God lives within you? ....sounds like Gas

Well if he brought all his reindeer with him it might be more than just gas.

For Funches, - on a purely philosophical note.

Take the word “God” entirely out of the game. It’s just a confusing nonsensical word to begin with!

Put it this way. I came out of the universe. I am entirely made of the “stuff” of this universe. If I experience life, then the universe experiences life, because I am a manifestation of this universe.

I am part of something bigger. I belong here because I am part of what is here. When my physical form dissipates all of its contents will still be part of this universe. Everything that I am will always be a part of this universe. There is no essence of me that is not of this universe. For if there was, where would that essence have come from?

To believe that I am something other than this universe is the delusion.

If my life is a dream, then the universe is the dreamer. If I experience the dream, then I too must be the dreamer, for a dream cannot experience itself.

In this way all is one, and one is all. To call that ‘god’ is just to label it. If you prefer to call it ‘gas’ what’s the difference? It’s just another a 3-letter label starting with “g”.

No matter how you label it, it doesn’t change the concept of what it is.

because the belief is about God as an entity..that is what believers believe ..so to lessen the chance of arugment in a debate you have to atleast give believers the respect as not to ignore the God



Art started a good post about this called "the evolution of christianity" I'm not sure so please people try not to attack me if that is not the exact name of the thread

but we both agree which is a shock in itself ..that Christianity is evolving into dump the religion but keep the God or that God is everything and not an entity ..the face of Christianity is changing into something else

Because you do not believe in God, you do not believe in a devil. However, the devil was alive long before the creation of the earth, Job 37. The angels, and Lucifer shouted for joy at the world's creation.

However, we were a part of the plan before the earth was created.

Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

Knowing the path man would take, Christ was as good as slain before that.

1Pe 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

So, do you think that the angels did not know God's plan? Of course they did, and God's enemy knew it, and it was he who would cause these various counterfeit messiahs to occur. I mean, just think. It is weird that there would be so many especially considering the unusual nature of the sacrifice of Christ. Few people would dream up such a scenario on their own. It had to come from the one who knew the plan from the beginning. The devil made em do it.



Yes, according to Genesis and many other places in the Bible.

[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Realize that God separated light from darkness and that was the first day, not the creation of the earth which took place at the same time as creation of the universe.

Consider --when was this beginning? It was long before man existed. There were billions of years before that. There were dinosaurs and Neanderthals. It was a hostile kill or be killed world, reptilian world.

Now consider the next verse:

[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

This is not the way that the world was created. It was not without form and void in the beginning. The term "was" could and should be translated "became"

The terms without form and void are actually chaotic and confused in the Hebrew. For example, the term "vain" is tohu and it is the same word used in the verse below:

Isa 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it NOT in VAIN he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

Void is actually the Hebrew word meaning word “confused and God is not the author of Confusion I cor 14:33. Satan is.

So, God created the heavens and the earth for the purpose of being inhabited, but they both BECAME chaotic and confused. This was the result of sin.

This took place during the war in heaven when everything was destroyed on the earth. This is why the great beasts are found with food still in their mouth. It is why the moons of Saturn are crushed to dust. It is why asteroids and meteors are still flying around space.

Thus, the earth had existed for millions of years before man as we know man. The angels inhabited the earth and they left their first estate, which was the earth,

Jud 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

There was war in heaven. As Jesus said, He saw Satan fall like lightening. Where did Satan fall to? He fell to the earth where he was originally.

That is why Satan was there in the garden. He fell back to the earth. The earth was his before Man was on it. He was always the ruler of this world. That is why he could offer the kingdoms of this world to Jesus at the temptation. That is why when Christ died on the Cross, He said, now is the prince of this world cast out. Christ had qualified to replace the ruler of this earth, but would not cast Satan out of this world until His return.

Back to Genesis, now God comes to the earth that already exists, and He begins to clear away the rubble, so that light can shine through.

This making of day and night was the first day, not all that occurred before it.

[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
[5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.



Yes, it is still without form, but it was not made without form and void. It became that way as a result of sin.

The bible uses symbolism from time to time, but the symbolism is always the same. The symbols always have the same meaning—stars are angels, leaven is sin and pride, mountains are large governments, hills smaller ones and so on. So where is there symbolism in this account? There is no symbolism indicated here at all. There is the simple definition of evening and morning. We are told they are a day. There are descriptions of specific kinds of animals, and so on. It is all specific and not symbol at all.

Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

So, you see that these had to be single 24 hour days for the plants that were created to exist until the creatures needed to pollinate them were created.

Certainly the Sabbath was a 24 hour creation. It was the seventh day, and it was only evening and morning. God did not rest for millions of years.



See a post on recreation for the full story



This is so ironic. Your beliefs are made up on the mind of men. It is what ever you think! The beliefs found in the Bible are from a true God. For example, Greek Mythology has no prophecies that have come true. They have no moral basis like the Scriptures. Those are gods made in the image of man. They act like men. The God of the Bible does not act like men. His thoughts are higher than ours.

The Bible has a history that can and has been validated. At first the critics thought there was no writing in Egypt, then they found the writing on the Rosetta stone. Then they said that there was no Nineveh. It was mythological. Then Opps! They found Nineveh. Then, Abraham was a myth. Again, they found tablets in Ebla with his name and others on it. One man took at robotic camera into the sea of Aqaba and caught photos of encrusted chariot wheels.

Where is there evidence that you have that there is no God? The God of the Bible challenges us to prove Him, not take Him on faith. The God of the Bible makes contact with us and we can have a personal relationship with Him. In the pages of the Bible, there are over 300 prophesies of Christ alone. There are many others about different nations. God foretold the future of ancient Tyre and Sidon. He foretold how the Persians would take Babylon by going through the flood gates. God even foretold the name of King Cyrus who would let the people go after their 70 years of captivity. God revealed to Daniel when the Messiah would come, and Israel knew He was due and were looking for Him in either John the Baptist or Christ. The God of the Bible foretold of Israel going into captivity and being taken out of Egypt exactly at the time He said. Further, the entire exodus scenario was written for the church at the end, to encourage them to understand that they would be taken out of this evil world by a resurrection after the trumpet plagues of Rev 8.... Yes, you can mock and think your gods are as good as any. Those gods did not say any thing like the Bible, and certainly not this:

Isa 46:8 Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors. Isa 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

As this verse shows, God is not omniscient. He does not know what will happen in the future. Instead, He tells you what will happen, and then He MAKES IT HAPPEN. That is different than any of the gods you speak of. He has made what He said would happen come to pass. We men can’t do that. We are hit and miss.



But you think your beliefs are better, and they are the beliefs of men. They are your beliefs. It is just your theory, with little real evidence. .



Well what proves divinity? I can’t prove anything to you. You are too invested in your beliefs. If God came to you and showed that He was real, you would argue it was a dream or something. There is no proof you will accept.

Consider that when God says to prove Him, He means to live His way and see if it does not produce blessings. Are you willing to do that? No. You don't really want any proof.

When it comes to Paul's admonition, He says to prove all things. You are not willing to do that. You have no proof that there is no God. We offer you that creation is proof of a creator. That laws that you cannot break are proof of a supreme law giver. You can object to this all you want, but think my friend, if you do, you object to the plain obvious truth. You make yourself look foolish in reality. You did not create these things. Something greater than you did. But you refuse to think there is anything greater than you. So, there is no real personal God—but it is only in your mind.

So, there is evidence. It is actually proof enough that there is a Creator and He is smarter and more powerful than you. I recommend that you accept it and get over it.



Actually the proofs of the Bible are world renowned. They are there for anyone who is open to see them. You won’t see them even if I show them to you. But, I will give evidence.

How about a few off the top of my head?

1. No one believes in the Greek Gods. Billions believe in Jesus and the Bible.

2. God told man things long before science could ever have known them
the earth is round
It is hung on nothing
Eating swine and shell fish is dangerous
Wash after touching anything dead
bury your excrement
Don't overcrowd yourself in cities

3. Those who claimed to be eyewitness died for their beliefs in Jesus Christ. They would not if it were made up by them.

4. The Biblical history tells the truth to the point that it openly shows the weaknesses of its own heroes, and that testimony supports the reality of Christ, the acts of the church & its miracles

5. Secular history supports that Jesus existed, did miracles, lived a good life and died by crucifixion.

6. Over 300 fulfilled prophecy supports the fact that the Bible is true

7. My own personal relationship with Christ, and miracles I have witnessed show it.

8. Answers to prayer show it.

9. How about the popularity and continued existence of a book that has had repeated attempts to stamp it out?

10. Almost all ancient civilizations have some sort of flood account.

All of the above confirms the Bible. But—don't panic though, you can still refuse to believe. You can continue to believe you are smarter and better than the God of the Bible. By the way, where is your proof of you being smarter and better than that God? I don’t see it.



