when we become ancient's are time in the universe will be mystical

[XenoFish]

1 hour ago, Will Due said:

 

In a general sense let's look at heresy for what it really is. Definition of Heresy.

From the standpoint of men and their religious beliefs, anyone who doesn't believe the same things they do, is a heretic. Which makes you a heretic.

From the standpoint of God, no one is a heretic. How do you know?

Men accused Jesus of being a heretic. So when a person follows Jesus, they will be a heretic too in the eyes of men. So you're a heretic.

But not in God's eyes. How do you know?

Heresy is a man-made idea. With God, there is no such thing as heresy. God is an idea too.

In a way, if you're not a heretic, then you're not with God. How do you know?

Anyone on this planet that is following a religion, no matter the kind is following the will of another person or persons. An actual god is unknown and unknowable as there is zero metric for figuring it out. Anything less that than is an idea of what god is. I'm getting tired of having this conversation Will. I'm also quite sure a lot of the other members are tired of me repeating myself.

[Will Due]

13 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

An actual god is unknown and unknowable as there is zero metric for figuring it out. 

 

Not true Xeno. The metric for figuring out how to know God is to look at what he does and who he is, when he was incarnate.

 

 

 

[cormac mac airt]

12 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Not true Xeno. The metric for figuring out how to know God is to look at what he does and who he is, when he was incarnate.

That in itself is untrue, there is no extant metric to claim such. Belief isn’t a metric, if it were Superman would be just as real as your god. 
 

cormac

[Will Due]

 

I'd like to elaborate further about what I meant when I used the term "God's religion".

First, let me delineate the two distinctly different types of religion. Even though they are always somewhat combined eventually, one way or another.

The first is man's EVOLUTIONARY RELIGION and the second is God's REVEALED RELIGION. 

All of man's religions evolve. They are all evolutionary. Cormac has painstakingly pointed this fact out when he so often explained how the Jewish religion evolved along with its evolving concepts of what and who they thought God was from one generation to another. Another example of how religion evolves Eight Bits pointed to when he said "we have Josephus and Philo writing straightforward narratives and various pieces of non-canonical Jewish literature to puzzle out what beliefs those works represent." So what they "puzzled out" had very much to do with what caused the Jewish religion to evolve into what it is today that it wasn't before the times of Jesus.

But "God's religion" is something entirely different. "God's religion" is that part of man's religion that is either revealed indirectly by his messengers or prophets, or directly by God himself through a manifestation of one kind or another, or his incarnation. Like in the case of Jesus.

 

 

[cormac mac airt]

Christianity isn’t an evolution of Judaism, it’s a bastardization of what 1st century Judaism was along with 2000 years of further alterations. It has nothing verifiable to do with Jesus despite his alleged title “Christ” having been co-opted for it and has far more to do with Paul and his own agenda. 
 

cormac

[XenoFish]

2 hours ago, Will Due said:

 

Not true Xeno. The metric for figuring out how to know God is to look at what he does and who he is, when he was incarnate.

 

 

 

That's false. It's a projection of your own desire to "know" god. It is called confirmation bias. There is no true way of know what God (if it exist) actually would be.

[Will Due]

9 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

There is no true way of know what God (if it exist) actually would be.

 

Can I have a different idea about it than you?

 

 

[Guyver]

2 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

Can I have a different idea about it than you?

 

 

Yes, you may.  But….just because you do doesn’t make it true.  Xeno argues God cannot be known, you say that He/She/It may be known.  For all interested readers, will you please explain how it is that you know God can be known?

[cormac mac airt]

6 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Can I have a different idea about it than you?

Yes, you can. You can also keep it to yourself as posting about what God is on a public forum opens it up for critique. 
 

cormac

[Will Due]

1 minute ago, Guyver said:

Yes, you may.  But….just because you do doesn’t make it true.  Xeno argues God cannot be known, you say that He/She/It may be known.  For all interested readers, will you please explain how it is that you know God can be known?

 

By looking at Jesus and seeing how his life and his teachings become a way to know what the heavenly Father is.

 

 

[cormac mac airt]

3 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Yes, you may.  But….just because you do doesn’t make it true.  Xeno argues God cannot be known, you say that He/She/It may be known.  For all interested readers, will you please explain how it is that you know God can be known?

