Originally posted by @mchillWorst thread title ever, no offense
Agnostics and Atheists: Please save yourselves the mental energy so many of you are burning up in trying to use logic, mathematics, or some other earthly discipline in trying to understand GOD, or peoples faith in GOD, It doesn't work that way. Faith is a gift, you either have it or you don't. Faith may come to you in the future, or not at all, but don't was ...[text shortened]... h therein, that would be a great deal like an eggplant trying to understand quantum physics. 🙂
The OP is up there too.
Where to begin? with the counter-intuitiveness of the op would be a good place to start
Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-dukeAs a comforting tool to dampen the horror of mortality.
The 'concept' of God owes its very existence to Earthly wisdom and imagination. (As a comforting tool to dampen the horror of mortality).
You are right though to relegate 'God knowledge' to a location outside of the wisdom box. Personally, I would tuck it out of sight on a dusty shelf.
While it's pretty difficult to eke that out of the general concept of God, it's logically impossible to construe Christianity in nearly any of its forms as a dampener or a comforter to the horrors of death.
If anything, Christianity brings death, pain, suffering and the entirety of the bleakness that is the human condition front and center.
The alleged feel-good elixir is anything but easy to swallow: play this game according to the rules and win--- big--- or buck them and suffer the consequences.
That's not a comfort, per se, as much as an initial insult.
Clearly, whoever put Christianity, The Board Game together wasn't thinking it through on consumer likeability, or ease of function.
Originally posted by @mchillThe universe is logical , human thought has it's base in the Lord. The good comes from God, the bad will be cast from the mix. Its a process of understanding, of divinity we must follow
Is God not logical? Are you not fashioned in His image?
Logic and outward appearance are 2 very different things. Just because GOD made us in his image, does not necessarily mean GOD is logical by the way we measure or understand logic.
Originally posted by @freakykbhGood post.
[b]As a comforting tool to dampen the horror of mortality.
While it's pretty difficult to eke that out of the general concept of God, it's logically impossible to construe Christianity in nearly any of its forms as a dampener or a comforter to the horrors of death.
If anything, Christianity brings death, pain, suffering and the entirety of th ...[text shortened]... The Board Game together wasn't thinking it through on consumer likeability, or ease of function.[/b]
Intelligence like yours cannot be stopped. Only you can firk it by becoming too cocky. I went through this bit, its a good sign
Originally posted by @mchillAll naturalistic approaches to gain knowledge of that which is claimed to be supernatural is doomed to failure in the eyes of the claimants of supernaturalism.
Agnostics and Atheists: Please save yourselves the mental energy so many of you are burning up in trying to use logic, mathematics, or some other earthly discipline in trying to understand GOD, or peoples faith in GOD, It doesn't work that way. Faith is a gift, you either have it or you don't. Faith may come to you in the future, or not at all, but don't was ...[text shortened]... h therein, that would be a great deal like an eggplant trying to understand quantum physics. 🙂
This is only natural.🙂
Originally posted by @karoly-aczelWorst thread title ever, no offense
Worst thread title ever, no offense
The OP is up there too.
Where to begin? with the counter-intuitiveness of the op would be a good place to start
No offence taken. I see you're still struggling with this. Well, maybe someday...
-Removed-What is your conception of God?
What is your conception of faith as it relates to your conception of God?
I’d love to hear you have the balls to answer these questions.
OK I'll give these a go:
Q:What is your conception of God?
A: Absolute wisdom + absolute power
Q: What is your conception of faith as it relates to your conception of God?
A: Faith is the means by which matter can understand it's creator
Does this mean "I have the balls to answer these questions??"🙂
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1 Corinthians 1:18 would speak into this, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
Most pastors and theologians-past and present-present this verse as the substance to why faith is abhorrent to the unregenerate. I was recently reading a dissertation by David Chapman, and he said (I paraphrase), "the end goal of preaching is faith and not understanding." He did clarify later that teaching should follow preaching which produces understanding.
This is what Paul and Christians call the "folly of the cross." The doctrine of election presupposes that only those who can appreciate the cross for what is are those who are chosen. Therefore, those who are not chosen will perceive it as folly, unreasonable, wrong, perhaps evil, etc.
However, I'm not sure mchill's argument is exactly what Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 1:18. The substance of faith is not the mind but the heart. Christians do not seek to ultimately persuade the mind but the heart, and once the heart is won the mind will follow. Hence, faith produces an orderly, logical life in the ones who are gifted with it. Those who are not gifted with it will think of faith as folly.
I believe that is the sum of Paul's argument and Scripture's view. The unregenerate will think faith is folly.
No where though do you find Scripture advocating a sort of 'anti-intellectualism' and Christian's who think faith is just a cushy feeling do the Gospel a disservice.
However, using the doctrine of election to 'poke' the unregenerate is a great evil as it is certainly not charitable.
Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-dukeFaith is not illogical.
So, to clarify, faith is illogical and yet you consider this a gift?
Nor is it necessarily logic, though one can come up for reasons why having it is logical.
It is in its own category.
Originally posted by @mchillWhat's to struggle with? I'm perfectly fine with theists forgoing logic. Without that, you can't leverage faith precepts into anything that applies to how we should live our real lives, thus rendering the whole thing impotent.
Worst thread title ever, no offense
No offence taken. I see you're still struggling with this. Well, maybe someday...