All Things Are Possible to Him Who Believes.

Some humor is called for I think!

rabbi.jpg
 
So what made you guy's so special that God actually made things manifest to you and gave you solid undeniable proof of his and angels existence?
Yet the rest of us are expected to just believe with faith alone and no real physical proof of it's/their existence?

What makes you so special and the rest of us get snubbed?
 
Love these threads Joe,I also believe there are unseen worlds perhaps these worlds are all around us but we are just tuned in to this particular 3rd dimensional frequency.
in fact Its been proven by science that there are at least 10 other dimensions or levels to reality and that's just what they can measure so what exists in places,makes you wonder.
I've had loads of different experiences I can see people's auras,I can tell just by looking at someone how that person is feeling,I've woken up with people or beings in my room a lot of times,even people prodding me,the list goes on im sure to some to this sounds nuts but I've got no reason to lie just giving you accounts of things that have happened to me.
I'm probably the most analytical person I know but I know these events happened.
I guess I rely on my emotional intelligence as we'll as my rational mind,in other words I also rely on my intution or feeling I get if that makes sense and its served me pretty well up to now.
rich I don't think people who have these kind of experiences are particularly speacial just more in tune with spirit simple as that really.
 
s been proven by science that there are at least 10 other dimensions

I think your referring to string theory, which is not even testable at this point so there is no proof of it, and if it turns out to be true, it wont be good news for any of the organized religions.
 
in fact Its been proven by science that there are at least 10 other dimensions or levels to reality

Ditto to @cullenbohannon , There is only three, the fourth is time, string theory predicts up to 11 dimensions but even I get a little confused with this theory but yea were a long way off it being testable, if ever!

,I've woken up with people or beings in my room a lot of times,even people prodding me

You may want to google Sleep Paralysis! Sounds very much like it!

I've got no reason to lie just giving you accounts of things that have happened to me.

Yes i know from experience sleep paralysis seems so real like, that it is quite terrifying!

rich I don't think people who have these kind of experiences are particularly speacial just more in tune with spirit simple as that really.

Considering spirits are an unprovable phenomenon and is a very questionable idea the word simple simply does not cut it!

I have had first hand experience with so called medians and people who are supposed to be "more in touch" and I am left less than impressed!
 
Rich, I really do not know for sure why I was picked to witness this supernatural
event, except for maybe because of my heritage of people of faith. My mom and
dad were both Christians, and so were my grandparents on my mother's side. I
know that God operates in the realm of faith.
 
Hi Cullen don't remember if it was string theory just remember it being interesting,don't see how that changes the essence or core of belief though.alright rich with all due respect mate I don't think it was sleep paralysis I know the difference I'm sorry to hear you found them terryfying.
mine was very comforting I knew I had nothing to fear.
if you don't like the way I word things rich that's up to you But the simple things are always the best haha.;)
again sorry to hear you have bad experiences with mediums I've had a few readings all positive Had messages from family members who have passed.
I know as a Christian mediums are frowned upon but let's hope God is forgiving as they say he is.(y)
 
So what made you guy's so special that God actually made things manifest to you and gave you solid undeniable proof of his and angels existence?
Yet the rest of us are expected to just believe with faith alone and no real physical proof of it's/their existence?

What makes you so special and the rest of us get snubbed?


Be careful of what you wish for @RichL I have read about these events...AND those I discovered ALL endured a very difficult journey as a result. It was if "the bar was raised" in terms of what was expected of them. Mother Teresa had visions and she had a difficult journey indeed. I guess she could have refused, but chose not to.