He’s pretty much done that already as it’s because he says so, nothing more. 
 

cormac

[Guyver]

2 hours ago, Will Due said:

 

Not true Xeno. The metric for figuring out how to know God is to look at what he does and who he is, when he was incarnate.

 

If this is what you think proving the knowing of God is, we are all in for a disappointment, IMO.  We don’t know that God was actually incarnate, nor do we know if he was born of a Virgin.  We know people believe it to be true, but believing something to be true and something actually being true are different things.  We don’t know if Jesus was born of a Virgin, became the son of God incarnate, walked on water, turned water into wine, raised the dead and opened the eyes of the blind.  But we do know that the Bible claims this happened.  That’s all we really know for sure.

[+Sherapy]

2 hours ago, Will Due said:

 

Not true Xeno. The metric for figuring out how to know God is to look at what he does and who he is, when he was incarnate.

 

 

 

Will, this is your faith based perspective based on your own personal interpretation. It is subjective, meaning your own reality tunnel basically interpreting  the gospels  and the UB as the means for a way to a connection to a higher power. It is simply confirmation bias, which is your tendency to interpret or seek out information that aligns with your existing beliefs, this influences how you attribute significance to these narratives, nothing more. 

This is not to say it is wrong to assign meaning and significance on a personal level and of course feel free to share but, they can not and do not carry the same weight or significance for anyone else due to the diversity of subjective personal interpretive frameworks. 

When discussing matters of faith about your personal belief, keep in mind this vast diversity of perspectives and the subjective nature of these types of interpretations, you can say you believe on faith, but to tell Xeno this is a fact with nothing to support it empirically is an error on your end, it doesn’t demonstrate being guided by academic integrity or respect for all other individual beliefs towards fostering mutual understanding to the posters, let alone forwarding the discussion. 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Sherapy

[XenoFish]

58 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

Can I have a different idea about it than you?

 

 

Yes, but if you're going to proclaim it as 'a truth' then expect it to be discussed.

Edited December 3, 2023 by XenoFish

[XenoFish]

Having faith in god doesn't require trying to prove if it is real. I can't help but think that if you're trying to prove god to others, you're really trying to prove it to yourself.

[Will Due]

Just now, XenoFish said:

Yes, but of you're going to proclaim it as 'a truth' then expect it to be discussed.

 

That's what I'm doing. I'm discussing it. Everyone has the right to believe what they want. Everyone is expressing their beliefs. And all I'm doing is expressing mine. As well as critiquing theirs. That's what discussion is for.

 

 

[Guyver]

4 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

By looking at Jesus and seeing how his life and his teachings become a way to know what the heavenly Father is.

That’s what I thought you were going to say.  Will, the only way we can have the kind of faith you’re speaking of is if we are willing to believe the Bible on faith, that is without attempting to prove whether it be factual or not.  The problem for many of us is that the Bible doesn’t lend itself to be trustworthy as a source text of things due to many problems with the Bible itself.  So, in the end it comes back to a persons willingness to believe something that may or may not be true, and seems to have more problems than answers.

For example.  Jesus said that people like you who believe in him completely will be able to do the same things he did.  Can you heal a sick or dying child?  Can you restore sight to the blind?  Can you turn water into wine?  Can you raise the dead?  Jesus could and he said you could do it too.  So, why can’t you or anyone else in the whole world act like Jesus, if he’s real and the Bible is true?

[Will Due]

1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

Having faith in god doesn't require trying to prove if it is real. I can't help but think that if you're trying to prove god to others, you're really trying to prove it to yourself.

 

There isn't any way to prove anything about God. I'm not trying to prove anything. Just like everybody is expressing their beliefs, I'm expressing mine.

 

 

[XenoFish]

Just now, Will Due said:

 

There isn't any way to prove anything about God. I'm not trying to prove anything. Just like everybody is expressing their beliefs, I'm expressing mine.

 

 

Since you can't prove anything about god. Then why do you assume you know god? 

[Will Due]

 

I got to head out right now. Much as I'd like to sit here and respond. I can't. But I will when I get back. There's a lot I would like to discuss with you all.

