I’m a mathematician: I likely know more about proof than you’ll ever understand.
Because he didn’t created it in 6 days and the earth is not 100k yrs old. I really hope you dont tell people it’s not a lie?
Yes. You know more than me. But we’re not in competition here. I’m questioning the existence of your God.
Ur emotional bias towards ur deity is clouding your judgement on the need for proof.
A thousand years is as one day to the Lord, and one day as a thousand years.
2 Peter 3:8
The days in Genesis are a metaphor.
Please don’t presume to know what my biases are, nor what affects my judgment.
Matthew 12:40… jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of a huge fish. So Jonah was in the belly of a fish for 3000yrs? Please stop now…ur making yourself sound silly. If you’re a true Christian then you believe that the universe was created in 7 days and moses lived to 100’s of yrs old. You can’t tell me you believe the moses story too… or Nohah?..Is it all metaphors?
If it’s all metaphors and people only began to realise it is all metaphors 1000yrs ago or 100yrs ago. Then maybe, just maybe its all a load of crock.
I’m willing to see a logical stance to change my mind on the existence of God. But you dont offer one. No one does.
pokim, you are either ignorant or lack the mental fortitude to understand the subject material. Your questions (so far) are good …for a 12-year-old. I think you need some context on the material in question. However, I have better things to do right now than give it.
@Pokhim - I could respond to your questions/argumentsts, but let’s be honest. Your mind is made up. There is nothing that I (or anybody else) could say to you to change your mind. So stop trying to belittle others through the guise of a religious discussion.
To answer your (thinly veiled insult posing as a) question - there are some things in the Bible that are meant to be taken literally, and some things are not. There is some debate over what is supposed to be taken literally, but virtually all Christian theologians (except for some of the far-right evangelicals) do not believe that the creation story is supposed to be taken literally.
The Jonah story, however, is generally viewed as a literal story. A man was living in modern-day Tel-Aviv was told (by God) to travel 500 miles to the Northeast (norther Iraq) to preach to Nineveh. (Nineveh is the capital of Assyria, for those of you who are curious.) Instead, he boards a ship bound for Portugal. He is thrown overboard, swallowed by a “great fish” (could have been a shark or a whale), stayed there for three days, then is vomited back up onto the shore (maybe in Italy somewhere).
To note–in Jewish custom, “three days” doesn’t mean the same as it does in America. In Jewish parlance, if Jonah was swallowed on Friday night and vomited up on Sunday morning, that would be three days. (Friday, Saturday, Sunday = three days.) So it’s possible he was in there for as little as 36 hours. This is not outside the realm of possiblities if you believe in a God that created time and space as we know it.
Just because something exists does not mean it is the truth.
The 4 gospels are not that difficult to understand. You don’t need to fully understand them. You only need the mind of a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The parables are great for painting a metaphorical picture.
I never said I believe in something I don’t understand. Catholics are defenders of the truth. Questions are encouraged.
Some people are blessed to hear a priest or religious person preach and they bind these words as the truth closely to their soul. The mind of a child is quick to accept teachings from people they look up to. Some people can accept faith immediately and not need to delve into the theological documents explaining the “why” to be a faithful believer. I am not this type of person. I wish my mind was that simple. I continually over complicate things in many facets of my life. I analyze and question. After learning, I analyze and question. If you wish to seek the truth, you need to question constantly. Questioning provides strength and affirmation.
You’re going to have to let go of sitting on a logical stance to prove the existence of God. Its not helping anyone. It sounds like your mind isn’t even open to change. Questioning things without an open mind seldom brings people to a conclusion other than the one in their mind which was already made up before asking the question.
Right. Woman was a respectful title in the original text, akin to ‘Madam’ or ‘Lady’. However this is an unusual title for one’s mother. “It should also be said that the Gospel account of this dialogue between Jesus and his Mother does not give us his gestures, tone of voice etc.: to us, for example, his answer sounds harsh, as if he were saying, ‘this is no concern of ours’. But that was not the case.” (John 2:4 Navarre Bible)
This word was mentioned twice by Jesus in the New Testament. On the cross Jesus uses the same term with great affection and veneration (John 19:26). “The sentence rendered “What have you to do with me?” is the subject of a note in RSVCE which says “while this expression always implies a divergence of view, the precise meaning is to be determined by the context, which here shows that it is not an unqualified rebuttal, still less a rebuke. Jesus’ reply seems to indicate that although in principle it was not part of God’s plan for him to use his power to solve the problem the wedding feast had run into, our Lady’s request moves him to do precisely that. Also, one could surmise that God’s plan envisaged that Jesus should work the miracle at his Mother’s request. In any event, God willed that the Revelation of the New Testament should include this important teaching: so influential is our Lady’s intercession that God will listen to all petitions made through her; which is why Christian piety, with theological accuracy, has called our Lady “supplicant omnipotence”. “My hour has not yet come” - the term “hour” is sometimes used by Jesus to designate the moment of his coming in glory (Jn. 5:28), but it generally refers to the time of his passion, death and resurrection (Jn. 7:30, 12:23, 13:1, 17:1).” (Navarre Bible) The US Conference of Catholic bishops also has a few comments on this: “In the Gospel of St. John, the Mother of Jesus appears at Cana and Calvary, the beginning and the end of her Son’s public life. Both times Jesus addresses her as ‘woman.’ Each scene turns on a special ‘hour.’ At Cana, the hour refers to the beginning of the messianic ministry that ‘has not yet come’ (John 2:4), yet which commences in this ‘first of his signs’ that Jesus worked at Mary’s request. At Calvary, we have the arrival of the great Johannine hour when Jesus ‘will be lifted up and draw all men’ to himself (John12:32). It is moreover ‘on the third day’ that the wedding feast takes place, and ‘the third day’ is the fulfillment of the sacred time of the Paschal Mystery. What began at Cana achieved its consummation on Calvary.”
