Most commentators view the word "god" in vs. 34 refers to the leaders of Israel, e.g. the judges.  The main point of this passage is that the Jews wanted to be their own God ... i.e. thinking they knew more about Jesus than God did.  Similar to today. ... Mountaineer I don't quite get tha...

I pretty much agree with Pointedstick's "Who Cares?"  Bottom line is we are all sinners and sinners sin.  Like dogs who do what dogs do and people get upset.  No surprises here.  Phil was just quoting what the Bible says and got "burned", just like many Bible supporters do and ma...

I don't think that you tap into "it" , but instead realize that you ARE "it". In other words, you come to the realization that you are the universe experiencing yourself through your own eyes. And out of curiosity, how do Christians generally interpret John 10:34? The Jews answe...

Kashartle,

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

... Mountaineer

2. After 30 years of being a strict believer, I started studying philosophy, logic and ethics. I came to a 100% or 99.9% confident belief in rational proof of secular ethics, human self-ownership and individual rights. The concept of a God, whether Christian variety or any other violates those prin...

Kashartle,

Interesting.  Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions.

... Mountaineer

It looks like multi-vitamins are joining the fray! http://www.cbsnews.com/news/multivitamin-researchers-say-case-is-closed-supplements-dont-boost-health/ For what ever it is worth, my doctor has consistently advised not to take multi-vitamins, fish oil, calcium citrate, glucosomine/condroitin - wast...

Pointedstick, I would be very interested in what your father-in-law thinks of this. All, This may be of interest if you would like to hear a program on "resisting the devil" and the dangers of a watered down theology. http://issuesetc.org/2013/12/13/2-resisting-the-devil-pr-christopher-hul...

Let's back to the relatively simple topic of whether or not God exists. That should be a breeze. I need to answer Mountaineer's questions, at least for myself. K, I can hardly wait to see your comments on the epistle I wrote to address Moda's questions.  And, I really do appreciate your perspective...

Kshartle, if you really don't know the meanings of "deductive", "inductive", "axiom", etc, you should probably take a break to go take a class in logic.  It'll teach you a lot about the limits thereof. I appreciate the suggestion. On a related note...I can't explain ho...

Mountaineer, I read those Creeds.  To me, they're just self-referential statements.  It's all well and good, but before I lend any weight to certain assertions of a religion, I have to have some external or internal reason to believe it is truly the word of God.  Referencing the word of God as proo...

The proof I stated addresses only the existence of absolute truth, not descriptions of particular absolute truths. There could be an infinitude of them--who knows! In mathematics, Gödel's incompleteness theorem states that in a formal system such as logic, there must exist some true statements that...

And yet the Bible implies that He's bound by His own rules, such as "The wages of sin is death." If God's only choice was to let us suffer the consequences of sin or send His Son to suffer them in our stead, that doesn't seem like omnipotence to me. What about the choice to avoid death al...

I have a few questions for the atheists, agnostics and semi-believers, in order of my priority. Why do you feel/think they way you do about religion?  What led you to that way of thinking? How do you explain why death happens? What do you think happens when you die? What or who created the universe...

I think I addressed at least a bit of your point in my previous post.  But just to say it again in slightly different words: I don't view God as a cosmic rule maker out to trip us up, to send us to hell on a technicality.  He's put down a red carpet for us, not only to spend eternity with him, but ...

I think that's a very good summary of this thread so far.  I think it's somewhat unusual to have a discourse this civil on the topic also.  I too feel this is the most civil discourse about religion I have ever engaged in with a mix of opinions/perspectives, especially on the internet.  It speaks t...

So far in this thread, it seems clear that when it comes to God, some people are as certain of his existence as others are skeptical of his existence. The question to me is what separates the two groups.  It would be easy to say that it is just the evil, sinful and fallen nature of humanity that is...

To me, when you take a close look at the New Testament and really think about it, it seems like it was clearly intended as a way of pulling a Roman/Greek population toward principles of Judaism by throwing in enough religious elements that the Roman/Greek world would expect to see in religion--e.g....

Sorry for being a bit raw. I don't mean to be disrespectful. From my perspective, I did not take your comments as disrespectful - just expressing frustration - and I've done that many times myself.  So, if you were apologizing to me, I forgive you.  And, I think God is a very big God and can handle...

WildAboutHarry wrote:
To continue the plumbing theme, I will be a conservative t*rd in the otherwise liberal punch bowl of western Washington.

I will tell my daughter to depend on WildAboutHarry to keep things out of the Scheisser in WA. 

I'm not following. If God is all-powerful, then the magnitude of the global sin doesn't really have much bearing, right? And furthermore, couldn't the all-powerful God create an infinite number of sons with no effort at all if He really wanted to? No, I think it makes sense that an all-powerful God...

Why do you feel/think they way you do about religion? I have an attraction to the communities that spring up around religions but my mind has a very difficult time with things that I don't feel that can't be observed, tested, or logically deduced. Whenever I try to join a religious community, I am ...

I have a few questions for the atheists, agnostics and semi-believers, in order of my priority. Why do you feel/think they way you do about religion?  What led you to that way of thinking? How do you explain why death happens? What do you think happens when you die? What or who created the universe?...

Yeah, I think I'm with moda here. If God is all-powerful, then anything he does isn't actually very impressive since it should be effortless. Perhaps we should be grateful for any given act of God because we like its effects, but as an all-powerful being, nothing God does should really impress us b...

SEE MY COMMENTS INSERTED INTO YOUR QUOTE BELOW, IN CAPS. ... MOUNTAINEER Mountaineer, I'm just taking your assertions to their logical conclusion.  Sorry for misquoting who finds who... But if HE has to find ME, then this makes things even more ridiculous.  This puts it on HIM to find me, so he's pu...