this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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Nobody has the rightful authority to question the word of God. I quoted a verse from the Bible to you. We accept God's word without question because we are His humble servants. It would be arrogant to suppose we have permission to question His word, and it would be evil for us to desire to question His word. When you are presented with a Bible quote, you accept it as true and holy. When a demon tells you to question it, or claims that it's false, you repent and ask Jesus to shield you from this demonic temptation. In the end, we must always conclude that the word of God is correct.
And yet you continue to demonstrate clear evidence to the contrary. If you're not plagued by demons then show me your embrace of God.
You put understanding before faith. That's backwards. I assure you, this is something you are wrong about.
True, but we have a thousand times more evidence to confirm that God exists. Evidence to which you are blind.
If (A) I was asking you to lie to yourself, and (B) lying to yourself will never make you happy, then (C) actively religious people cannot be happier than irreligious people.
This is basic logic:
A ∧ B ∴ CAnd yet (C) is demonstrably false, an assertion which I substantiated with hard data. And that was just one survey. Survey after survey repeatedly demonstrates that actively religious people are far happier.
I'll reply to some of the various other things you wrote, but this is the heart of our discussion. The crux, if you will. Your perspective is that you're too smart to believe in God, and you refuse to acknowledge that God blesses His faithful believers with happiness. You believe that intelligent people choose unhappiness despite the obvious fact that it would be rather unwise to intentionally choose unhappiness, by virtue of the very definition of happiness. The only possible explanation for your insistent rejection of God is your unknowing loyalty to Satan, who has successfully convinced you that not even he exists.
Then like I said earlier, you have no method to determine what you worship is a good being. That should terrify you if you are a good person and immediately make you second guess everything.
This is a false dichotomy.
Nope, it's the correct way around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)
If you think you have evidence that I haven't seen before I am all ears.
This argument is based on the false premise that religious people would see their religion as a lie. I'm an atheist, so if I were to embrace christianity I would see it as a lie.
Nope. I have no evidence for it, so I do not believe it. It has nothing to do with my intelligence.
Once again, belief is not a choice.
And correlation does not imply causation, therefore you cannot rationally say that being religious makes you more happy.
No, the actual explanation is my responses above. And this is also a fallacy:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Holmesian_fallacy
I quoted the true word of God — the holy Bible. When you parrot your demons who claim it's false, you reveal your foolish allegiance, but still you must know deep in your heart that God is good.
I'm not trying to prove anything here. If you think I am, I have to wonder what led you to think that.
My primary goal here should be readily obvious: Matthew 28:19–20, the Great Commission. I am planting a seed, and praying your soil is fertile.
Your primary goal here, by contrast, is laid out in Romans 1:18-32. I pray your disposition is temporary and reversible.
You're fully immersed in it. But until you establish a penitent relationship with God, you are blind.
If you're honestly not trying to prove how clever you are, then submit to God in faith, and the copious evidence can then be revealed to you.
No matter how much you insist upon that, I repeatedly choose to believe in the Lord our God. I accept that you don't yet understand how belief can be a choice, but it most certainly is.
I have zero doubt that the cause of happiness is God's blessing. Joy is quintessentially Christian.
That's a circular argument. If the devil had a holy book you'd see the same thing about how the devil is the good guy.
I do not think that. I linked it because it is the golden standard for belief, and it requires evidence before belief.
I've been having these sorts of conversations with christians for over a decade. If christians had anything convincing to say, I think I would have heard it by now.
it's not. I'm honestly just talking with you for the sake of enjoyment at this point.
The "look at the trees" argument is an invalid one.
Nope, evidence must come before belief, and belief is not a direct choice.
Do you not see how ridiculous this argument is? Of course the Devil lies, but the difference between God and Satan is under most circumstances glaringly obvious.
The golden standard for belief is a mustard seed.
And who do you think has been motivating you to do that? Time and again, it is the Holy Spirit who moves you. God loves you despite your continued rejection of Him. Yet every time you receive another opportunity to drink of His water, you instead choose to follow your demons.
I'm guessing you didn't actually read Romans 1:18-32. Please do. If you can be honest with yourself, you'll find it all too familiar. What you call "the sake of enjoyment" is described.
Faith exists only because belief is a direct choice. Surely you don't deny the existence of faith.
So then if you understand that there is a chance that what your reading is lies, then why don't you put any effort into determining if what you are reading is lies?
That parable says nothing about it being the gold standard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question
None of this is true. My motivations are my own.
Like I said in the other thread, I don't derive any value from bible verses.
For the sake of experiment, choose to believe that the moon is made of cheese then. You can't do it, because you know better.
Depends what you mean by "faith".
If you're talking about blind faith, then it exists as much as any other concept can, and it is almost by definition an error.
If by faith you mean trust, then in the same way it exists. But even that is based on information you hold to believe as true, which is not something that is under anybody's direct control.