This is another interest to me. Why is it that all those who followed Christ (namely his close 12 apostles) chose to follow him in spite of the difficulties handed to them because of their faith? With exception of John, they all were put to death in a very gruesome manner. Those of you who have deep knowledge of Scripture can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe one of them was slowly skinned alive. How do the Christians currently being massacred refuse to renounce their faith in exchange for not only their own lives, but their children's life as well. At any rate, how does one acquire such deep faith?
 
dont worry folks, we are all sinners, even joe and shaun,no one gets special treatment , we will sin to the end,and when you do, you ask for forgiveness and move on to the next day,there are no" goody two shoes " in this world,guaranteed ! one man cannot preach to another because he knows no different,there is no supernatural on this pale blue dot , human beings are extremely gullible, just have your own belief, sorry, i dont take thoughts from other human beings,remember, every last one of us are sinners, if there is something and a chance of some way of life everlasting, i will put my faith in the heavens above but certainly not a human being who preaches !!
 
Without debates you have war, people fight when they get offended over someones opinion, debates do not provoke fights when undertaken by intelligent rational people, fights happen when people haven't the ability to rationally debate and respect another's opinion!



Like I said without debates their is no peace!



You should thank your God that the world leaders do debate, their was a time where no debates were undertaken, you can look it up in our history.

Just look under world war 1 and 2, Korea, Vietnam and even further back to the crusades, ETC, ETC, ETC
RichL, Me thinks you're preachin' to the wrong choir. (Except that debating means those engaged acknowledge and understand each other while we may not agree and some level of discourse occurs. I see a brick wall here in enough places where this will not happen.) It's so black and white here there's no room for growth of opinion. Y'all have fun.
 
don't see how that changes the essence or core of belief though

Hey Shaun hope all is well, so i do think its String theory your talking about, i don't know of any other scientific theory which describes so many dimensions. ST happens to be something of great interest to me,
so the 11 dimensions is just one aspect of string theory. The goal of ST is to unify quantum mechanics with general relativity . QM describes how sub atomic particles work, and general relativity explains gravity. But the two are not compatible with each other which is a problem. This is the basic problem it tries to solve but there are others.

They believe that these dimensions are very small and thats why we cant see them.It would not have much to do with us being able to tune into different frequencies. They are simply to small to see. Imagine seeing a telephone line outside your window, it looks like a straight line, but if you were an ant on the cable you could see the round curvature the cable has. This is how the dimensions are described.

The reason i think ST is a no go with organized religion is that it predicts that there would be a multiverse or more than just our universe. In fact it predict there would be 10^500 different universes to an infinite amount. With numbers that high , anything that could happen would happen. There many other versions of you and me. So we probably wouldn't be that special after all.

Also there are a lot of implicit assumptions in ST, one being evolution which some people have trouble believing.

So that was my thought process on why ST and religion are not compatible.
 
I just had 10 minutes of piece. No sounds, no pains, no negative thoughts, and all I can say is, "God's Not Dead."
This quote is a reminder of a movie currently on Netflix called "God's not Dead".
It's always inspirational to ponder and give heed to the perspective about life from others, which are portrayed in different forms, rather than by words alone. For instance, the natural beauty which surrounds me (without people), of living creatures great and small, vegetation buzzing with insects that many forget are our main source of keeping us alive. Humans are the destructors of all living things & our resources. They will eventually destroy what nature provided us, through man-made creations. E.g - Oil drilling, fracking, drugs, sunscreen in water etc.
People identify God(s) in their own way for different reasons, which is their choice. We can't argue for what they think or how they feel. Our concern should be: does one's presence include intelligence, compassion and empathy for others to maintain/revive our environment, over ignorance, destruction & control?

Tinnitus is invisible, so is "God"... does this mean it does not exist?

Life is too short & our universe is vast. My faith is being part of the remaining serene nature that surrounds me...one of only things left that keeps me going from the internal hell inside, created by man. Our natural environment, it's existence, and realization of how lucky we are for what we have now to even breathe. The way things are going, I predict all will eventually be destroyed by overpopulation, development & greedy corruption (e.g. Florida & CA wetlands/farms/Asia) depleting all our natural resources that we rely on to live, including water.
The irony is, scientists are now finding cures from nature itself, created by the unknown.
Man is the culprit to creating hell on Earth. We don't need any book to tell us that.
 
