Just Believe

[ecco]

No evidence is no evidence. It's meaningless.

Which is equally pointless, as no evidence isn't evidence of anything.

However, there is extensive evidence that gods are the creations of man's imaginings.

• Do you believe Thor is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?
• Do you believe Shiva is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?
• Do you believe Allah is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?
• Do you believe The Christian God is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?

If these gods are not the creations of man's imaginings, then they all must be real gods. Wouldn't you agree?

 

[Revoltingest]

If I was among the faithful, I would say God would not have led me to the Clift in the first place.

That is a very functional belief system.

 

[Revoltingest]

If I was among the faithful, I would say God would not have led me to the Clift in the first place.

BTW, are you thinking of Montgomery Clift?

Anyway, the intelligent learned Christian functions
much like the intelligent learned atheist in that they
both address reality by taking responsibility for
their own actions. It is a wonderful detente.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Why is that not blind faith?

Blind faith is assuming you will get a thousand from just believing.

Faith is going to work, puting in a action, getting evidence of a paycheck, so you have trust your effort would lead you to that thousand.

They both use faith but one is blind and the other invested.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

However, Jesus performed great signs, and used the scriptures to teach with authority, giving people evidence - reason to believe, and exercise faith. Is that not so?
So can someone help me out here. How does a person believe in a god, without evidence? I

All Mesengers give the same proofs.

That is all we really need to know, the rest is up to us.

Regards Tony

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Which would require the exact faith complained about in the OP.
From a position of ignorance, faith is a necessity. However, IMO, faith shouldn't be a lifetime condition.

I find the 'faith' found in the Bible is Not credulity (blind faith), but faith (confidence) based on reasoning.
In other words, Jesus used logical reasoning on the old Hebrew Scriptures on which to base his teachings.
There is No reason for faith to be a lifetime condition in that faith (confidence in Scripture) would never be realized.
Jesus taught faith/confidence that we will really see the paradisical conditions as described in Isaiah 35th chapter.
Wars will come to a final end according to Psalms 46:9.
Weapons of war will be turned into farming implements - Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3-4.
Jesus will come to the rescue of right-hearted people - Psalms 72:12-14; Psalms 72:8

 

[Jeremiah Ames]

Ah. Someone can't seem to explain their position, so they post a picture.
Do you have something to say on the subject at hand?

A picture says 1000 words.
But very few words from an alleged christian speak volumes ^_^

 

[LactoseIntolerant]

I just can't believe it.
Is that not idiotic?
That's not faith either. It's stupidity, imo.
The Bible does not even support such an absurd idea.
If Jesus just wanted people to have faith without evidence, he would have simply walked around; looked people in the face; smiled, and said, "Hey. I'm the Messiah. Believe it. "

However, Jesus performed great signs, and used the scriptures to teach with authority, giving people evidence - reason to believe, and exercise faith. Is that not so?
So can someone help me out here. How does a person believe in a god, without evidence? I know there are quite a number of those who call themselves Christians, who think this way. Blind faith, they call it.

How can one know an invisible entity? Only by faith. God is not demanding you believe. He is telling you how to believe.
Thou shall not test God. Matthew 4:7. Faith. Adam who knew God from birth, but fell despite his knowledge of God. Maybe he lacked faith.

Against the absurd. Faith. Logic and reason without God is absurd. Ask Nietzsche at the mad house. Metaphysics of objective morality. Can you have an absolute moral code without God? Metaphysics of truth. Can you have truth in a random universe?

Let us reason together Isa 1:18. Faith. Reason and rational thought are the only ways in faith. Two identical emotional states are unlikely, unless they are from the same cult (centre of trauma).

 

[TransmutingSoul]

irst, recognize that you have no evidence whatever that God does not exist.

There is much evidence of the Spirit.

Yet some do not incluit in their frames of reference.

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I don't think I've known anyone who believed in God for basically no reason whatsoever other than faith. This sounds like a very rare kind of person to me.

