Proof there is a God

Is there a God? Were we created, it that the question? :gethim:

The intricate details, unique character and talents from person to person is a start. Is that just luck? Then there is amazing design and detail of the human body itself. Next, all the plant life and animals and how they are designed live, survive, function. Do you think it's just lucky that Sunflowers know how to follow the sun, or a Venus fly trap can capture it's lunch in a heartbeat? DNA is in every cell and is 3 billion+ characters telling that cell it's system and function. DNA makes the most complex scientific computer software look like a Sesame street episode. The smartest doctors can't many times save a life let alone create one from scratch. And there is the perfect balance of the earth, it's moon, distance from the sun, tilt and rotation to give us seasons to grow our food and sustain life. Just a little closer to the sun, we burn up, a little further away, we freeze.
I say it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe we have a God and creator who designed all this stuff. Where there is a design, there is a designer.

And once you believe in God, repent of your sins and decide to follow him, he'll enter your being and he'll change your life forever. You'll know he the source of life, your roadmap and gives you your purpose for being here. He'll never leave nor will he ever forsake you. ❤️ We are still flawed and can be jerks at times, but like anything else, you learn and grow to be a better person as you move forward, more loving, caring, giving, forgiving and faithful. It's not easy but but the benefits of having a source of truth in a world full of lies and deception is comforting and I'll call it work in progress. :checkthisout:

The Bible says: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those who love Him. 1st Corinthians 2:9 It's beyond our imagination what God has in store for those who belong to him.

God won't force himself on anyone. If you don't want to believe, then don't. Some people want to worship themselves and that is the human nature of mankind. It's called free will and that's what God gave us from the start. The catch is; if you choose to deny God after this life, you'll be separated from Him and all his goodness (which you now enjoy by the way) but it's your choice.

The media loves to bash some of these TV show boat churchs, and yes there are thousands of money grabbing false prophets in the name of Christianity much like any other fraud on this planet, so got to beware of that garbage.

One true God, one true religion, one true bible that hasn't changed in thousands of years. That's what I know about the subject, I'm sure many people won't agree, but try to keep an open mind and dig into it, your life is worth it.

Here is a guy I follow, Dr. Frank Turek... it's 30 minutes asking What is God like? See what you think about it if you're at all interested>

 
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MadAsAHatter said:
I've lost track of the proof of globe earth thread since you guys went the religion route and don't want to clutter it up more. So I'll ask this here.

First off let me hope that this won't start another orthodox vs protestant argument. I'm just looking for some different perspectives because I never got a straight answer before. And I'm not trying to be factious about this or anything. I not familiar enough with what religious texts say and genuinely want to know how one views this. 99% of the time I've been dismissed or told I shouldn't ask such things. Since @MontiCristo @Thumbpicker and @VonBonfire all seem to be strong in your faith I think you all may be able to give a good perspective. I'll also invite anyone else who may have a perspective on this to answer as well.

In the old testament God is generally portrayed as unforgiving and vindictive. Some specific events that come to mind are tossing Adam & Eve out of the garden, the great flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gamora. In the new testament God is mostly portrayed as forgiving and loving. This is evident in Jesus and him dying to atone for people's' sins. There's also the whole thing between the old covenant and the new covenant.
1. How does one reconcile the change in "personalities" of God between the old and new testament?
2. If God is all knowing why did He need a new covenant? Why would He not have know and accounted for everything in the old covenant so a new covenant wouldn't be necessary?
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The God of the NT is the same God of the Old Testament. God is often described as immutable which means unchanging. While it may seem like the God of the Old Testament is a God of Wrath and the NT is a God of Love this is actually a mischaracterisation. God has always loved man who is his creation. At the same time God cannot look upon sin because he is Holy God. Man fell in Genesis with Adam and Eve as you know. They were punished because they were tainted with sin and God cannot look upon us because of the taint of sin. In the Old Testament there was the sacrificial system and priests. There was the law and sacrificial atonement. God always planned to reconcile humanity back to him and Jesus was the way to reconcile us to God. We can commune with God through Jesus and God can hear us through him because he has made us Holy by taking our sins from us and paying the price for us through his crucifixion.

