Oh lordy....hearts, souls...look, i've only got enough gas to get down to the shop and back once in the next week, is there anything else i might need to pick up while i'm there to ensure my best shot at this?
Oh lordy....hearts, souls...look, i've only got enough gas to get down to the shop and back once in the next week, is there anything else i might need to pick up while i'm there to ensure my best shot at this?
http://biblehub.com/luke/10-27.htm
http://biblehub.com/mark/12-30.htm
On the topic of loving God it says to not just love Him with all your heart and soul, but also all of your mind and all of your strength.
Yes. Spent a good 35+ years doing that. I considered myself a "believer" but skeptical and could easily distinguish between belief vs proof.Originally Posted by JohnClay
I had two experiences in my life where I felt like something "spoke" to me, and were either some kind of intervention or a form of psychological transcendent perception (where your subconscious just "clicks in" with whatever you finally needed to hear), but nothing tangible ever, no miracles, nothing that was not circumstance / the odds finally playing out with a random success, etc. And while other people claimed to have miracles happened to them, during investigation it ended up being that they were choosing to view a certain event as a miracle; the actual unvarnished event was more ambiguous than they made it sound.
It depends on how much you want to say, "heart, mind, soul, strength" is literal. If such belief precludes honest skeptical evaluation, then you have no way to determine whether an event was actually divinely inspired or not; you're just assuming the result you want to perceive, and questioning the source of the event is not really searching with all your heart, mind, soul, strength, etc, whatever.
Assuming that God is an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient being as has been stated by "believers" several points of cognitive dissonance present when one observes their behavior contrasted to the god qualities they ascribe to him.
1. How is it possible to "find" a being that is everywhere?
2. How can omnipotence possibly benefit from the time, money, devotion, martyrdom, and complex system of apologetics it's adherents produce to bolster it?
3. How can omniscience be informed by prayer of what it already knows and could make known to whomever it wanted to at any time it so desired?
4. Why would such a being seek a relationship with it's "children" that resembles that of an abusive (perhaps even murderous) human parent to their children more than anything else?
It may be that God works in mysterious ways.
It may also be that Christianity is far more Machiavellian than the faithful are willing to admit.
floid:
http://biblehub.com/exodus/34-14.htm
"Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."
God could force people to worship him like robots but he wants people to choose to worship him. Also in the Old Testament he preferred animal sacrifices to plant sacrifices (see Cain and Abel) and even seemed to allow human sacrifices - but an angel stopped the sacrifice of Isaac at the last second but there was an example where God allowed a girl to be sacrificed ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jephthah ). There was also the temporary sacrifice of Jesus (the lamb who was slain).....How can omnipotence possibly benefit from the time, money, devotion, martyrdom, and complex system of apologetics it's adherents produce to bolster it?...
I think people are more like pets - God likes them to be affectionate and they can get put down if they're too badly behaved (e.g. if they maul people). Though God's standard is that people need to be perfect and holy....Why would such a being seek a relationship with it's "children" that resembles that of an abusive (perhaps even murderous) human parent to their children more than anything else?....
Yes but I didn't find Him until years later. It takes some of us a while.
Yes, I smell like a horse. No, I don't consider that a problem.
I think what you're referring to is more like finding faith or finding a connection to God. It's not like a game of hide and seek, lol.
I dont think He is, at least not in the way you've described. I would say prayer is more for our benefit than God's.
Yes, I smell like a horse. No, I don't consider that a problem.
That's kind of how I resolved it for myself: Prayer changes who we are, rather than changing tangible factors of reality. it's a realignment of will and motivation and perspective.
(Not that we would know the difference anyway between what was going to happen versus what changed and DID happen, if god existed and prayer worked according to the standard beliefs in miracles and divine intervention, etc.)
I see it as a workout, like weightlifting. You do it to develop spiritual muscles and strength, to improve your spiritual fitness.
Yes, I smell like a horse. No, I don't consider that a problem.
"Finding a connection" to something that is everywhere is likewise absurd.
Perhaps you mean becoming aware of what was already there that you never noticed before?
But noticing something that is everywhere is like noticing space -- it has no objective properties to distinguish it from anything else and is therefore not, in any traditional sense, noticeable.
I guess that's where the "miraculous" always steps in to save the day just like in some other movies and stories, eh?
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