That's a bit simplistic, imo.

(I was quite tipsy yesterday evening, so I don't mind me being called out on my last few posts itt being somewhat meh, though)

Well, that's your assumption but in any case, since he's not a Philosopher or a Theoretical physicist either, from where comes his certainty?

You use common sense, basic intuition, and an appeal to logic to determine these things. You don't have to be a scientist to accept that the universe began to exist, for example. You can simply pick up a few popular-science textbooks and make yourself familiar with current theory.

I'm not sure why my reasons for believing what I do concerns you so much. I can tell you that I have always believed the kalam to be solid, but I guess you wouldn't believe me based on your comments.

I'm interested, however, in hearing who it is exactly that "tells me" what to believe. I attend a church where evolution has been rejected outright from the pulpit (though, to be fair, thankfully, I haven't heard any negative statements about it in a few years now), and if they knew what I believed, it might cause me some discomfort.

Who do I take marching orders from, exactly? I want to learn about myself, boosh. Teach me.

edit:
Do I need to be a pilot in order to be a passenger on a plane? Do I need to be an evolutionary scientist in order to accept the theory of evolution as the best theory to explain the biological facts?

Come now.

I listed the current theory and FWIW I would choose the BB over a divine origin of the universe because there is evidence to support it while the god hypothesis has nothing except fancy but wishful thinking to support it. Most religious philosophy that I've been exposed to so far doesn't seem to start at scratch and arrive at god, it tends to attempt to make existing philosophies compatible with religious dogma or simply deny them.


I'm sorry, you must have learned your Christian belief system in a vacuum with no external influence at all, my bad. So now I'm curious, how did you (in what is a co-incidence so unlikely as to be almost as unlikely as life existing without design) arrive at a belief system fundamentally identical to that which hundreds of millions of other Christians have believed over the last 2000 years?

What led you to independently conclude that there must be one universal creator god? I'd love to hear your reasoning.

Do bears bear? Do bees bee? Honestly, that's what I thought you were going to say next, and it would have been as meaningful.

Where does your certainty come from?

I've gone over this a hundred times here. We personally talked about it in the thread on the growth of Christianity and the church. The gospel message confirms itself in your heart, and you accept it, and water that seed, or you don't.

It is just a fact that it spread as it did and found a home in the hearts and souls of so many people so quickly.

It just found a home in my heart. It finds agreement with what I think a message of God should look like. I see the Christian message and I say: "That's it! This is exactly the message that a good God would deliver to mankind."

I can't explain it any other way. I had no particular reason to believe it. My mother was an agnostic and my father an atheist. My stepfather was jewish. I didn't own a bible until I was 15 years old (when I first attended church). There was no bible in our household.

But I can tell you that as a 14 or 15 year old, I was doing crude philosophical thinking, as everybody does. I thought about whether God existed or not, and about the beginning of the universe and the logical problems it presents. I even considered a very crude form of the kalam. And I was interested in science, and demanded science texts for my birthdays and such.

I'm not exactly sure what you are looking for. I was drawn to Christ by his message, and christians I knew, and prophecy, and that aforementioned agreement. It wasn't creationism that drew me. It wasn't a church. It was a friend sitting across from me in the auditorium with an open bible. And there was nothing easy about it for me. It made my life HARDER.

Try to imagine my jewish stepfather's reaction to his stepson announcing himself as a christian. My mother told me that I was brainwashed and called my church a cult. They had relatives call and speak to me. I had to literally sneak out of my house without permission in order to attend services with my friends. I was further persecuted in a home where I was already a victim of abuse. My brother had ran away from it and was awol. (I guess it is ironic that I used to think my first name was "good." I was one of two "goodfornothingpieceofsh*ts" in that household.) I can assure you that the decision at the time just served to bring more suffering into my life. So why do it? Why make things harder for myself?

You will have to ask the pagans that gave their lives to Christ in the centuries after the death of Christ. Ask Paul of Tarsus, who was stoned and scourged. Ask the Hebrew writers of the New Testament, who disseminated their literature under threat of punishment.

Certainly, there is some upside. It is knowing the truth, and that truth is Christ. You are right, in a way, that it is no coincidence that I came to believe as millions of others have-- the common denominator is the gospel. How hard is that to recognize?

It's blatantly obvious to the outsider. I still don't think you've addressed your certainty. Is there no doubt or skepticism in your view or the religion you follow? Despite the times that Christianity has been wrong? (It's not just the Catholics who've been proven wrong, I can provide examples if required to)

You are probably correct that millions of others have turned to God as a young teenager faced with a troubled home in a culture that promotes Christianity as a source for saviour.

NO CULTURE embraces and accepts christians living within it, and that goes for this one, too. You can make a christian theocracy of this government and christians will still be persecuted at work, at home, among peers, among family, in business and everywhere.

This is an entirely different question.

I believe that belief in a deistic god is natural, fundamental and basic, as it were. I believe that you can get there by appealing to philosophy and its arguments. I believe that you can get there without any specific philosophical training at all, but by just sitting in the field and thinking and seeking on your own. I like the kalam, for example, and I have always been partial to it. The truth is that most of the philosophical arguments for God's existence can be appraised by anybody, and probably have been thought of by many people in their private reflections before they ever appeared in print.

