if a god is involved in what is being measured.

By using your senses, most importantly, the sense of reason.
https://www.closertotruth.com/series/does-god-intervene-human-affairs#video-1981

https://www.closertotruth.com/series/how-could-god-interact-the-world

Karleb:

This is laughable!

If you wish to know about Odin, Thor, Hela, Loki and the rest then befriend marvel and try to see the Avengers' movie and also watch out for Avengers - End Game.

But we are trying to explain/understand reality here and you're talking movies.

Thor piafukwa isi there!

budaatum:

United Kingdom citizens have a negative right to freedom of expression under the common law. However, there is a broad sweep of exceptions which you are not free to say and include threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals), sending any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety (which has been used to prohibit speech of a racist or anti-religious nature), incitement, incitement to racial hatred, incitement to religious hatred, incitement to terrorism including encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications, glorifying terrorism, collection or possession of a document or record containing information likely to be of use to a terrorist, treason including advocating for the abolition of the monarchy (which cannot be successfully prosecuted) or compassing or imagining the death of the monarch, sedition (no longer illegal, sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)), obscenity, indecency including corruption of public morals and outraging public decency, defamation, prior restraint, restrictions on court reporting including names of victims and evidence and prejudicing or interfering with court proceedings, prohibition of post-trial interviews with jurors, scandalising the court by criticising or murmuring judges, time, manner, and place restrictions, harassment, privileged communications, trade secrets, classified material, copyright, patents, military conduct, and limitations on commercial speech such as advertising. You can pretty much say whatever you want except say or do those listed above.

Free speech is one of those "beans is definitely not beans" sort of things, with different nations cooking their own their own ways.

Are you corroborating or refuting my statement?

LordReed:
You are the one who is wrong as there is no absolute standard by which any of those things are measured.

Is this an opinion or you know it to be an absolute truth?

LordReed:
Not even your god claim holds up to its own purported standard.

How so?

LordReed:
BTW this a side step from the issue at hand which how do we measure your god's actions.

I already answered that. Here

9inches:
....same way the effects of truth, justice, good, beauty, trust, love, empathy, honesty, grace.... could be measured, seen or recorded.

Karleb:


This is one thing I don't like about you people. You all keep saying this.

But have you ever asked yourself the what if question?

I mean, what if you die and still go to hell anyway because Odin is the one true God?

Then it would be foolishh for anyone to not believe in odin. Great news, we humans all have what it takes to know the truth that explains our reality. It's called brain.

Karleb:


This is one thing I don't like about you people. You all keep saying this.

But have you ever asked yourself the what if question?

I mean, what if you die and still go to hell anyway because Odin is the one true God?

Then I would be a fool to not believe in odin. So, is there any truth you could open my eyes and brains to on this odin matter?

budaatum:
I've been listening to Deuteronomy and must say, parts of it would not be permissibly read on the streets of London. You can't read parts of the Quran either and you cannot insult peoples' race or sexuality. You'd be arrested. As in, popo will come to your house to arrest you even if you ran away from the scene. You don't have the freedom to say any nonsense you want on London streets!

Meanwhile, they claim they still have free speech.

Amalladan:
Because only one is a true religion “Islam”any other religion contradicting it is false.

How do you objectively determine which religious belief is true and which one is false?

PS: I agree with you, there's only one true religion.

LordReed:


These do not require a god to be had so how are you are you going to figure out if a god is involved in what is being measured.

You're totally wrong. Without God, there would be no objective standard by which these things are measured. Without such objective standard, you LordReed would not even have the moral temerity to call out evil. If such happens to be the case, good and evil would be a matter of our individual opinions... truth would not exist but our opinions. It might sound feasible in text but it can't be lived out practically.

LordReed:


Can it be measured? Seen? Recorded? By a neutral party/observer?

I'm sure, same way the effects of truth, justice, good, beauty, trust, love, empathy, honesty, grace.... could be measured, seen or recorded.

Jayfixer:
Let them hand over this young bloods to me,

I know how to deal with them;

- tie them to a chair
- use pliers to remove their fingernails and toe nails one by one
- use injection to suck out the juice In their eyeballs
- then insert long office pin in their dick holes
- then attach a 50V AC supply to their teeth for 2 hours intervals...
- more in stock for them..��

I did all those to rats when I was younger.