I see Faith becomes the Foundation of the Truth one has found in their own heart.

Basically the world provides all that Truth and is relative to the evidence we accept.

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

That has as much evidence as Mohammed having flown to heaven on a winged horse. Nothing more than nice stories written in a book. With as much evidence as wood kids growing a nose when they lie, like in Pinocchio. Beliefs that now belong to the infancy of the human race.

Time to grow up and recognise what all those claims are about. Human myths, or just simple fiction. Believed only by people who do not have what it takes to realise the reality that we are destined to eternal oblivion, exactly at the time that machine between our ears stops working.

Ciao

- viole

Time to accept that the Spiritual world is explained in the material world by Metephor and Stories portraying the experiences.

Like I had a dream where I was flying I was free and it was just pure joy, I saw a dove flying nearby and was compelled to reach out and touch It, as I did it exploded into a brilliant light that was immense joy and sing and that song was the meaning of life, it was such bliss that tears streamed from my eyes, I woke up to still be in that immense state of Joy singing the song and tears running from my eyes.

That is not an experience this world offers, yet that place is more real than this and it is a place I would rather be.

So that is recorded, it happened, it is a Metephor explained a spiritual intensity.

So the Stories Muhammad and all Messengers share are from the Light of that Dove, they are the Light and Song we can connect to, they are the light that exploded from that Dove.

Regards Tony

 

[ecco]

It's like if you flew an plane you put faith in the air pilot to get to your destination. It's not blind.

Why is that not blind faith?

Blind faith is assuming you will get a thousand from just believing.

Faith is going to work, puting in a action, getting evidence of a paycheck, so you have trust your effort would lead you to that thousand.

They both use faith but one is blind and the other invested.

Don't duck and dodge.
You made an assertion: It's like if you flew an(sic) plane you put faith in the air pilot to get to your destination. It's not blind.


I asked why that was not blind fatih.

What work have you put into the concept of the pilot getting you to your destination? What action? What evidence?

I didn't ask for a lecture on blind faith. I asked a simple question about your assertion. Please address it.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

How do you define faith?

Acceptance of our Spiritual Reality over our material birth.

Regards Tony

 

[Wildswanderer]

I just can't believe it.
How does a person believe in something for which they have no evidence?
How can one just believe in a god, when they have absolutely no evidence?
I don't get it.
To me, that's like one standing on the edge of a mountain, without any glider, singing, "I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. I dream about it every night and day. Spread my wings and fly away."

Then jumps.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. SPLAT

Is that not idiotic?
That's not faith either. It's stupidity, imo.
The Bible does not even support such an absurd idea.
If Jesus just wanted people to have faith without evidence, he would have simply walked around; looked people in the face; smiled, and said, "Hey. I'm the Messiah. Believe it. "

However, Jesus performed great signs, and used the scriptures to teach with authority, giving people evidence - reason to believe, and exercise faith. Is that not so?
So can someone help me out here. How does a person believe in a god, without evidence? I know there are quite a number of those who call themselves Christians, who think this way. Blind faith, they call it.

Why would you think think there's no evidence? Why would you think faith is blind?
It's just not proven beyond doubt.

 

[ecco]

All Mesengers give the same proofs.

That's an odd comment.

One Bahai quotes the son of Baháʼu'lláh as flatly stating that humans did not evolve.

Another Bahai believes humans evolved.

Yet you assert that All Messengers give the same proofs.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Seems many people are seriously hung up on books. Where did the OP even mention a book?

Faith is built on the Word from God, a Message for humanity, that Message is recorded in a Book for those that did not see the Messenger while upon this Earth, the Book remains as proof.

That Word is our Faith, as the One that brought it was the first to live it.

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

That's an odd comment.

One Bahai quotes the son of Baháʼu'lláh as flatly stating that humans did not evolve.

Another Bahai believes humans evolved.