You’re betraying your ignorance, not mine.
Why even try to argue with faithful? I never get it. If the Bible is wrong, it’s a metaphor of course. It’s like trying to argue a non falsifiable arguement. If you are going to do it, at least look smart when doing it. Maybe it makes people feel smart to point out the fairy tales other people believe in.
I have always found it fascinating that people can clearly talk about the metaphor of Jonah or the Garden of Eden without blinking, but when someone mentions how Xenu is where life started and there are alien ghosts chilling around harming our soul, we immediately dismiss that as crazy. That’s wild to me
I dont mind if you guys are believers or not. I’m just genuinley interested to hear answers to questions that I have. I don’t know many Christians and if i do, I wouldn’t have a frank discussion on it as it’s their businesses. I only asked you guys because this is a forum…
You guys believe. I won’t. That’s okay with me and i guess that’s okay with you too.
sorry if i hurt ur feelings Greenman.
i’ve been where you are bro. rational mind just can’t get over all the crap contained in western religions. but don’t confuse the method with the source. eastern philosophies are far superior in helping individuals ‘see for themselves’. Have you ever tried meditating? Maybe try it out and see if you catch a glimpse of the essence of what basically every religion tries to convey. maybe if you find a way to see for yourself, you’ll be convinced that there is something that connects us beyond what the rational mind can process (this is where western religions fail in my mind – they don’t provide a method to turn off the rational mind in their practice). i have no idea what it is and don’t care to try and define it, but i’ve definitely caught glimpses of the ‘something greater’ and it can be very powerful and can help you in your everyday life. Not that you necessarily need that, but you might want to check it out.
^You didn’t hurt my feelings. You just seemed like you were trying to pick fights just for the sake of picking fights.
As noted before, I am a Christian, specifically a Baptist/Evangelical Free, albeit more liberal than most in my congregation. (That might tell some of the other Christians on the thread more or less what I believe.)
I believe very strongly in Freedom From Religion, both politically and as a personal matter. While I wish everyone would come to have the same faith I do, I don’t force it on other people, and I push back against it when it is a matter of federal/state/local law. I have a very libertarian attitude when it comes to evangelizing others who don’t want to be evangelized. (Basically, if a person wants to live a non-Christian lifestyle, e.g. gay, then they should be free to have that choice without repression from any level of government and shouldn’t have to listen to my criticisms.)
That being said, I don’t mind sharing my beliefs and religious opinions with others who are genuinely interested in learning about them. But I’m not going to open myself to ridicule from a closed minded, obnoxious, colossally smug idiot, be it Fred Phelps or Richard Dawkins.
Could that “something greater” have been indigestion?
Yes, definitely if you are Saint Margaret of Antioch. Her haiography depicts her being eaten by Satan in the form of a dragon. He had serious indigestion when affected by the cross she was wearing in her stomach. Satan exploded.
Yeah I am very similar. I am a bit of a moderate in terms of my faith, but still (begrudgingly) believe in every part of the CCC (Cathechism of the Catholic Church). As far as talking to others about faith - you’re definitely right. I enjoy sharing as well and abhor pushing it on others unwillingly. We can plant seeds and pray. The rest is up to the person and God.
This is especially true out in West Texas, where everybody is a Christian Conservative Republican. (Think–Billy Graham + Ted Cruz) I rarely meet anybody who doesn’t proclaim to be Christian, and everybody has certainly at least heard the message. It’s much more important that you actually practice what you preach.
Let me also address the “something greater” phrase. I have a hard time understanding how somebody can look at the world around us and NOT believe in some kind of higher power. Whether the correct god is Allah or Jehovah or Yahweh or Zeus or Ra or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is another discussion. But I cannot wrap my brain around the idea that there is absolutely no Supreme Being. The idea that all this happened by mere chance is baffling.
Do people really believe that all life and all reason and human emotion and the cosmological precision in the universe just “banged” into existence a billion years ago? Maybe a mathemagician can tell us the mathematical probablities of that happening.