How Can You Honestly Believe In God?

[Guest faithless]

rockswillcryout:

If what you say is true, then nothing in our life is a choice. Where you chose to attend college wasn't a choice, the route you walked this morning wasn't a choice, you posting here wasn't a choice. How is it logical is it for parts of your life to be a choice and other parts of it not?

Well, do people choose to be intelligent? Do people choose to be good athletes?

No. They may choose to play basketball as often as they can to try to improve as much as possible, but there are some people who are just naturally better at it than others. I could play basketball every day for the rest of my life, and I would never be good enough to get into the NBA. If I could choose to, I would be there playing right now. But it's not a choice. Some things we are just born with, spirituality is the same.

Do homosexuals choose to become gay? I personally believe that they don't, I don't know how you see it.

Not everything is a choice. If it were, everyone would have Einstein's brain and Michael Jordan's talent.

[serotta]

Faithless said:

Sorry, but my mind is set on the issue.

I'm as certain that there is no God as you are certain that there is one.

I'm not asking questions anymore because I don't have any more doubts about his non-existence.

Then why are you here? Not being mean, I'm just pointing out that you're here for a reason, and that reason points to the fact that you are not 100% certain of how you feel.

If you look closely enough ALL evidence points to the fact that there is a creator. I am a polymer chemist, so I know a little about science, and I can tell you that there IS a creator. I personally am convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that this creator is the God in the Bible.

You don't have to search for God, He is all around you. All you have to do is have faith in Him and you will be transformed! In another thread the moderator WISDOM councelled someone to challenge God to make himself known to you. Talk to God and ask him, challenge Him, to reveal himself to you. Then be open to the results. He will not let you down if you honestly trust Him.

While I can agree with you that God created all of us with certain predispositions, and some of those predisposiitons are sinful, He also created us with the ability to see them honestly for what they are. And we can choose to confess our sins to God and be changed! While we may not be able to overcome these predispositions on our own, we can when we submit our will to the will of God.

Faithless, YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD! And God would like nothing more then to welcome you back to the family. My prayers are with you brother.

[serotta]

Faithless said:

Not everything is a choice. If it were, everyone would have Einstein's brain and Michael Jordan's talent.

Very insightful faithless. Yes, God created each of us with a unique purpose and has made us unique in order to fulfill that purpose. Give God a chance to reveal that purpose to you. The more that you understand God's purpose for you, the more joy you will experience!

[Matthitjah]

faithless,

Prior to the Bible being written? Whence did those laws come? From what authority?

Wouldn't protecting citizens be a moral thing? From whence does that morality spring?

Also as you state the laws would protect citizens from harm, correct?

Would it be harmful for a citizen to marry a sheep? Couldn't there be ceratin ramifications for public health involved in that decision?

You have thoughts that aren't carried to their logical conclussions. They are incomplete. Not rational.

You see injustice and want to blame God. You seek justice from men. Who if left to their own devices are totally depraved.

You see injustice in the world. How will you solve it? Rather than blaming God? Who will enforce these laws? Who will be the ultimate judge?

Ah' but you see there is already One. He does not force anything on you. Yet He has seen fit to put these Morals into play so that until the time of His choosing. The time of His Grace is fulfilled . That man will not totally go off and destroy himself. These laws are not of our choosing. They are for our own good. This we can all agree on. You can choose to live outside of Gods blessing? Yet you are still contained within His Will. It is His Universe.

Peace,

Dave

[WayneB]

Saved by Grace:

Maybe

[papasangel]

How can I honestly believe in God? That's a good question. So here goes.

God exists. He created the Heavens and the Earth. He created the fish, fowl and animals we have. He created mankind and womankind. How do I know? Well the pat answer would be the bible tells us so but there are those who do not believe the bible is God's word. So I refer you to history. As far back as man can remember he worshiped a supreme being. Moses talked to God through a burning bush. Angels told Mary she would bear the Messiah, God's Son. Daniel prayed to God when thrown in the Lions den and God stayed the lions from harming him. Christ was real. He hung on a cross to die for our sins. He rose from the dead and promised to come again for his church. When? it is not for us to know when but to be ready always. Every day miracles happen. Sometimes they are small miracles and no one notices them, sometimes they are larger and people take note. It takes Faith to believe in someone you cannot see physically, or hear audiably. God speaks to us in our hearts quietly, we see Him in His creation daily. Our God is a loving, kind God who wants us to come to Him freely. He does not bind us to His will (and he could if that was His desire) but he lets us have a choice as to wether to follow Him or the other one. If you need more proof wait a whileuntil you die. When you stand before Him there will be solid proof that He does indeed exist if that is what you require.

[rockswillcryout]

But it's not a choice. Some things we are just born with, spirituality is the same.