LordReed:


So does can this interaction be observed or not?

Observed in which way?

brocab:
I will do my best hoping you may have some sort of a idea-what it actually means.
Your Catholic right? So you believe if you baptised 10 babies as Catholic's, are they still Catholic's even thru 'while they grow, they never walked with God, prayed the rosaries, never went to Church-never followed Church tradition-never bowed before Mary but lived their lives like God didn't exist?
Do Catholic's claim these are still saved-even thru they didn't obey their Catholic faith-"Or do you believe they still have a place in Heaven to be with the Lord, because their parents made that choice for them..
Or would you agree-these are lost souls-so the baptism of babies couldn't be counted as true Catholics-until they have proving their Catholic faith.
If we were to read {Matthew 22:10-14} The King asked the servants to go out and ask the kings guest to come to the wedding-but the guest made excuses-not to come-{Would you agree these were the Pharisees claiming to be some what religious refusing to come when the Lord called them}
And then the Lord told the servants to go out unto the highways, and gather together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.
{So these servants went out into the highways, apostle Paul with Barnabas, and others preach to the Gentiles, after they had gathered them together, they believed, both good and bad, "known or unknown". The Gospel ministry is the means of gathering souls to Christ, and to attend his ordinances, and into his churches;}
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?
{Would you agree the man did not have a wedding garment' because his heart didn't believe faith existed; but he intimated himself as a man of God, only because he was taught by his parents-who were taught by the Church, by making a decision for him, to be baptised at child birth-he will still spend eternity with the Lord, no matter what life he chooses}

A Catholic is someone who lives according to the teachings of the Catholic faith.

A teacher who no longer teaches is a retired teacher. A lawyer who no longer practices law is a retired lawyer. A Catholic who no longer practices his living faith according to the teachings of the Catholic Church is a retired Catholic.

So what must a Catholic do to be entitled to the honour of being called a Catholic? They include but not limited to the following:

- Baptism
- Continuous strive to learn about the teachings of the Church
- Through special strength of the Holy Spirit that was received during the Sacrament of Confirmation, spreading and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross.
- Going to Confession on a regularly
- Receiving the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist on a regularly
- Going to Holy Mass every Sunday and on all the days of obligation.
- Without exception, accepting all of the teachings of the Church.

Etc etc.

Any more question?

Karleb:

What has human rights got to do with this?
If you wish to discuss human rights, talk to the government. I mean no offence.

If you do not understand that, there is nothing I can do.

You think I introduced a topic that has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Well, as you suggested, let's find out from the government, shall we?

Guess which government declared thus: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

What do you think, brother?

LordReed:


So your god does nothing in the present only in the past?

No, that's a deist's view of God. God never ceases to interact with his creation.

RuthlessLeader:

And how do we know the cause is the Christian God?

There's really no Christian, muslim or buddist God. There's God, and there are various understandings of him. Various sects have different degree of understanding of who/what God is... even the secular "religions" understand God as some Force [of nature]. In that sense, you could conclude that each belief system has some degree of truth and could be valuable to some degree in terms of dealing with the man's reality and his soul/spirit.

But the understanding that we as human beings are hardwired to seek what is true, just and good, we are always going to be unsatisfied. There's no amount of goodness or justice or truth the world can offer that can ever be enough to satisfy our innate desires... we know this from our living experience. If this is true - that the universe can't offer us enough, we could logically deduce that there is a standard within us, set so high, by which we [subconsciously] measure whatever good, justice, truth or beauty the world could afford us. Then we could say that standard in us could only be met by the ultimate or the absolute of whatever we desire or seek. That's who God is - ultimate truth itself, ultimate good itself, ultimate justice itself, ultimate beauty itself...and so on.

You see how it's pure delusion, ignorant, albeit pitiful to regard the "God question" as open for any kind of scientific exploration?

LordReed:


A long distance relationship in which you never see, hear or speak to the other person and everything you know about them was written by people long dead. What a truly loving relationship LMAO!

