Is Jesus Lord?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Sarxis


What is science? It is knowledge by what you percieve through experience. But if you close your eyes, and don't reach out your hand to take, touch, taste, then how will you know?

Knowing God is the same. But God is not percieved with material eyes, nor touched with material hands because he is not material; though His Son took on a form of matter once for our sakes.

Exactly, God isn't material, and cannot be perceived by the classic 5 senses.
So the question you have to ask yourself then is: is God real then, or isn't it simply an illusionary twist of the mind, a concoction created because this and that part of the brain caused you to think about it?

Of course, true believers will dismiss that on the grounds of not being open to religion but that's nonsense, as it's a valid question in my eyes.

In fact, I have read in a scientific magazine that very religious people have a lot of brain activity in a certain part of the brain, which happens to be very active with heavy football fans as well. (It's more complicated than that but I'm a noob with low intelligence ) Aaanyway, point is, their zealous behaviour has the same origin. Could compare it with people who have a natural predisposition to agression or whatever.
Or another thing I heard: if you make a decision on whether to do a certain action or not, then your brain has already decided about it a split second before you have even thought of it yourself!

I know you can't really speak about these things without getting into all the scientific details and all, but they're things to take into consideration I think. I believe there's nothing wrong with believing in God and trying to understand why you believe in that God... Sadly many religious people are uncomfortable with that.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by Lorizael


The analogy of senses can only take you so far. Senses can be deceived. We verify what we cannot accurately sense with testable knowledge.

This is not the case with faith. Any claim of a "spiritual sense" cannot be called such if it cannot be backed up by verification. We can have faith... we can believe in something with all of our heart and soul, but is this proof of rightness?

There are so many people that have faith in so many different things. In what way can this sense... this ability to perceive the divine and spiritual that is beyond sight... be true? How do we tell who is deceived and who is not? What consensus can we draw upon to verify what we feel?

There isn't a consensus, because some can not see God, and yet others can. And the ones that can percieve Him have that ability because God gave them the faith necessary to do so (it is a gift from Him, and can not be worked for. This is so no one can brag before God).

And you can't necessarily tell who is decieved and who is not because you can not see what is in their heart. But like Jesus said, you will know them by their 'fruits' (an analogy of good trees producing fruit, and 'bad' trees producing thorns).

Proof of rightness does come by faith. But a real faith in something unseen produces works to back it up. Real faith will be manifested for what it is, whereas someone who decieves himself and others with a false rightousness will be made evident in due time.

But God does, and has, verify what He has said concerning His Son Jesus. He not only raised Jesus from the dead to prove His Lordship, but He still testifies that those things truly happened.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Elok


Uh, no. How'd you come to that conclusion?

both churches claim they are branches of the same one. That's why there are problems among them, actually.
It is visible f.e. when the orthodox claim that Russia, f.e. is "canonical sphere" of the orthodox.

[Meticulous Man]

Traianvs: what do you think is the difference between "I think" and "my brain thinks"? Just curious.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Sarxis
There isn't a consensus, because some can not see God, and yet others can. And the ones that can percieve Him have that ability because God gave them the faith necessary to do so (it is a gift from Him, and can not be worked for. This is so no one can brag before God).

And you can't necessarily tell who is decieved and who is not because you can not see what is in their heart. But like Jesus said, you will know them by their 'fruits' (an analogy of good trees producing fruit, and 'bad' trees producing thorns).

Proof of rightness does come by faith. But a real faith in something unseen produces works to back it up. Real faith will be manifested for what it is, whereas someone who decieves himself and others with a false rightousness will be made evident in due time.

But God does, and has, verify what He has said concerning His Son Jesus. He not only raised Jesus from the dead to prove His Lordship, but He still testifies that those things truly happened.

I'm sorry, Sarxis, but this is absolutely full of circular reasoning.

How do you know God exists? Because God gave me the ability to see him.

What do they teach you in school? The definition of a word cannot include the word itself.

If you are attempting to argue for the existence of something, you cannot use in your argumentation the assumption that that thing already exists. This is not how you convert non believers. This only works when you teach it to children who don't know any other way to look at the world yet.

Let's assume for a moment that I am an atheist (I'm not, but atheists generally oppose theists, and what I am is much too complicated for this debate).

You would ask me, how do I know that science is the end all be all of the universe and that there is nothing greater than it? And I would answer, because the scientific method proves it. I ran some tests and it showed that science is super cool and the best.

But this isn't logical. I cannot use the tools of science to show that science is right.

Let's look at capitalism for a moment.

I look at Bill Gates and go, Bill Gates must be the most successful human being to ever live! He's richer than everybody else. He has money falling out his ass and can buy whatever he wants. Now... most people will look at this and go... but no... money can't buy happiness, what about his spiritual well being, how about his family, his children, so on and so forth.

And I will say, but no, Bill Gates is an entrepreneur, a businessman, a capitalist. If he's the richest guy alive, then he's the most successful of what he is. And this cannot be proven wrong. Within the context of capitalism, one can evaluate the merits of a particular aspect or instance of capitalism.

