A question for RhadTheGizmo
Posted on: February 14, 2007 - 5:42pm
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A question for RhadTheGizmo
Rhad,
I know you don't have plans for staying on this forum too long so I'd like to ask you a question before you depart. I have been following your post now for sometime and I must admit they have fascinated me. I've grown curious about your reasons for being a Christian and I do not recall you mentioning those reasons in any post I've thus read. Could you possibly share with some of us why you believe in Christian theology? I would appreciate your perspective.
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Um.. sure. Yah, I haven't been asked this (here at least) before. I need to finish up something on the phone here.. and yah, I will.
Freewill maybe an illusion. All you guys might be one giant hallucination. The Universe may be eternal. God may exist.
I use to pester my dad with questions about his faith.. I use to pester other people about theirs.. not condemning my dad or them-- just asking questions to understand.
And the end of it all.. I just chose what I wanted to believe.
Even as everyone else does. I don't let anyone put themselves above me in this sense.. because.. as I've come to think of things.. everything comes back to taking things for granted.
You take for granted that I am real (at least I think you take this for granted)... and that everyone else you meet is real.
Because without this assumption.. it would be difficult to function (I'd imagine).. yet, it does not make it a provable assumption. There is no "evidence" for this assumption.. merely a want.
So when it comes down to the bare minimums.. of the choice to believe in an eternal universe.. or an eternal God, I choose the later.
Why the Christian God? Because.. out of all the pictures of "God" I have been exposed to.. learned about.. this one still seems to be the best picture of "God" I can imagine.
One that does not burn people in hellfire forever.. and whose leaves the decision of eternity up to the individual. One who wishes for the bests.. and sustains and reaches even when we have choosen to walk away.
I guess.. that's how I would explain it. Heh. Strange to verbalize it as such.
"One that does not burn people in hellfire forever.. and whose leaves the decision of eternity up to the individual. One who wishes for the bests.. and sustains and reaches even when we have choosen to walk away."
Have you read the bible lately? In the OT especially, god is quite the iron fisted tyrant, what with all the plagues, genocide, floods and damnation. Sounds to me like you've got your own ideals of what "god" is, which is perfectly acceptable. You don't have to subscribe to a specific religious doctrine to believe in god. I know plenty of people that hate organized religion, and still believe. My grandmother told me once that she believed in god, but "her god", not the christian, jewish, muslim, or any other concept thereof. In short, religion does not have a monopoly on the god market.
The darkness of godlessness lets wisdom shine.
Whether I've read it lately or not.. I'm not sure it's changed much.
I choose to call myself a Christian.. in the broadest sense of the word.. because my construct of God is created though the prism of the Bible.
I agree that the words you have read are the same ones that I have read.. but how one might understand them can be very different.
But.. this thread I don't think was meant for me to defend my beliefs.. merely state them.
And so I did.. all things being equal.
I understand, I wasn't really trying to spark anything. That OT crack was kind of more as an aside. I was just trying to illustrate that you don't need to call it the "insert label here" god, that's all.
Btw, it hasn't changed much, lol. Not in our lifetimes anyway.
The darkness of godlessness lets wisdom shine.
You arrived to your faith through reason and thought, which is great and very rare these days... I ask, do you follow your faith blindly? Would you accept another God if he made more sense to you, or are you so faithful that you fail to see anything else? I suspect the former, but I would like to hear from you. It seems to me, though, that you are seeking what I am - the truth.
I hope that when the world comes to an end I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.
If you're addressing me, I'm an atheist, so I have no "faith" lol. If god came down and slapped me in the face, sure I'd believe, at least until he left. Then I'd question if I was hallucinating. In any case, you are right in that I do seek truth, and nothing short of it. Sorry if my statements were misleading, I just don't care what you believe as long as it's not hurting anyone. Period.
The darkness of godlessness lets wisdom shine.
Heh.. tis true. Not in our lifetime.
"More sense?" More sense in general? Or more sense to me? Because while 'in general' some people might find it more sensical for the existence of a deistic God.. I find it just as improbably as a theistic God-- only, the former lacks cause, in my mind, to for the holding of aforementioned belief.
I'm keeping my eyes open. Or at least am under the illusion that I am.
That is the only answer I can think of giving.
Rhad,
Thanks for the very interesting response.
No problem Melch. If.. I may be so bold as to return the question..
What do you believe? and why? Just.. so I can understand a little better. This doesn't seem to be a thread for debate.. just one of asking the question. Heh.
HellFiend, I wasn't adressing you, but whatever.