I'm not all that concerned with how we get from deism to Christ. Christ came! And as I have mentioned in my post above, Christ works on a different level than the philosophical arguments do. Christ speaks directly to the soul. The other arguments speak directly to the mind.

Oh right the persecution complex of the poor fringe minority of christians. I just want to dream of day when, ya know, maybe a christian could aspire to be something in America. A CEO perhaps. Maybe even the president! Nah, that would never happen.

You are not a Deist though, you are a Theist, and specifically a Christian. You didn't get there on your own at all. You asked "Who do I take marching orders from", I think the answer is obvious now.

Tell me honestly, is there any question about the specifics of your beliefs that I could ask you that I couldn't find the answer to myself by looking the bible?

Gibberish.

Persecuted by whom and for what reason?

i agree! a primate sitting alone in a field is going to think of all sorts of wacky stuff.

right after they discover there's a god just by thinking it, they will discover that god is communicating with them via shapes in the clouds, and they will discover that god is probably unhappy when the storm clouds roll in and the thunder and lightning starts.

my only question is, what can't we learn by sitting alone in a field??? and why aren't our scientists utilizing this incredibly valuable research tool?????

Go take a part time job in a supermarket deli during summer break. Do not extend dates on prepackaged, cooked foods. Do not ever lie to a customer about the quality or freshness of a product. When asked to do these things, tell them that you won't. Tell them you will need sunday mornings off because you have to attend church, or that you will observe the sabbath on saturdays. When asked to record temperatures, do so by actually taking the temperatures of products, and not simply filling them in. I promise you, that you will not last long.

Go take a job (in a 'christian' nation) in a telemarketing center or an internet advertising company and commit to a simple, moral program: 'do not lie or deceive others'. Let us see how things go for you.

The truth is that 'check-the-box christians' will cut your hours, write you up, and find a way to fire you.

In Muslim-majority countries, frequenting a christian business establishment may get you fired, or worse. See what good the golden rule will do you there.

It has nothing to do with cultural identification or church identification, because a commitment to a moral program such as the gospel will lead to persecution, no matter where you are, as long as other people are present.

You do know companies are legally obligated to give people Sunday, Saturday, or Friday for religious reasons right?

Also if you describe the inevitable interpersonal conflicts that arise from any two or more people, Xtian or not, as persecution, then yes people are going to accuse you as having a persecution complex.

You don't need to be moral in order to be a christian, you just need to try. If you try to please the Father with your conduct, you are doing more than most are. Nobody can be truly good and moral.

But the way you just defined it, there is now no such thing as persecution at all. I was def. persecuted in my household when I first came to Christ many years ago, but if we want to get cute, we can just say "ahh, well, it's normal to have family issues," and simply wave our hand at it. It seems disingenuous.

My point is that most will not outright persecute a christian for an identification with Christ (but that is quickly changing), because most truly know that the identification means little. What they don't want is you taking the message seriously and applying it in your life. That is the point where you begin to run into trouble.

Lol. You are really too much. Everything is always asserted to be "obvious" by you, but yet you won't just come out and specifically say what you mean beforehand. Instead you are gathering information with hen-pecks, and every bit of information you gather is somehow used to justify your obvious conclusion, which has already been determined, because it is obvious.

You should be concerned with the strength of my arguments, and not where they come from, or who "taught them to me." Let me know when you want to get back to substantial and fruitful dialogue.

Let me just say that my own opinions, independently formed on a number of issues, just so happen to be confirmed by the scriptures. I've often talked about the day I realized that if I had not turned away from the moral program outlined by Christ, I would not have made such egregious errors and missteps in my life. The revelation I received was that the scriptures were written for our own benefit.

Christ said it this way: Man was not made for the sabbath, but the sabbath was made for man.

It is also pretty hard to stone gays or drown witches without facing consequences from our oppressive society.

Indeed, the moral code you espoused is one easily espousable by atheists or members of other religions and they would find similar difficulties living it to a tee in our society. But that doesn't mean christians are "PERSECUTED". Christians are the flipping majority with the dominant cultural influence and having gone to every level of achievement in our society.

So is it "christians" persecuting Christians, as it were?

Christ was crucified among his own people, and at the instigation of his own people.

A student is not above his master, Christ said. If they hated me, they will hate you also.

I suggest that there is no way to commit yourself to the gospel and not be persecuted.

Is that a yes?

I don't like to dogggpile (I slay me!) but this type of persecution complex seems silly now that I'm not in a religion. I think most of us who grew up in a religion bought into the Christian Persecution Complex (though we can insert almost any religion here, I suppose).

A person who held to a strict code of honesty would be fired by an unscrupulous employer regardless of their religion. It was honesty that got you fired, not Christianity. You could be an honest Muslim in a Muslim country working for a dishonest Muslim boss and the same thing would happen.

What religion has not glommed onto the ingenious Persecution Gambit and used it as a way of insulating itself from criticism?

Dogggg, I am curious, if a person tells an employee or loved one "I am a Christian" or "I am an atheist" which is more likely to receive "persecution" for this fact alone?

I don't think you have to be an atheist to find the persecution thing goofy

In speaking about the inevitability of persecution, I can't quite convince myself that Jesus intended his followers to wear it like a passive aggressive badge of honor

Well named