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Can we change our mind about what we believe?

YoursTrue

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
IndigoChild5559 said:
I am personally struggling with this topic. As I started out by saying, I'm highly reluctant to make statements about God's nature. Because I interact with God, it is very difficult for me not to think of him in terms of a "person." However, it is also true that I perceive God imperfectly. It is the temptation for all humans to make God in our own image. But we know this is not the case. There are all sorts of references to "the hand of God," "the face of God," "the arm of God," etc. But we know that all of these are anthropomorphisms. In that same respect, I may very well simply be succumbing to the temptation to think of God in human terms when he is certainly not human. At any rate, I think I should say no more, since I am entirely out of my league here.
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How about just accepting what the Bible says? Because if God wanted us to know exactly what or who he is, he would have told us, even though we cannot conceive of a being or person never having been created but always there without beginning and without end. Not likely for us to comprehend this well. But He is described to the best of human ability.
It is written of him: “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, preserving loving-kindness for thousands, pardoning iniquity and transgression and sin.”—Ex. 34:6, 7
 
YoursTrue

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
@IndigoChild5559 , also, in addition, He let himself be known when he told Adam to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He is the judge, absolutely.
 
YoursTrue

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
IndigoChild5559 said:
I'm an agnostic when it comes to the idea of a soul that survives the death of the body. But I can certainly appreciate why people believe in it. When you watch a person move from life to death, there is certainly "something" that was there before which is now gone, and the question is, what is that something? I mean think about it. The body that was there before is still there now. Yet its consciousness is gone. It is only natural, I think, to ask, where did that consciousness go?
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According to the scriptures, the soul IS the person. God can remember the person (soul) in his memory and bring that person back to life.
 
ppp

ppp

Well-Known Member
ppp said:
Share the experience? That is an entirely different proposition from your earlier "Is that person real, or am I hallucinating?"
You seem to be trying to muddy the huge distinction between "I saw a person" and "I had an experience and I say that the cause of that experience is a person."
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@Trailblazer why on Earth did you, of all people, like that?
 
IndigoChild5559

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
YoursTrue said:
How about just accepting what the Bible says?
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The bible is a collection of books written by umpteen authors. While these men did their best to try to correctly communicate truths about God and what God wants, they are only human and make mistakes. That is why religious texts around the world conflict with each other. Religious texts are enormously important because they have the capacity to bring us closer to God and help us to become better people. But not because they are infallible.
 
ppp

ppp

Well-Known Member
Trailblazer said:
Because I do not believe that God is a person. I also do not believe that God can be seen, experienced, or interacted with.
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My post had little to do with God being a person or the experience of God. It was more about the irrational assignation of cause to phenomenon. Which frankly, is something far more flagrant in Baha'i and Mormonism than Judaism. At least, reformed Judaism
 
idea

idea

Question Everything
Muffled said:
I believe those things are contrary to common Christian teaching. I don't believe you come to the truth by examining the falsehood.
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Sexism is common Christian teaching - male God, male heirarchy, women are "helpers". Sexism leads to abuse. Child abuse and coverup is common in Christianity.
 
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Trailblazer

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
ppp said:
My post had little to do with God being a person or the experience of God. It was more about the irrational assignation of cause to phenomenon. Which frankly, is something far more flagrant in Baha'i and Mormonism than Judaism. At least, reformed Judaism
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What was the irrational assignation of cause to phenomenon you were referring to and why do you think it is flagrant in Baha'i?
 
Sgt. Pepper

Sgt. Pepper

All you need is love.
Trailblazer said:
Because I do not believe that God is a person. I also do not believe that God can be seen, experienced, or interacted with.
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I was a Christian for thirty years and had sincerely believed in God for ten years before that, and I had never seen, experienced, or interacted with God. I knew and know plenty of Christians who said they felt the "presence" of God in their lives, but I never felt it, and it wasn't for a lack of trying either. In my case, sincerely believing in God by faith didn't exactly work out for me, nor did years of dedicated and earnest prayer to God. So I no longer accept the existence of any deity based on faith. Having said that, I'm not willing to entirely dismiss the existence of any deities because I believe in supernatural phenomena, and the existence of deities could be a possibility in this regard. I can honestly say that I believe that human spirits and non-human entities exist, but I don't just claim to believe without providing what I consider to be evidence that substantiates my belief. I'm totally convinced, and I've shared my experiences on this forum for two years now. I'm not convinced that any deities exist, but I'm certain that human spirits and non-human entities exist.

I'm sure that it would make a significant difference for me if I could conclusively document the existence of deities like I can with human spirits and non-human entities as a veteran paranormal researcher and investigator, or if I could sense, see, hear, and directly communicate with any kind of deity like I can with human spirits and non-human entities as a psychic medium. As a medium, I've spent the past 44 years of my life sensing, seeing, and hearing human spirits as well as a few non-human entities. For the past sixteen years, my life has been comprised of having direct interactions with human spirits and a few non-human entities, but I have never had any form of direct encounter (feeling, seeing, hearing, or directly speaking to) with any deity. The only supernatural phenomena I have ever witnessed while in a church were the spirits of confused Christians who had no idea what was happening to them.
 
YoursTrue

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
IndigoChild5559 said:
The bible is a collection of books written by umpteen authors. While these men did their best to try to correctly communicate truths about God and what God wants, they are only human and make mistakes. That is why religious texts around the world conflict with each other. Religious texts are enormously important because they have the capacity to bring us closer to God and help us to become better people. But not because they are infallible.
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I was reading your answer about being an agnostic. I guess many who call themselves part of a religion or so are agnostic and don't adhere to the teachings of the religion they claim to be part of. That only makes it an even bigger dilemma, in that people are in a religion but don't believe the teachings. OK. So you're an agnostic. Why would an agnostic care or wonder what God looks like anyway? Have a good one...take care...
 
ppp

ppp

Well-Known Member
Trailblazer said:
Believe what?
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You. Your intent. Your ability to recognize or desire to have or obtain for a reliable methodology to discriminate fact from fiction. Your concern with those things. Without a that apparent I interest I do not but I he legitimacy or integrity of those questions.
 
IndigoChild5559

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
YoursTrue said:
So why wonder if God is a person? I mean if you don't believe the Bible, what do you believe about God..
Is God the judge of mankind, or is he not?
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Of course I wonder. I sense an agency behind the universe, but I also know that humans are notorious for intuiting agency where none exists, so I realize I may be wrong. However, it would drive me insane if I went around questioning every perception that might be wrong. So I go with it.

What do I believe about God? I believe that God is the creator of the universe, the source underlying all that is. I believe that God cares about how we treat each other. I believe that God is unified, not fragmented. I think that it is very bad idea to speculate about God because the finite cannot fathom the infinite, and that very likely the things I have already said are too much. Everything else is pretty much just icing on the cake. Thank you for asking. :)
 
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