God still hates sin, (he is unchanging) so if we do not accept the gift of salvation through his son Jesus and repent God cannot forgive us or accept us because he then sees us as sinful. Jesus has not paid the price for people who have not accepted him as their saviour. That's because without Jesus as our saviour we cannot be forgiven for our sins because Jesus hasn't paid the price for people that have not asked for forgiveness and for him to be their saviour...

I tell you this because the consequences for people who aren't forgiven through Jesus is really no different to the God of the old Testament. God is a God of love and he loves everyone but he is a Holy God and can't save or look upon sinful people. So those people will unfortunately from my perspective be punished and sent to a place without God which is Hell.

I personally don't like the idea of Hell because it's a terrible and eternal fate. I have struggled with it a bit but at the end of the day I'm not God and I don't get to decide how he judges or punishes people. Arguing with God is futile - he is God. I'm not in a position to question his Kingship.

If you think all of that means we have to be sinless that's not entirely correct. We have to repent which is an attitude as we accept Jesus we do not wish to grieve God by sinning out of thankfulness and love. We will of course fail because we are still sinful until God perfects us in Heaven. The key is Jesus takes our sin away and credits us as holy before God if we have faith in him, follow him and repent which means feel genuinely sorry for our sinfulness and pray to God that he helps us to live according to his will. So you see Christians don't see themselves as better than everyone else. We are resigned to be just as bad as everyone else because all sin is unacceptable and we thank God for forgiving us and giving us the precious gift of salvation and eternal life through his son Jesus.

Back to the OT God. God punished the Israelites often in cycles because they would follow him for a while then drift back to idolatry etc, be punished, repent and be forgiven then go back to idolatry... You can read about them doing that in books like Judges... This often spanned generations. However God always had a plan to save the whole world and that theme comes through in various prophetic books and culminated in Jesus. ie the famous verse in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have Eternal Life."

So in summary God's wrath in the Old Testament is a response to sin and the enemies of his people. This is the same in the OT and the NT but it comes across in different ways. God's relationship and the way He communes with his people has changed with the covenant because Jesus is now our High Priest. We should be thankful God's grace and mercy because we don't deserve it. It's amazing that God cares about us that much that he came down to Jesus and subjected himself to degradation to save us. That's truly remarkable.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I've lost track of the proof of globe earth thread since you guys went the religion route and don't want to clutter it up more. So I'll ask this here.

First off let me hope that this won't start another orthodox vs protestant argument. I'm just looking for some different perspectives because I never got a straight answer before. And I'm not trying to be factious about this or anything. I not familiar enough with what religious texts say and genuinely want to know how one views this. 99% of the time I've been dismissed or told I shouldn't ask such things. Since @MontiCristo @Thumbpicker and @VonBonfire all seem to be strong in your faith I think you all may be able to give a good perspective. I'll also invite anyone else who may have a perspective on this to answer as well.

In the old testament God is generally portrayed as unforgiving and vindictive. Some specific events that come to mind are tossing Adam & Eve out of the garden, the great flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gamora. In the new testament God is mostly portrayed as forgiving and loving. This is evident in Jesus and him dying to atone for people's' sins. There's also the whole thing between the old covenant and the new covenant.
1. How does one reconcile the change in "personalities" of God between the old and new testament?
2. If God is all knowing why did He need a new covenant? Why would He not have know and accounted for everything in the old covenant so a new covenant wouldn't be necessary?
Click to expand...
This is a good question.
I will answer tomorrow.
 
Monkey Man said:
It may or may not be scriptural, but I like the idea that Hell is the complete absence of God. This makes sense to me at any rate.

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. That alone may turn out to be the biggest shock for atheists after-death. IMHO.
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Any further supposition, like fire and brimstone and all that, is manmade. Hell is translated as Sheol from the Greek Bible. Which is the first translation from Hebrew. Sheol means tomb. Think about judgement day and the believers being “risen” from their graves. Non believers aren’t. And the Bible plainly states punishment for sin is death. Separation from god.

Shit like this is why people walk away from Christianity.
 
Floyd Eye said:
Any further supposition, like fire and brimstone and all that, is manmade.
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In the orthodox theology of the Tabor light, the believer will experience the uncreated or divine light of God as joy and love while an unbeliever will experience the same uncreated light as hellfire and torment.
 
