Which God Should I reach out? There are so many! Should I reach for a western God? How about an African one? I heard that Indian gods are cool too.
Please help me. I want to believe in a God!
Which God Should I reach out? There are so many! Should I reach for a western God? How about an African one? I heard that Indian gods are cool too.
Please help me. I want to believe in a God!
There is no substitute for doing your homework.
It's your job to find Him. (He's made it pretty obvious.)
Which one though? The God of the bible sounds a little pissy killing women and children, stoning. too much violence. is there any other God outhere?
Oh, He hasn't hesitated to wipe out entire cities, civilizations and most of the life on the planet. He says He will do it again. Soon. If you want to understand that, you need to get to know Him. He's not "pissy", he's very patient and protective of his children and the overall objectives of this particular creation.
A lot of people have the opposite complaint. "Why does God tolerate all the evil in the world."
The answer is patience and the need to let certain things run their course to achieve His ultimate objectives.
Those who take the time to understand what has been revealed on this topic, can begin to grasp that there are far bigger reasons for everything that has happened (and is about to happen).
However, those who don't seek that understanding and instead grab a fact they don't like as a reason not to look further are the subject of this post.
In this case, you merely restate bullet number five - and therefore make my case. :o)
Big difference between old testament and new testament. You won't find Jesus advocating for violence... " Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. " He said that about an adulterer IIRC.
There's only one religion currently killing in large numbers for their religion, and it isn't the Christians.
@kyriacos, well, I think it comes down to looking at the foundations of each religion. And there is only one religion out there,who the founder claimed to be God, and backed up his claims.
Only Jesus was bold enough to say that he is equal with God.
And when it comes down to whether or not to believe him, for me:
everything hinges on the resurrection
The main thing that really convinced me to finally put my faith in Jesus was the substantial evidence around his resurrection.
And if Jesus really did rise from the dead, then all these debates around the existence of God is not necessary.
I believe there is no other question in our entire life that deserves our honest and humble research into, then the topic of whether God exists? And if so, who is the true God?
Thanks. That really does cut through a lot of clutter and red-herring arguments.
Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona debated the issue of whether the resurrection could be proved historically.
Both are excellent debaters and made their opposite cases flawlessly.
Ehrman staked his case that it could not be proved (not that it did or didn't happen) because it is a historian's job to figure out what "probably" happened and since miracles are inherently improbable no historian will ever say that any amount of eyewitness testimony about a statistically improbable event is historical proof.
Fair point, if those are indeed the "rules".
Licona takes a more pragmatic approach. Nearly every respected historian, including Ehrman agrees on three facts:
This is prima face historical evidence that he was dead and then alive.
(Subject to the credibility of the witnesses which are recorded for all to assess.)
From that theologians, not historians, can derive their own conclusions about how that came about. Perhaps aliens quickly cloned him from one of his DNA samples. Perhaps God resurrected him as he had predicted on many prior occasions.
But all the witnesses testified to Jesus' own explanation about what happened. So, in the absence of any historical evidence of any kind to the contrary, we are left with an historically documented supernatural event, coherently explained by the primary participants in the event.
Make of it what you will.
Good points @stan. The thing that really hit me was the transformation that occurred with the disciples after the alleged resurrection. Most of the remaining eleven disciples who were closest to Jesus fled when he was captured by the roman guards, but after the alleged resurrection, their attitudes were completely changed, to the extent that all of them were all willing to be martyred for their faith. And indeed, that's what happened to all of the remaining eleven except John. To me, this was the most convincing evidence, because something must have happened to them for such a dramatic change to have occurred.
The empty tomb and remaining burial clothe are some other evidence that convinced me about the resurrection. William Lane Craig has a few very good talks and debates about this. He presents the evidence in a very logical manner.
For the same reason a father or mother reach out to their children, even if they're murders, liars, thieves.
Having kids helped me understand that far more than I could have without.
I'm sure that's why he refers to Himself as our Father. :)
(And why we are given kids to help us see it from His point of view.)
Thank you for your wonderful post @stan. I don't mean to be intrusive, but I'm just curious, does @dantheman have children himself? If one day his children rejected him as their dad, he might be able to experience the heart of God. It was only after having my son, that I had a deeper appreciation for the love of God, our Father in heaven.
One never knows what God will use to reach each of us.
For some, our strength is our weakness.
There is really only one remedy for that.
Yes he has kids.