Yet you assert that All Messengers give the same proofs.

No that is your slant on the topic, not mine nor the Baha'i view.

Regards Tony

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I'm not a believer. This is just my observation.

Don't duck and dodge.
You made an assertion: It's like if you flew an(sic) plane you put faith in the air pilot to get to your destination. It's not blind.

Guess a better one is if you think you're win a million dollars by clapping your heels, that's blind faith.

If you invest and put in the effort to gain that amount, that's invested faith.

The invested faith can still backfire if you take it for granted but it's more rational than tapping your heels.

I asked why that was not blind fatih.

What work have you put into the concept of the pilot getting you to your destination? What action? What evidence?

It was a bad example. If using my above example is getting a job and seeing your paycheck.

I didn't ask for a lecture on blind faith. I asked a simple question about your assertion. Please address it.

Above

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

However, there is extensive evidence that gods are the creations of man's imaginings.

• Do you believe Thor is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?
• Do you believe Shiva is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?
• Do you believe Allah is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?
• Do you believe The Christian God is anything but the creation of man's imaginings?

If these gods are not the creations of man's imaginings, then they all must be real gods. Wouldn't you agree?

Your post reminded me of H.L. Mencken's "Where is the Graveyard of Dead Gods."
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Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a time when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And who of Huitzilopochtli? In one year - and it is no more than five hundred years ago - 50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried out with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Allen G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of Richmond P. Hobson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler and Tom Sharkey.

Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother Tezcatilpoca. Tezcatilpoca was almost as powerful; he consumed 25,000 virgins a year. Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quetzalcoatl is? Or Xiehtecuthli? Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Of Mictlan? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitles? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard-of Hell do they await their resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Caesar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Of that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial *******? There was a time when the Irish revered all these gods, but today even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.

But they have company in oblivion: the Hell of dead gods is as crowded as the Presbyterian Hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsalluta, and Deva, and Belisima, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshipped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose - all gods of the first class. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them - temples with stones as large as hay-wagons.

The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests, bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake. Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels; villages were burned, women and children butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence.

What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile Valley?

What has become of:

Resheph

Baal

Anath

Astarte

Ashtoreth

Hadad

Nebo

Dagon

Melek

Yau

Ahijah

Amon-Re

Isis

Osiris

Ptah

Molech?

All there were gods of the highest eminence. Many of them are mentioned with fear and trembling in the Old Testament. They ranked, five or six thousand years ago, with Yahweh Himself; the worst of them stood far higher than Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:

Arianrod

Nuada Argetlam

Morrigu

Tagd

Govannon

Goibniu

Gunfled

Odin

Dagda

Ogma

Ogryvan

Marzin

Dea Dia

Mara

Iuno Lucina

Diana of Ephesus

Saturn

Robigus

Furrina

Pluto

Cronos

Vesta

Engurra

Zer-panitu

Belus

Merodach

Ubilulu

Elum

U-dimmer-an-kia

Marduk U-sab-sib

Nin U-Mersi

Persephone

Tammuz

Istar

Venus

Lagas

Beltis

Nirig

Nusku

En-Mersi

Aa Assur

Sin Beltu

Apsu

Kuski-banda

Elali

Nin-azu

Mami

Qarradu

Zaraqu

Ueras

Zagaga

Ask the rector to lend you any good book on comparative religion; you will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest dignity - gods of civilized peoples - worshipped and believed in by millions. All were omnipotent, omniscient and immortal.

And all are dead.

 

[ecco]

I find the 'faith' found in the Bible is Not credulity (blind faith), but faith (confidence) based on reasoning.
In other words, Jesus used logical reasoning on the old Hebrew Scriptures on which to base his teachings.

However, you have faith that the words attributed to Jesus were recorded and transcribed accurately. You have this faith despite the fact that they could not have been.

As an example, where is your evidence that the 3000+ words of the Sermon on the Mount were recorded and transcribed accurately?