 

 

[Guyver]

3 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

There isn't any way to prove anything about God. I'm not trying to prove anything. Just like everybody is expressing their beliefs, I'm expressing mine.

 

 

If something can’t be proved, that means it could be true or false.  That sounds like a 50/50 proposition at best to me.  I wouldn’t want to bet too much money on anything if I were going to lose half the time.  It’s like I would be pleased half the time and disappointed the other half of the time.  I don’t need religion for that, I get it in real life.

[+Hammerclaw]

This thread is a lot like Five Nights at Freddy's. 

[Guyver]

1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

This thread is a lot like Five Nights at Freddy's. 

Or 8 Heads in a Duffle Bag?

[+Hammerclaw]

6 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Or 8 Heads in a Duffle Bag?

Nah, too morbid.

[Will Due]

2 hours ago, Guyver said:

That’s what I thought you were going to say.  Will, the only way we can have the kind of faith you’re speaking of is if we are willing to believe the Bible on faith, that is without attempting to prove whether it be factual or not.  The problem for many of us is that the Bible doesn’t lend itself to be trustworthy as a source text of things due to many problems with the Bible itself.  So, in the end it comes back to a persons willingness to believe something that may or may not be true, and seems to have more problems than answers.

 

Before I get started addressing the first part of your post I will have to address something else. When I first read the UB, I found it hard to believe how everybody I introduced it to found it something to dismiss. I still feel that way about it but since I've been here all these years I have learned how people's point of view doesn't allow them to accept it the way I do. I have become fully aware of this situation now and have tried hard to adjust.my approach accordingly for the last couple of years. I hoped that you all would have noticed that, but understand that it isn't something, based on how I went about it in the first few years I was here that that would be noticed. And that's something I regret a lot. How I went about it when I first got here.

Now on to responding to your post. My faith is not based on believing the Bible. My faith is based on believing what is written in the text of the UB because of how it clarifies the Bible. How it cleans it. Without having read the Urantia Book I'm pretty sure my outlook would be very similar to yours in being unable to make sense of a lot of what is written in the Bible. And I will try to explain how it has all worked for me below.

 

2 hours ago, Guyver said:

For example.  Jesus said that people like you who believe in him completely will be able to do the same things he did.  Can you heal a sick or dying child?  Can you restore sight to the blind?  Can you turn water into wine?  Can you raise the dead?  Jesus could and he said you could do it too.  So, why can’t you or anyone else in the whole world act like Jesus, if he’s real and the Bible is true?

 

My interpretation of what the UB says does not mean that just because I or anyone believes in Jesus completely, a person will be able to do the things that he did. It says the reason why is because when Jesus appeared on the scene, it was an extraordinary situation. He was the creator incarnate every bit a human being like all of us are, but in addition with all of his creative powers which ordinary humans will never have. So it was under those circumstances that his compassion for his children that many of those miracles occurred. Some of those circumstances are explained in a way that it all makes sense. At least to me. 

The following are some of the things the UB says about things in the Bible that don't make sense.

The conception and birth of Jesus, other than the personality of the creator being the personality of the baby, was like any other person conceived and born into this world. It was not an immaculate conception. It was a natural conception the same way all babies are conceived and born.

He did not walk on water.

God did not require his death to be an atonement for the sins of all mankind.

He did raise Lazarus from the dead and he also resurrected himself from the tomb in order to show that it will be something we will all experience. 

These are just some of the things that the UB clarifies about what the Bible is mistaken about. I believe these things, that are written in the UB, because if they are fiction, it's very interesting to me how they explain so satisfactorily all those things in the Bible that don't make sense. To me the Bible wouldn't be the Bible without it being explained the way it is in the UB. 

Many of the posters here point out all of the horrible things that's written in the Bible about God and what the Bible says he told the people to do in his name. Like kill all the men, women and children in a town it says he directed to be assaulted. What that amounts to, is that if it wasn't true then it needs to be explained why it isn't true and as far as I'm concerned, that's exactly what the UB does. At least it does for me.

But I don't expect anyone to look at the UB the way I do. I just can't help wanting to share my beliefs and thoughts about it with everyone, because of how it helped me. Yeah it might be true that I should just keep it to myself but who here keeps their beliefs to themselves? Isn't this a place to discuss what is believed? So let's discuss it.