I'd say you're the only person here believing such thing. 1. My relationship with God is not a long distance one.
2. You can speak to God actually. However, if an experience of a relationship is dependent on ability to see or hear, kindly explain to me how blind and deaf people have relationships.
3. Not everything I know about God is written and not everything that is written about God is by dead people. There's something called history which we use to research past events.

It's mind-boggling how basic your arguments are. You are seriously, seriously constricted in your thinking. Makes me sad for you really. I honestly don't mean to offend.

joseph1013:
GOD'S FAILED STRATEGY

Some say that God not only exists but longs to have a meaningful relationship with each one of us. However, in his infinite wisdom, God decided to hide from us--forcing us to rely on faith to believe he exists.

God does not hide from us, we hide from God. When you seek him, you will "see" him, and when you "come" to him, you will know him. I think I've used this argument in our earlier conversation, (maybe not):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP2rLgrBtTI

joseph1013:
One problem with this strategy is that once we resort to faith, we can believe ANY god exists or many gods exist and, with only faith to go on, it's hard for anyone to prove us wrong. This is rather like giving us a special dice with not six faces, but a few thousand faces--with a different god inscribed on each face.

@highlighted, that's 100% right. I can't disagree with that at all. Serious religious people combine faith and reason because they don't contradict each other, but rather, complement each other. They both arm us with the capability to understand and explain the realities that surround us, both the materia and non material.

I totally understand how perplexing it could be to hear people argue faith blindly and without reason. It's human tendency to tend to simplify things and move on with life. But when you really dig deeper, you will find out that an inability to articulate one's belief has nothing to do with whether the object of such belief is true or false.

joseph1013:
So God allows chance to decide who will engage in a meaningful relationship with him and who won't. It's pretty obvious this doesn't work very well. After 3,000 or more years, people still worship many different gods. And even those who believe in God have widely varying beliefs about what he is like, what he wants of us and his plans for us.

Not everybody possesses knowledge of a particular thing; that's human reality. It could be attributable to like ignorance, naiveté, arrogance, pride, selfishness, etc.

joseph1013:
Furthermore, in some parts of the world, people are increasingly moving from faith to rationality and deciding there are no good reasons to believe God exists.

That's not true. You are confusing secularism with rationality. Every rational person would understand faith and reason have no daylight between them. Faith, I would argue is a higher lever of rationality. What do we mean by faith?
See here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4PSgFjtvI

joseph1013:
Hiding from the people you dearly love is a ridiculous strategy and you don't need to be omniscient to figure that out.[/color]

I'm totally with you on that, and I'm sure God knows that, hence him revealing himself to us to know him. I know him. You also will certainly know him IF YOU TRULY WANT TO.

Note: you don't necessarily need religion or anything like that to tackle and determine the [possibility for the] existence of God; you can't get there by purely rational thinking alone. Getting to know him - having an intimate knowledge (personal relationship) is what requires faith backed by reason... not a blind faith. "Trust" is actually what we term "Faith" in religious language.

Karleb:
My answer is yes, but such truth(s) can only be found outside the confine of religion.

Let's test this claim, shall we?
1. Do you believe in individual human rights?
2. Is the idea of such human rights necessary?
3. WHY?

Karleb:

Why should that be when there is supposed to be a diety that inspires a particular religious adherents.

Are you insinuating that such diety inspires different people with different truths?

I don't quite get it. Could you explain what you mean here?

topdee:


As far as I'm concerned philosophy and science can be used interchangeably. My problem with you theists is that y'all have concluded that some things are non-physical and unnatural. How do you determine what is physical and not? No one is saying science has the answer to every question, I see science as a skeptic movement for discovery and explanation of inexplicable things and to create an avenue to aid humanity.

The fact that some things are inexplicable doesn't make it non-physical or unnatural; such has been proven times without number (so many supposedly unnatural phenomenon have been proven natural by natural means). In fact, open-mindedness, Logic, empiricism and inquiry are the bedrock of human cognition. The only way to know is to inquire, not to conclude that it's beyond physical.

Philosophy and science are not on the same lane. Philosophy deals with the non physical realities - Existence, Knowledge, Values, Reason, Mind, Language... These aren't field the sciences operate in.

Much of what you said above are correct though. When people (of faith) fill every answer to the inexplicables with a supernatural being, such argument is called the 'god of the gaps' argument or as Douglas Murray would say, "Jesus smuggling". On the flip side of the argument, you are guilty of what's called a Category Error.

