[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:<<< I’m not sure I would care. Why would I? But I’m interested as to where you’re going with this.[/quote]What would your opinion be of me allowing for the possibly of your wife not actually belonging to you. Suppose I put it up for a vote? A poll of “experts”? What if a large percentage of people close to you were involved and were also prepared to call you a liar? "maybe you guys have been fakin it huh? At what point along the way would you consider the whole thing idiotic and nonsensical?
[/quote]I suppose I would consider idiotic from the get go, but again I wouldn’t care so much unless you had a bad motive. For instance, if you were saying that she was really your wife, then I would have a problem - a rather big problem. However, I have a document that states we are legally married, so I have evidence to support my claim. Plus, I’m assuming she would have a say in this and she would and could support my claim. I have witnesses who were at my wedding and could confirm that we were, in fact, married. Does this mess up your example? I’m not trying to be difficult here - I’m really interested in where you’re going with this. But as you can see, my claim that my wife is in fact “my wife” is not based on a mere belief. I have evidence and witnesses to support my claim.[/quote]Excellent. And when I quote Romans 1:18-25 to you for about the tenth time:
[quote]18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.[/quote]You don’t believe this which is fine. I had no illusions of convincing you, but it does illustrate my point. Could be anything. Could be your house. You come runnin out “hey what are you people doin here? Get outta my yard”. To which we answer that were having an “objective” study of whether this is you house or not. You say “wadda ya talkin about? I built this house. I’ve lived here for 20 years. My neighbors all know me. This is all my stuff in here, here’s the deed. My name’s on the mailbox, that’s my car”. Yeah well we don’t see any of that. We’ve been examining our own evidence our way and the way we see it this isn’t your house. (all analogies, especially about God are imperfect)
Regardless of what you believe, that is God’s view of you. His signature and deed of ownership are displayed with blinding brightness in and through absolutely every last fact of existence and especially you yourself as created in His image. You are tripping over Him everywhere and especially in your mirror. He is NOT hiding. YOU ARE. You will probably laugh this off and roll your eyes at my religious stupor, but like I keep sayin. It ain’t just for you. God knows who else may be reading. If it does help you at least understand the biblical position then all the better.
Dead men worship themselves by pretending to be qualified to “objectively” scrutinize reality in such a way as to determine the probability or no of the existence an infinite triune creator God. We’ll decide and God WILL bow. He is in reality the first fact from whom ALL other facts derive their factuality. That’s what makes Him God see? To me this is the most basic concept there is. Everything makes ultimate sense in the light of His glory and nothing makes sense without it.
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OK here I have to say something. I too like Mike have struck an uneasy but at least tenable truce with uncertainty, and am open to at least reasonable argument both ways, but here is where I get a little irked.
When you are using the scriptures to ‘reason’ with someone on what you believe, you believe that their ability to understand and follow an argument to fruition is sufficient that they can or should be able to discern the point from scripture, and ‘believe unto the LORD’. However once they do the same with secular literature, they suddenly are TOO simple and unenlightened to POSSIBLY be able to ‘find there own way’.
You can’t have it Both ways. Either Man is capable of discernment to the point of understanding or he isn’t. If you say he isn’t when in fact all he has done is found ‘other’ answers besides those found in scripture, then how can you think him capable of discerning any answers ‘within’ scripture?
This is one of the things that drove me away from Judeo/Christian faith. And if you are going to argue that in the case of scripture, the Spirit ‘helps’ in the understanding, then we are back to the argument that my Father made. I find this argument very dubious.
