I'm gonna give this idea a spin for a while, and get back with some different approaches.
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I'm gonna give this idea a spin for a while, and get back with some different approaches.
OK, so I have a question (or two), mostly I guess directed towards those who have an unquestioning faith in the existence of God.
Was there a heaven (ie, afterlife) before human life existed? Is God directing things - ie, was man's existence part of a plan or just an accident?
Was there a heaven (ie, afterlife) before human life existed? Is God directing things - ie, was man's existence part of a plan or just an accident?
Yes it would... most atheists gives no credence to the Bible.. so starting from there is bad news.. (unless you're doing a course on it and you're already committed to taking it seriously).
I feel like most skeptics are standing around saying "If God is so universal - surely the Bible is not the only way I can come to know him".
This is just my take on it:
1. Heaven is where God existed. And since God existed before the Universe existed (because he created the Universe), then it follows that Heaven must have existed before human life.
2. God's creation of the Universe, this World and Adam & Eve was no accident. However, we all have been given "the freedom of choice" to live our lives the way we choose. Some believe that the "self" is the most important thing - therefore everything they do is to satisfy the self (making money, going to Vegas, etc). Others realized that this earth couldn't have come to be by "accident", and something or someone must have created it, and that led them on a journey to seek God.
Christians around the time of Constantine addressed most of the issues and questions they knew of, by taking the cosmos as a whole and asserting that God created it all out of nothing. They then declared that God is a mystery man will never completely understand, and set up shop as the gatekeepers/ toll masters on the road to God, on their own say so. Their answer to this question would be that "existence" did not exist prior to God speaking the word, and would declare that God is above such trivialities as having a place, a size, or a heaven that could contain Him. It would be, I think fairly, comparable to physicists who find, mathematically, that other dimensions must exist beyond those observable to us, and some kind of ordered hierarchy that allows for timelessness in some orders of things, and time dependence for others. God does not depend on what we know as "existence", but that does not mean what we know as "existence" is relevant to God.
I think this is true. Maybe they won't just roll over with a big "Oh. . . . wow. . . . I'll try that!!!!" if you say "Pray and ask God".
That is the biblical injunction "Seek and ye shall find".
I've been around intellectuals and disbelievers all my life. My dad was one of those. I never expected he'd listen to anything anyone could say. I saw old men in their sunday suits stop along the sidewalk where he was working on a Sunday morning, dressed in his industrial grade khaki pants and shirt with his beer belly poking out in the sunlight,try to call him to repentance.
he had no reticence for just telling them to go to hell.
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I had an absolute knowledge of the truth of God by the time I was oh maybe 4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about this sort of phenomenon:
https://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15926#sthash.THd53AHe.dpuf
we sometimes feel obliged to limit our eyes to just the things we're told to see. "this is a fact", "that is sentimental nonsense". . .. othersuch instructions are continually shouted in our ears. "hear this". . .. . "don't listen to that".
science pretends to only the physical world of matter, space and time as we can observe it, sitting in our little corner of existence.
science pretends to only the physical world of matter, space and time as we can observe it, sitting in our little corner of existence.
a lot of people feel that science is limited, and freely talk about spiritual stuff which most scientists consider hogwash.
I admit that my early "knowing" about God is not science, and is not something that anyone else should be satisfied with as an answer to the question. And no, it's not the basis for 'scripture' since there was no command given to just go out and preach it.
I'll even hold forth for a day or two about the nature of that "knowing" on purely biochemical principles, and maybe throw in some philosophy about delusions of grandeur and such. And confess to being in simple awe at the thought that God actually knew who I was, and cared to let me know He was there.
maybe I needed it for some reasons. Maybe I invented the fantasy because in the circumstances I was in just required me to invent something to help me cope with my existence/circumstances. Nah. too much confirmation along the way. I'd call it evidence perceptible to a willing intelligence.
Most likely it's the product of what I am. I imagine God likes some people who just love Him unconditionally.