I'm not even close to being offended. By what you said except Santa is not real and is based on myths that happen to lend itself right into capitalism. God - where folks created something based on unknown and faith ... I won't go there and it goes beyond way beyond capitalism. There are too many people who have a need to believe. When religious groups come a-knockin' on my door, I let them know they're soliciting where we have not allowed it and I have hopped on my motorcycle to see them out of the neighborhood. Simple stuff.

I'm not focused on treating those who believe in religion any differently than anyone else. I really don't give a hoot who's in the minority or majority. With all the hatred in the world and one frickin' one upmanship and stupid fights about religion in so many places, if a person has a need to believe in an entity that can't be proven or dis-proven, I try not to knock that person. I know belief in something helps some - I let them alone so long as they're not imposing their belief system on me. I'm not going to go so far as to call those people delusional whether I believe they are or not. We can dismantle Santa with facts. Dismantling god is impossible since it's based on the unproven.

I don't follow social mores (and some people here have been subjected to that - ho ho ho) I'm just kind of going by the motto of, "Live and let live (I'm adding) in peace."

Shadgirl: Sjoerd and I are having a discussion. It's not a debate. There's a way to lock down threads, I think, to limit who can join in the discussion. If you want a thread on god for only those who believe in god, create it and lock the rest of us out - if you can. You appear to have that need.

Ok, Stanta is about money....God (to me) is about power over people. So is somebody is selling a fake cure for real money, it is normal we get angry. But if fake hope with a fake cure is sold in the name of faith (and not for money, just for power) we should respect the believes of others? How is that not treating people differently? etc etc

I know equality is a nice goal, but not really practical. That why most people with a delusion are in a mental hospital and people with faith are just free to walk around.
 
From my last few posts, I can see that there is a great deal of interest in religious things. For myself it is
not hard to believe in God and His word. I know that this is a great challenge to many people. At a very
young age of about 7 years old I had a life changing event that has never left me even though it happened about 50 years ago. It was the night before Easter Sunday, and I was alone in my bedroom laying down in bed. The door was shut and the lights off, and suddenly a bright light appeared in the other side of the room. There appeared a heavenly figure bright and shining that spoke to me saying "Come with me". I never went but continued to gaze intently. I never became afraid and it felt like a good presence. Finally within a short time the Angel spoke one more time to me saying "I will be back". I never got up to go and the Angel left as quickly as coming. There have been several other supernatural things that I have seen in the past that make Christianity the only viable option for me being in my right mind. I certainly understand that with all the foolish things that are being done in the name of religion, that many will write this off as a lie or craziness; however this is my testimony of a literal event that took place in my life many years ago. The bible speaks of several that had similar encounters as me, but these are accounts of events that took place over 1900 years ago, and mine is current. I hope this testimony encourages some of the skeptical minds to reconsider coming into an encounter with the Living God, Jesus Christ, the one who died and was buried and rose from the dead, and was seen of over 500 eyewitnesses.

Just a little thought experiment...: just imagine that you were born in a arabic country. Having had the same experience would you be christian or muslim? I would say, probably muslim. So why would you think you are born to the right god?

In any religion there are people with an experience like yours....and all of them believe in the "right". Or are you just lucky to be born in a christian country?
 
alright rich with all due respect mate I don't think it was sleep paralysis I know the difference I'm sorry to hear you found them terryfying.

Down through the century's, people were sure that they were evil spirits, but with all due respect to you bro, beings prodding one self doesn't sound like heavenly creatures to me!

I haven't had bad experiences with medians, I just think they are full of it, and they take advantage of gullible people that are in a very vulnerable point in there lives and will pay any ridiculous amount of money to satisfy there own minds that there is an afterlife!

I've had a few readings all positive Had messages from family members who have passed.