That being said, I'm going to call you out on your straw man because I never used "inexplicable" in my argument. However, I would not go far with that because I know a lot of Christians, especially the fundamentalists, are guilty of using such type of obviously intellectually flawed argument.

LordReed:


But then you tell me this god affects and makes changes in the physical world so why can't we measure the effects of the god's workings?

We surely can measure the effects of God's workings. All we see and feel, material or immaterial, consciously or unconsciously... are all have a beginning. And if they have a beginning, there must be a CAUSE to their beginning. This is not so hard to process. It only requires pure consistent line of logic - a continuous chain of logical conclusions that follow one another gets you to the reality of an Uncaused Cause, a Source from which reality and the universe (which we know and struggle to understand) came into being.

Omooba224:
Lack of evidence doesn't necessarily diminish the true value of a phenomenon, however there are some things that deserve extraordinary explanations which the god concept fall into such category.
While you are trying to be intellectually rational, you failed to understand that your presumption that the universe evolution as an evidence for your supreme being is logically flawed. Have you ever thought about other factors that might have led to such evolution rather than saying god did it and concluding that the god does exist?

May I ask how you arrived at your conclusion that my argument for a God is flawed? Is it because you know for sure that evolution or any other physical sciences can disprove the possibility of an infinite being (an uncaused cause)?

To answer your question, yes I have considered other factors and realized the God question is not a scientific question, but rather a philosophical question. Believing in science to address non physical non natural questions is a dumbing down of reason. Reason is not limited by science.

Omooba224:

I am dead sure you have problem comprehending simple sentence. So you wanna tell me the Bible (OT) is useless? Who doesn't know that you guys follow a speculated man turn god?

I have no problem comprehending simple sentences. No, I never told you the Bible (OT) is useless - you are the one saying that. You, my friend don't know what we follow. You think you know, but you don't. I'll leave you to attack every straw man there is, but if you'd want to know/understand the difference between your notion of what serious Christians believe as God versus what they actually believe as God, I'll be your guest.

Karleb:
How?

I guess you didn't quite understand the statement.
What I mean is: the truth that most religion parades as truth is not one, it is in fact a lie.

I understood your statement. I asked if you believe truth exists. I didn't ask you about any particular truth claim by any sect.

So, let me ask again. Do you believe there is objective truth regardless people's understanding and interpretation of it?

Karleb:
Why would the truth religion A offer be totally different from the one another religion B offer but they both claim that they are saying the truth and the others are lairs?

Simply because ignorance, naiveté, errors, arrogance, close-mindedness, to mention but a few, are all part of our human experience. Close-mindedness I'd say is the biggest impediment to our ability to access truth.

Your answer/solution is already in your question. Religion A and religion B cannot both be right at the same time if both their truth claims contradict each other. That's the law of non contradiction. So it's actually easy to group/categorize similar belief systems and square them up against their direct opposition and create your shortlist via elimination method. I can expand on that later.

Karleb:
Why would a single religion have numerous sects if it offers the truth and each sect within a certain religion still claim other sects are serving their diety the wrong way and could get punished for enternity in after life.

Simply because people disagree with one another every darn time. That's human for you. However, you would agree with me that what different people argue about a truth has no effect on the truth they argue about. For example, if we are arguing about the federal capital of Nigeria and I say it's in Sokoto, you say Enugu, person C argues it's in Kaduna, and person D says it's in Edo state.... what we claim as the truth has no bearing or effect whatsoever on the objective truth or fact which is that the federal capital is in Abuja.

Therefore, different sects within a religion could all be wrong or one of them could be right IF they all have among them contradicting truth claims.

We as human beings know when we see truth. We recognize it. Again, we RE-cognize it.... the "Re" = "again" because we already have within us a transcendent standard of what is true, so that when we come across truth, take cognizance of it AGAIN (Re-cognize). An absence of this transcendental standard would mean logic and reason does not exist, because when we reason, we use logic to establish the truth beyond us but which we ascent to.

In fact, standard objective truth has to exist before two people can debate or argue over their differences. And that truth has to exist beyond the arguing parties, although they have within them what it takes to ascent to that truth.