How did you ever get to this conclusion? Clearly? Where is the clarity you who wants all this proof. How do you know that the world was imperfect before man? Were you there or something? I am either missing this one big time, or you are just making this up out of thin air because you want it to be true so bad.

After God recreated the world some time after the great war, He created man. It was a perfect world until man made the choice that you are making today. That is to choose for himself what is right and wrong. This is the tragedy of your kind of thinking. You believe that without the influence of God in the Patriarchs, the history and teaching of the Bible, we can make our own moral choices. But, the truth is that we don't have that moral compass in us to know right from wrong. Certainly even your posts prove that. We all want to be our own god.

You may think that because you believe the world was imperfect before man, that the Bible should be put in the shelf marked fiction, but your view is the fiction. Your post is enough for me to put it in the delete section. I can't keep spending this much time going over this stuff. You are going to believe what you want to believe. And, you and others like you will press it, and press it, until you win. You can tell a lie enough times and people will begin to believe it. We as a people will push God out of our nation. And, just like the history of the Bible, when we finally do push God out of our nation, He will push us out of His nation.

Art

Art says God cannot be defined by us and our thinking. The God of the Bible defines Himself. We just don't believe Him.

If you don't want to believe His definition, then fine. He does not need us to believe Him. He will do what He will do, and we cannot stop it any more than we can make a day longer or shorter. He set that up, not us.

On another level, you spoke earlier of the hypocrisy of professing Christians. I suggest that the Atheists are also hypocritical. For example, they keep Christmas. They keep Halloween. They keep Valentines day. They are all official church holidays. Funny!

Art

Well Art,

I love ya. But, you know you have various chores and other work you must do. So say good by to your wonderful friends here for a while.

Thanks for the reminder,

Art

FOR SHAME

I was going to take your post point by point but it wouldn’t be worth my time. You admit yourself that you have to denounce the Bible to make your story make sense. Therefore your story is a fabrication in it’s own right. You are re-writing the Bible to match your own delusions.



You’ve got to be joking with this one!

Freedom of speech is an extremely recent thing, and really hasn’t even been fully realized until this last century. The truth of the matter is that if a person denounced Christianity in the past they would end up with a sword through their heart, or burned at the stake, or at the very least shunned by the bulk of the society. It was considered blasphemy to speak out against the Bible.

So how did it maintain a foothold? Through the sheer force of intimidation. People are dropping the religion like crazy in today’s free societies. And these thing really only claim about with the French Revolution. So this is extremely recent.

Also, ignorance played a huge role as well, people seriously believed that disease was caused by evil spirits. People had a very superstitious view of everyday life. They saw ‘miracles’ occurring daily. Because anything they didn’t understand was deemed to be a miracle and they didn’t understand anything! So everything was a miracle.

The religion is indeed dying. Statistic show that Christianity is ‘growing’ at the same rate as the population. Which means that it’s merely holding steady. This also means that for everyone who is proselytized into the religion someone else tosses in the towel. In other words, it’s not growing at all.

In fact, the stats are actually incorrect anyway, because these stats are obtain by simply taking surveys and asking people if they are “Christians”. But the overwhelming majority of people who claim to be “Christians” have actually chucked the religion and just cling to the idea that Jesus saved their soul. They really have no clue what they are claiming to believe in, in terms of a religion. It’s just a label they learned to identify with.

If you want to believe that we are nothing more than pawns in a war game between Jesus and Satan more power to you. Personally that picture of God is utterly despicable to me. If it is true, I can only say that God is truly petty. I expected more from God. If the Biblical God is true then life really is meaningless.

I won’t say that it can’t be true. Anything is possible. But I will say that if it is true God is really pathetic.

The God you describe seems to be in love with War as much as George Bush is!

Heaven must not be such a great place if there are wars there.

Quite disappointing if true.

I'll only believe in this demon God when I have no other choice. And this God really is a demon too. All you are really telling me is that there are two Satans! And one of them you call "God".

You can keep that religion. It's depressing, negative, and makes God out to be a war monger.

TO Abra:

I'll tackle the "God is all-powerful" claim you made.

You wrote:

Does this mean that God can do anything at all? No. It simply means that God can do anything that is possible within the limitations of God power. Just because God is all the power that exists, doesn’t mean that God can do just anything.

God is all-powerful in that God can do whatever God can do. And if God can’t do it, then it can’t be done. So it’s not like doable things are out of God’s reach. If God can’t do them, they just aren’t doable to begin with.