This is the problem, Christians more than frown upon them, they go further than that and call these messengers from medians evil spirits, the whole thing is looked at as evil, and that includes anyone who seeks their help!

I know as a Christian mediums are frowned upon but let's hope God is forgiving as they say he is.

So that would make you a christian who makes his own rules and laws to abide by?
 
Ok, Stanta is about money....God (to me) is about power over people. So is somebody is selling a fake cure for real money, it is normal we get angry. But if fake hope with a fake cure is sold in the name of faith (and not for money, just for power) we should respect the believes of others? How is that not treating people differently? etc etc

I know equality is a nice goal, but not really practical. That why most people with a delusion are in a mental hospital and people with faith are just free to walk around.
I'm not exactly looking for here and my patience is admittedly wearing thin in a thread that goes against my grain. God or any religion is about power. Without its power by those who wield it, there is no controlling of the masses. We appear to believe the same thing.

With Joe, it's simple - it seems. That is to ignore those who don't believe and give some sort of platitude to those who do. I don't want to follow in his footsteps. I'd rather take a higher road. I'd also rather see a locked thread.

I don't understand this: "That why most people with a delusion are in a mental hospital..." So long as those people with faith are walking around and not shoving my face in it, I don't care. I walked down 5th Ave. in NY's Gay Pride
march for a number of years, there were always zealot's at various churches yelling obscenities at us. I was initially pissed off and then used another tactic - being nice and smiling. I'm just tired of the nuttiness. I'm leaving people alone. Arguing with religious people gets me nowhere outside and inside this thread. I'm not changing anyone's mind.
 
Here is one book written to show the truth about Christianity and the Consititution: http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Constitution-Faith-Founding-Fathers/dp/0801052319 There are surely more, if one is willing to search it out.

WHose truth are you referring to, I have no problems when people have differing opinions, but to present "SUBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE", as objective truths is a problem.
So i researched the author of this book, John Eidsmoe, he has a M.A. from Dallas Theological Seminary, and Masters in Divinity from Lutheran Brethren Seminary. He is hardly an impartial source. He also has a Law degree from ORAL ROBERTS but i don't think that means a lot considering what he says in this interview.

Eidsmoe explained to me how the Coburn School of Law, in the years that Bachmann was there, wove Christianity into the legal curriculum. "Say we're talking in criminal law, and we get to the subject of the insanity defense," he said. "Well, Biblically speaking, is there such a thing as insanity and is it a defense for a crime?
I didn't know being a lawyer worked that way, that if you kind find evidence of it in the bible then, you couldn't use it in court, give me a break.

" When Biblical law conflicted with American law, Eidsmoe said, O.R.U. students were generally taught that "the first thing you should try to do is work through legal means and political means to get it changed.

He is literally saying that if there is something that in the constitution he doesn't like and does not fir with his worldview that it should be changed. It doesn't matter what the facts are, because he want to get them changed to fit the Christian doctrine. Someone like this would obviously be very objective when looking at the role of religion in the constitution.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/15/leap-of-faith-ryan-lizza
I dont want to read about some guys warped interoperation of what the constitution should be. We don't need people telling us how to interpret a very straightforward document. The US constitution in my eyes is one of the great works ever written by people, and it is not confusing or ambiguous.
If i want to understand what role religion played in it, we have a lot of letters sent from one founding father to another, which are part of historical record at this point that i can read. Not to mention the constitution, and the treaty they signed. All these things trump whatever book you may find that may try to distort facts to believe in some fairytale view of the origin of the US.

Were they lying to us when they wrote the first amendment? were they lying when the approved the treaty of tripoli? The letters the founding fathers sent to one another, did they think , hey wouldn't it be funny, if we pretended we did not believe in christianity this way we could cause a lot of confusion in a couple hundred years and undo everything we worked so hard for? I would honestly like to know, if anyone can answer these things for me, because that would be the only explanation, i think of, that they lied over and over and over again because they wanted to confuse future generations.