In response to that, I will ask this question again, a question from my first post.

What evidence can you give me that believing in a higher being like God is not a choice when everything else in life points to the contrary?

How can you possibly compare atheticism with spirituality?

You may not be able to choose to be a good athlete, but you can choose to play the game or not.

Likewise, you are born with a spiritual side. You choose whether or not to play the game.

[serotta]

Good point rockswillcryout. faithless, using your analogy how many Einsteins or Jordans do you hink we've missed out on simply because people failed to act on their God given talents?

[CaliGuy4Christ]

Faithless..

Do you believe Adam and Eve had actual choice? If not, then you

[Ovedya]

I'm still not sure what kind of answer you are looking for, but since I don't believe in any sort of spiritual force, the only sort of injustice I know is legal injustice. Injustice, to me, is when the law of the land has not been carried out on a certain individual.

Actually, you are right! However, more specifically injustice is the absence of justice. When something is considered unjust it is because justice has not been carried out.

I'll get straight to the point, now that you've answered my question. Injustice is the absence of justice. Therefore, without justice, there cannot be any injustice. The point is that you cannot prove a negative. A negative only exists because of the lack of a positive. Therefore, injustice is the lack of justice, just as cold is the lack of heat, and darkness is the absence of light.

Your initial post asked about two things: Injustice and lawlessness. You asked how a benevolent God could allow starvation (injustice), pain, and death (the result of lawlessness) to exist in the world. Although there have been more than a few accurate responses to your question, the real issues here have to do with injustice and lawlessness.

The real answer to your question why we have these problems in the world is that lawlessness is running rampant in the world. Justice really has to do with the law, as you accurately defined it. When the lettter of the law is followed then justice prevails in all cases. But when the letter of the law is not followed, then lawlessness and injustice prevails.

I'm sure you've heard the story of Adam's fall in Eden at the beginning of the Bible. When Adam "fell" his act was that of rebellion against God's commandment, God's law. Therefore, lawlessness entered into the world, and with it pain and death. It was not something that God did at all. God created Adam and gave Adam the first commandment: "Of all the trees you may eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat." Adam chose to disobey God, therefore, sin, death, pain, and lawlessness entered the world.

Now, even though there have alsways been a relatively small number of people who follow the Lord and who obey His commandments, His law, the world, on the larger scale has never been obedient to God. It is not that God has done anything at all to the world. It is not that God caused the world's problems. In fact, to the contrary, God has always been around waiting for some people to come to Him and to follow Him. But the world in general is at emnity with God. This means that the world has become God's enemy. And because of this the world is destined to eternal perdition. Whether you think this is right or not is irrelavent. Our sense of right, wrong, justice, injustice, etc. has nothing to do with God at all. We are his creation.

A single person can have the highest moral values and ethics in the world, but that still falls short of who God is. God's holiness and righteousness far exceed our morality and ethics. Therefore, what's the standard? Do societies determine what is moral, what is right and wrong, or is God the standard? Therefore, when you judge something to be wrong, is it not your fallen low standard?

Surely death is wrong, surely pain and suffering are wrong. But do you honestly believe that a holy and righteous God is responsible? It simply cannot be. How could God be responsible when He gave the law in the first place; and it was man that rebelled against that law? Imagine a young teenage boy who goes out and commits a horrible crime. Would you blame the boy's father? How could you, when the boy's father brought him up to be obedient, and to know the difference between following the law and breaking it? Now the boy must suffer the punishment for what he has done. And you would still blame the father? Furthermore, imagine that you were that boy, and now you have to suffer the punishment. Would you blame your father for what you did?

One man disobeyed God's commandment. That act of disobedience threw the entire world into sin, rebellion, and death. God does not push Himself on anyone. Neither would He simply "fix" all of our problems in spite of ourselves. God would be unrighteous to do that. Therefore, because of the disobedience of one man, all men have fallen from God's grace. However, God has give us a way out. Without preference or objection, God has sent His Son to the earth to die the death that we all deserve, so that whoever believes into Him would not perish with the rest of the world, but would have life eternal, and be restored to God's perfect favor. What we deserve is not God's "fixing" of the problems of the world. For our rebellion we deserve nothing but death. But you see, God does not want us to die, to perish with the rest of the world. He wants us to live. He wants us to have eternal life - His life. Therefore, He sent His Son to the earth. Jesus Christ was a real man, with flesh and blood like the rest of us. Yet unlike the rest of us, Jesus did not have sin. He was the only one ever qualified to suffer the death of a cross on behalf of all men. God took Jesus as our subsitution, and sent Him to the cross to die on behalf of all men. That includes you. We only need to believe into Jesus Christ, and confess that what He has accomplished was for us. Then God will restore you to your proper position as a creation of God.