Floyd Eye said:
Any further supposition, like fire and brimstone and all that, is manmade. Hell is translated as Sheol from the Greek Bible. Which is the first translation from Hebrew. Sheol means tomb. Think about judgement day and the believers being “risen” from their graves. Non believers aren’t. And the Bible plainly states punishment for sin is death. Separation from god.

Shit like this is why people walk away from Christianity.
Click to expand...
I agree that hell can be understood in different ways according to the text, but there's enough about eternal torment, wailing and gnashing of teeth and so in that the conventional view isn't unsupported.

But the doctrine of eternal torment for the unbeliever is dumb, unjust and makes God a monster, and his supporters rather callous, to say the least.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
In the old testament God is generally portrayed as unforgiving and vindictive. Some specific events that come to mind are tossing Adam & Eve out of the garden, the great flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gamora. In the new testament God is mostly portrayed as forgiving and loving. This is evident in Jesus and him dying to atone for people's' sins. There's also the whole thing between the old covenant and the new covenant.
1. How does one reconcile the change in "personalities" of God between the old and new testament?
2. If God is all knowing why did He need a new covenant? Why would He not have know and accounted for everything in the old covenant so a new covenant wouldn't be necessary?
Click to expand...
You're right in noting personality differences between Yahweh and Jesus, at least in my view. To be fair though, there are instances of mercy and even tenderness in the OT Yahweh. But you forgot to mention that the OT god was also genocidal, which believers rationalize and justify (While the same "nuance" is never offered to the insane passages in the Quran for example).
 
Thumbpicker said:
We have to repent which is an attitude as we accept Jesus we do not wish to grieve God by sinning out of thankfulness and love.
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"Thankfulness and love".... but not fear that you're gonna roast for all eternity?! ...Have you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome? Strange things can happen to one's emotional state when under extreme stress and threat of harm.
 
acceptance said:
You're right in noting personality differences between Yahweh and Jesus, at least in my view. To be fair though, there are instances of mercy and even tenderness in the OT Yahweh. But you forgot to mention that the OT god was also genocidal, which believers rationalize and justify (While the same "nuance" is never offered to the insane passages in the Quran for example).
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Is there a new covenant in the Quran or a mechanism by which certain parts of it are specifically for certain groups of people ( i.e. the OT can be considered basically rules for Jews before their fall from grace) ?

Are there homicidal tenets of the Quran which are currently held to be sacred text by Muslims ( kill infidels, etc.)
 
Floyd Eye said:
Is there a new covenant in the Quran or a mechanism by which certain parts of it are specifically for certain groups of people ( i.e. the OT can be considered basically rules for Jews before their fall from grace) ?

Are there homicidal tenets of the Quran which are currently held to be sacred text by Muslims ( kill infidels, etc.)
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I don't know much about the Quran but I have heard Muslim scholars offer context and understanding to the difficult passages, just like Christians do. Look, there are 1.5 billion muslims around the world. 99.9% of them are not out killing "Infidels" by inspiration of the Quran.
 
acceptance said:
I don't know much about the Quran but I have heard Muslim scholars offer context and understanding to the difficult passages, just like Christians do. Look, there are 1.5 billion muslims around the world. 99.9% of them are not out killing "Infidels" by inspiration of the Quran.
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Maybe not, but I bet you'd be surprised at the number of them who are okay with other people doing it.
 
Floyd Eye said:
Maybe not, but I bet you'd be surprised at the number of them who are okay with other people doing it.
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You're likely conflating "muslim terrorism" with politically motivated terrorism in response to anglo-zionist involvement in the middle east and in particular Israel/Palestine.
 
Monkey Man said:
In case it helps:

I recommend Chuck for structural analysis / design of the Bible and Kent for "physical-design" stuff - fauna, flora, earth, the universe.
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Cool, the more details we learn and understand, the more we come to know God and why he chose us to spread the good news when a door is opened.
I find his word is the most powerful thing overall in sharing the gospel, the Holy Spirit does the rest.
 
acceptance said:
You're likely conflating "muslim terrorism" with politically motivated terrorism in response to anglo-zionist involvement in the middle east and in particular Israel/Palestine.
Click to expand...
Wasn't thinking about it at all, nevertheless it's a thing. They seem okay with terrorism and jew hating.
 
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