It appears the supreme court feels the same way i do, because in 1971, they created whats called the lemon test.

The Lemon test says that in order to be constitutional, a policy must:

  1. Have a non-religious purpose;
  2. Not end up promoting or favoring any set of religious beliefs; and
  3. Not overly involve the government with religion.
Here is one more source, directly from the founding fathers, This letter from Thomas Jefferson, to the Danbury Baptist Association.


Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and, in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" thus building a wall of eternal separation between Church & State. Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect,

[Jefferson first wrote: "confining myself therefore to the duties of my station, which are merely temporal, be assured that your religious rights shall never be infringed by any act of mine and that." These lines he crossed out and then wrote: "concurring with"; having crossed out these two words, he wrote: "Adhering to this great act of national legislation in behalf of the rights of conscience"; next he crossed out these words and wrote: "Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience I shall see with friendly dispositions the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced that he has no natural rights in opposition to his social duties."]

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & the Danbury Baptist [your religious] association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.


If anyone wants to respond to any of the points i raised ill be happy to respond, otherwise this will be my last post for a while.
 
480x350xEmo_Philips_on_how_God_works.jpe
 
So what made you guy's so special that God actually made things manifest to you and gave you solid undeniable proof of his and angels existence?
Yet the rest of us are expected to just believe with faith alone and no real physical proof of it's/their existence?

What makes you so special and the rest of us get snubbed?

Hey Rich! :)

Hope you are well!

I just thought I would share my testimony here. I have never had a physical encounter with God in the sense I have seen him or heard an audible voice. But I have had other signs.

In my solitude I read my bible and found a particular verse that stuck out to me. I suppose you could call it an "a-ha" moment. I'd been praying and going through a particularly challenging time and this verse gave me encouragement. In the days to follow I had a couple of friends who aren't directly associated come up to me and share the same encouragement that I got from the verse as if reinforcing it. This sort of thing has happened to me on numerous occasions. I suppose you could call it coincidental but it didn't feel that way to me. I suppose I could tell you elusively that my heart was moved like other Christians...seems that we speak a different language to everyone else...then they ask why everyone thinks we are brainwashed! :p. In reality it hasn't moved it's still in the same place in my body, but I did had a deep feeling of acceptance. I guess you would call it an understanding.

I also vividly remember sitting in a room with a friend one day. We were discussing God and my friend asked the Holy Spirit to enter the room. I didn't see anything, but I did feel something very special in the room that wasn't there before. It gave warmth, my skin tingled and my heart raced. I mean you could suggest it was a heart flutter or something else I was feeling, maybe when my heart started pumping faster it caused my skin to tingle and the increased flow made me warmer. I won't argue with you on that...but the feeling itself was something different and that is what is hard to describe.

You raise a very valid point, in fact it is highly rational to want proof. I want to make sure something will work as advertised before I buy it, most people would. To want proof is justified. I pray God gives you that proof, but I also pray that when he shares the truth with you it isn't dismissed out of hand as coincidence.

But...I do want to point out that it is our faith in Jesus that ultimately saves us from death and grants us eternity in heaven. Faith is belief without evidence of proof. Everyday you demonstrate faith. Faith that your car will start. Faith that you will be home in time for dinner. Faith that your business client will show up at the prearranged time as agreed, so you aren't unfamiliar with it. I suppose you could rationalize the latter 3 comments but not the former by applying scientific theory. But if God created the universe and put you right where you are today, then it stands to reason that he could also create scientific theory as a way of separating the wheat from the chaff, i.e. those who believe and those who don't.

I leave you with an extract from Matthew 13 where Jesus is talking to a group of farmers and villagers. I hope you read it, but I respect if you decline.

"Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn't have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand."

"Now listen to the explanation of the parable about the farmer planting seeds: The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don't understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they don't last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God's word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God's word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced. The seed that fell on good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God's word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!"
 

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