My opinion:

If I'm reading your argument correctly, God is "all-powerful" cuz it can do anything that is logically consistent with its nature whatever that may be. For the sake of argument, let's say there exists a supernatural being that is completely powerless or non-potent. Since this entity can do anything that is logically consistent with its nature, i.e. absolutely nothing, it too is by definition "all-powerful." It's God as well?!? Taken to its logical conclusion, the whole argument breaks down.

Please correct me if I mischaracterized your argument. Hope you had a good new year.

I don't think Christianity is dying at all....I actually think that through television, movies and other genre it is actually much stronger then it was 10 years ago. Look in a week all the shows and movies that are based on godly things. Look at the songs that are written and performed now how many are based on God and searching for ones self. I think especially now a days that the Word of God is really getting out to the masses, as it should for God said that everyone shall hear his name.....

I even look at the difference when I started doing religion forums and how much even that has grown over the last 6-7 years. So I would have to say no no no....

if the bible was God's words why didnt he write it i mean if he wrote the 10 commandments why not the bible so that things werent misinterpreted rather than leave it up to man ..there are too many unanaswered questions that peop;e are trying to answer and i dont follow any one man's thinking ..why leave all this open for debate ..without first person witness account i dont think there is anyone who could get me to believe in their line of thinking except God himself i know that religions are faith based and alot on the bible but the bible was written by men i never knew, how do i know that they can be trusted and to be quite honest i dont trust anyone i am suppose to be catholic and what if i had gone to church and listened to a priest only to find out that later on he was a pedophile then what ..his words his preaching wouldn't mean squat how do i debate religion when i dont know what to believe or who last ...if the bible was written by man who said that God talked to him why isn't God talking to anyone now ....

Neanderthal was reptilian? I had to have misread that.

Christianity is dying .. more and more I have these religious debates here and in other forums I now find myself trying to explain to others even Christians to keep God into the equation in these debates ..

the believers realizing how the religion is so unbelieveable that they are now willing to dump the religion but keep the God but consider God as no longer an "enitiy" or "being" but more of their own self awareness which means even the original concept of God is being replaced ....Christianity is going "New Age"

Goodness, do I detect a bitter note in that last post?

It is through logical thought that one dismisses common notions such as the OP...

If the only thing existing was 'God', then all else would have to be an extension or affection of 'God'.

I am not sure why this is debated, honestly. It is so obvious.

What can one make with only water? Something of water.
Steam...ice...rain...snow... you know... of water...

Why would that logic be any different with 'God'?

If 'God' predated all existance and creation, than all would have to be an extension or affection of 'God'... everything...


If someone has a barrel of apples, can they make a pizza?


Switch the term 'someone' with 'God'...

Switch the term 'apples' with 'good'...

Switch the term 'pizza' with 'evil'...


It does not make sense that 'God' was responsible for creation by his choice, yet he is not responsible for evil in the same scenario? Yet many try to justify this thought...

If 'God' was prior to all creation, than he had to consist of the elements required to make a pizza...

Wonder if he has a delivery service?

Well, there certainly is evil food - and unless SOMEONE can make pizza fat free, sadly, it will continue on the evil list.

I'm more than likely gonna get yelled at for this, but I can't help it.

"Wonder if he has a delivery service?wink "

I think that delivery service would be called, "Seek and ye shall find".

Yelled at? Surely you jest...

Indeed... and ye shall find... whatever ye seek for!!!

Once again I love the funch-meister but you are wrong. More and more people are seeking....We have had a 40% increase in our church alone...and the same for all the churches in my area.....my old church in pasadena has a 400% increase in new people......And this is just what I know personally......so if you take that to every city not only in the U.S. but also around the world.....hmmmm.....Also many places in both South America, India, are getting more a more people turning to Christ on a daily basis.

Rank Nation Number Percent
1 USA 224,457,000 85%
2 Brazil 139,000,000 93%
3 Mexico 86,120,000 99%
4 Russia 80,000,000 60%
5 China 70,000,000 5.7%
6 Germany 67,000,000 83%
7 Philippines 63,470,000 93%
8 UK 51,060,000 88%
9 Italy 47,690,000 90%
10 France 44,150,000 98%
11 Nigeria 38,180,000 45%

Now if you add up those numbers I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon....And this doesn't even include all the other forms of Christian churches.....such as Orthodox, penacostal etc.