I admit that my early "knowing" about God is not science, and is not something that anyone else should be satisfied with as an answer to the question. And no, it's not the basis for 'scripture' since there was no command given to just go out and preach it.
I'll even hold forth for a day or two about the nature of that "knowing" on purely biochemical principles, and maybe throw in some philosophy about delusions of grandeur and such. And confess to being in simple awe at the thought that God actually knew who I was, and cared to let me know He was there.
maybe I needed it for some reasons. Maybe I invented the fantasy because in the circumstances I was in just required me to invent something to help me cope with my existence/circumstances. Nah. too much confirmation along the way. I'd call it evidence perceptible to a willing intelligence.
Most likely it's the product of what I am. I imagine God likes some people who just love Him unconditionally.
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But I love science too. I really get upset when I see "science" getting a bad name for being seduced by fascists totalitarian megalomaniacal world-class "managers" who wanna stack some gold in their basements. Just publishing stuff that is totally bogus "research" Not my sacred "Science". But hey, religious believers do the same thing.
So, the fact is, my so-called "knowledge" of the truth of God's existence is actually purely a local "knowing" in my heart. And I know there are a lot of people who are simply saying that they don't have any experience that would justify claiming to believe/ / / / say a certain set of beliefs/doctrines. And that statement is also a purely local "not knowing", and can be as honest as the day is long.
So, the fact is, my so-called "knowledge" of the truth of God's existence is actually purely a local "knowing" in my heart. And I know there are a lot of people who are simply saying that they don't have any experience that would justify claiming to believe/ / / / say a certain set of beliefs/doctrines. And that statement is also a purely local "not knowing", and can be as honest as the day is long.
The Best Answer to Reasonable Skeptics
"Well of course there should be a way you can find your answer to this question. If God exists as I believe He does, I believe He has a duty, an actual obligation to let you know as well as anyone else can possibly know such a thing.
All I ever did was make a choice to be open to knowing. Well, if you just choose to care about this, God will find a way to reach you. Who knows when, but when for whatever reason it could happen, you'll find the belief settled in your heart.
"Well of course there should be a way you can find your answer to this question. If God exists as I believe He does, I believe He has a duty, an actual obligation to let you know as well as anyone else can possibly know such a thing.
All I ever did was make a choice to be open to knowing. Well, if you just choose to care about this, God will find a way to reach you. Who knows when, but when for whatever reason it could happen, you'll find the belief settled in your heart.
Stifle Tower
Punch Bowl Re-Filler
I don't believe Science and God are mutually exclusive. If God is omniscient, doesn't that mean he knows and understands all physical laws? When he exercises his power, would he do that by superseding natural laws or through physical processes and phenomenon, some of which we may understand and some which may be out of our grasp at this time? I guess the key for those who believe in God is discerning what is of God and what is merely a random act of nature or of our own doing.
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
That was fun stuff to me.
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
Interesting thought.
Almond Joy's got nuts, Mounds don't.
sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't...
what time is it now?
speaking of God, does God try to reconcile all the different beliefs that people have? Or does it not really matter to God?
That's a good question. And when I decided to follow Christ and became a Christian, the Christian God is the only God I knew and I thought every other gods must be wrong.
But then this video changed my view.
Listen to this story from 49.30min. mark (right near the end).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzbXwtr3Cg8
To me it makes sense, that it is possible that God may have revealed himself to different people in different ways. What we need to understand is that the "essence" of God is "Love" and that is the thread that runs across most religions. And because God is Love (1 John 4:8), I do believe that as long as you have Love in your heart, God is always with you.
what time it is, in respect to the nut issue, is purely a personal choice. You make your own choice and define yourself in your own time.
Well, while I can warm up to the ideas in the link HOT3NiCK3 gave, there is one further thing to consider. Truth.
Most of our ideas can be rated as less than absolutely true. We often specify circumstances, times, spaces, and other conditions where the concept may have been observed to hold "true".
If God is "True", it is just that fact of the situation that requires us to seek that Truth, and value it.
I don't doubt the virtue of "love" being in the character of God, but sometimes it is "tough love" that we need.