But once you move beyond that, things begin to fall apart. Maybe he really hates his greedy wife, and maybe his children are spoiled brats, and maybe he's secretly dying of an incurable cancer that money cannot fix. Beyond the context of capitalism, one cannot use his capitalistic nature to evaluate anything.

The same idea is true with all things.

Within the context of Christianity and the Bible, you can evaluate specific believers and non believers, the merits of certain passages, and other such things that are specifically related to, and come from, Christianity.

But you cannot evaluate Christianity itself with the tools of Christianity, which is what you have done. You can look at a Christian and go, oh well he's quite faithful, good guy, doesn't **** chickens or men, I'm sure he'll go to heaven. But you cannot look at his faith and say, well you can tell that the entire universe is ordered so that Christianity is true and right because this man is faithful.

That does not follow. And this is what you do. And this is wrong.

Man, that was a long way to go.

[Sarxis]

I know what you mean, and what you are saying has a logic to it. But when God does reveal Himself to someone, you know it was Him. Can you mistake light for darkness? You can tell the difference between light and darkness without having to explain it in words. God is greater than both light and darkness, and when He reveals Himself, there is no hiding Him.

If, however, God wishes to conceal Himself from an unwilling heart, then who can uncover Him?

And I don't know what you mean by 'tools of Christianity'. If you mean 'Truth', then yes, I guess that is what I try to use to convince people that God is true, because He is the truth.

But I know this: when I didn't know God, and when I am disobodient to Him, I am not at peace, and do not have joy. But when I follow Him and seek Him with all my heart, I am changed, and experience His peace and presence. There is a real change when one surrenders to Him and knows they are forgiven for their wrongs. There is real hope when we realize that God really does care for us and wants to be with us despite the state we are all in in this world.

Has science ever given you hope? No matter how advanced our science becomes, it never quite answers the greatest questions.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Sarxis
Has science ever given you hope? No matter how advanced our science becomes, it never quite answers the greatest questions.

This is all I'm going to bother responding to, since everything before it seemed to ignore the points I made in my previous post.

Science has given countless people hope, in the form of progress, enlightenment, health, and all that good stuff. More idealistically, however, many people do follow science in an incredibly devoted fashion, and do in fact believe that through the acquisition of knowledge, we can come to know the universe and the answers to the big questions.

Disregarding science, though, there are again countless examples of people finding truth and enlightenment in the many, many different spiritual and religious ideas in the world. As I said before, an individual's personal faith cannot be used to establish the validity of the theology behind that faith, and this is exactly what you are trying to do.

If your personal feeling that your life is right because of the faith that you have - and all of this is essentially founded on what is in you - then you have no way to discount the spiritual satisfaction that others get from other religions and ideas.

[Jon Miller]

I think that it is rediculous that people take hope from science.

Having more things, solving more medical problems, understanding more about nature hasn't made people happier, more fulfilled, etc.. for the last 200 years. Why would it in the future?

JM

[Lorizael]

I'm not really going to argue in favor of science because, as I already said, I'm not an atheist or a scientist or anything like that.

But I will say this.

orly?

Upon what do you base this assertion that science has provided no happiness? I think that technology provides humans with more opportunities for happiness than they ever had in the past.

Internet relationships, bionic arms, the ability to instantly record creative expression, experiencing the creativity of others from different places and times, etc...

It does not provide happiness directly, no, but it does give you more chances for happiness, I'd say.

[Jon Miller]

Look at how people say they feel.

The whole outlook that science is going to solve humanities problems was a misguided notion of the 50s..

Only a few people, with their heads in their clouds, beleive that now. And very few scientists do. It is telling that it is people like Provost Harrison in the science community that feel that way now.

There are some that say it is finally coming, but people have been saying that for ages.. (it started in the 19th century) The only way that I see science of 'solving' humanities problems, bringing happiness to people, is through some mass drugging.. which seems false to me and most others.

For every problem that science solves, it introduces another one. And the problems that it solves aren't inherent to the human condition.

JM
Scientist

[Lorizael]

Ugh. Okay. Let's try it this way...

Would you agree that people can be happy?

[Jon Miller]

Yeah.

I don't know any scientist (in RL) that thinks that expanding human knowledge will make people happier. I know some people who think that the world would run better/people would be happier/etc if everyone was scientists. I wonder at their naivity.

People are scientists because they want to understand the universe more. And science is a great tool for that. The reason why so many scientists are agnostics/atheists is because they apply scientific principles to religion and come up with out beleif, not because they view science as the answer for mankind.

Science, and the things it has given us, are just tools. Whether they help us or hinder us is a function of how we use them.. which is dependent on us, not on the tool.

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

I have found that the people who hold science up as the savior of mankind.. are either older (from the 50s) or fan boys.

JM

[Lorizael]

Whatever. I'm just of the opinion that the tools science provides better enable humans to find happiness. Not that they make you happy. Not that you can't do it without the tools. Just that the tools can and do help.

[Jon Miller]

And tools can and do hinder.

They are just tools.

JM