Act Like You Believe In God

Good challenge, Jythier, and I encourage you.

When asking how you can act more lie you believe in God, I would challenge you to read books. The first, "The Cost of Discipleship" is by Deitrich Bonhoeffer. You have probably heard me speak of Bonhoeffer, but in case you are unfamiliar with him, he was a Lutheran Pastor in Nazi Germany and a prominent member of "The Confessing Church"; the church that broke away from the state sanctioned churches and actively opposed Hitler. For his role in an assassination attempt, Bonhoeffer's life ended in a concentration camp. His words are filled with deep meaning, and, more tellingly, deep joy. Follow this up with "Letters and Papers from Prison" if you enjoy this book.

The second book is titled "An Arrow Pointing to Heaven", by James Bryan Smith. It is a biography of Rich Mullins.

Both books tell the tale of men who lived their faith, not pretended it. One of my most earnest searches is for a living faith; sadly, I find it lacking more often than not. That may be why I find myself a misfit more often than not as well.

God be with you on this journey.

"I think it's about time, since I DO believe in God, that I start acting like it"

If you have taken the easy route of "I believe", and ignored the standards of whichever Faith you have - you are probably right.

If however you are living your life following the Spirit of the "rules", if not the precise definitions, I would contend you are wrong.

To give a silly extreme example by way of hypothetical illustration - if you only counted 49 roseary beads today not 50, who cares - if your god does go find another because He's not worth a candle. If however you are a closet chainsaw murderer, yup, start caring ....

Faith is what you carry deep inside you, its not a Mail Order Guide.

I'm going to offer a different angle than Gid, with no disrespect at all to his points.

STOP reading books. Here's my reason why.

I don't know exactly what I believe IN, but I do know one thing I do have faith in...as much as I'm not a fan of faith in any of its forms. I believe we are not the only sentient life in the universe. I believe this with all my being. And so, it occurs to me, that if the Christian way is the right way, then one of two things must be true.

Either:

Jesus went on a universal tour doing the Cricifixion act on every planet with sentient life so that they could understand how to be saved and earn a spot in eternity -

Or:

People can get saved without ever having heard of Jesus.

Now if that last one is the true one, which I find more likely, then it means that living right, and being saved, can be reasoned to using no tool other than the brain God gave you. All you have to do is think about it. Perhaps long and hard, but you are equipped with a mechanism that can do it. The brain.

A big problem I have with the reasoning of Christians (and you pretty much already know this) is that it isn't THEIR reasoning. It's someone else's...told to them by bibles which get rewritten every time an IMPERFECT human decides something needs changing. And I'm not ragging on the church...we're ALL imperfect. But this very simple thing indicates there's only one way to truly believe in anything, and that's to come up with the reasoning all by yourself with no reference tools, because the reference tools existant are impossible to know the validity of. THAT fact you can easily reason to. If you only will.

So don't take the words of others from books. Sit down and think about it. After all, doesn't God deserve that? For each person to do their own work? I think so.

Ock,

I'm not stating that books are one's salvation, what I am doing is trying to point Jythier to some books that I feel will be inspirational. They certainly have been inspirational to me, and since Jythier is on a similar path, I believe they could be to him as well. These are not the "self help guru" types of books. They are the thoughts of a couple of men who knew what it was like to have a living faith.

But that doesn't negate your bigger point, which I feel is extremely valid.

Thanks for the books, Gideon. At this point, I even have to get better at just reading THE Book. For some reason, I love to read.. except the Bible.

"To give a silly extreme example by way of hypothetical illustration - if you only counted 49 roseary beads today not 50, who cares - if your god does go find another because He's not worth a candle. If however you are a closet chainsaw murderer, yup, start caring ...."

How did you know? Now I have to hide my chainsaw, and move to a new town...

"I believe we are not the only sentient life in the universe."

I don't know much about that. It's not really discussed in the Bible, is it? Regardless, I cannot say for certain that this is the only place where God is working. That would certainly limit Him. But it may be that on other planets, He's working in different ways to show His greatness, or Jesus made a universal tour. Either way, HE is the way to be saved on Earth.

"After all, doesn't God deserve that? For each person to do their own work?"

It isn't, and wasn't meant to be, work to choose God. No, the work comes after that.

As it is, some people just aren't as smart as we are, Ock. They don't have the ability to reason like we do. So God left them a book to look at... but not just them. He left it for us to, for the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of men.

How did you know? Now I have to hide my chainsaw, and move to a new town...

Then reading the bible more may not be a bad idea, people tell me it contains a great witness protection programme for those who come clean with the Judge

I don't know much about that. It's not really discussed in the Bible, is it?

Hehe...I rest my case, your honor.

There IS a third option, Ockham, and it revolves around the idea of covenants.

Christ's sacrifice was, in the view of many Christians, a fulfillment of a covenant made with man. It is not unlikely to assume that God made covenants with His other creation elsewhere, but that the Bible remains silent because, well, it's not relevant. I mean, laws dealing with four tentacled creatures not lying with six tentacled creatures wouldn't really apply here, would they?

I hope you realize that, while I'm trying to make a valid point(that there may be options we have not considered), I am being just a tad facetious.

Great point on relevance, Gideon.

It finally dawned on me, Ock, what bothers me about this whole 'don't use a book/think for yourself, don't let other people think for you' thing you have going on. Were you just born logical, or did you discover how to think logically by yourself? I know in Math class we learned logical process. Scientific method in science class. Where do you think those things come from? Other people who have come before you. If you had to figure out scientific method for yourself, sure you might come to it. Someone did, after all. But it went unthought of for a long time.

So now we have a lot of logical reasoning skills and scientific methods and so on that we did not have, and you have been able to reap the benefit of them, yet you do not allow me to use the experiences written down of the people who came before me.

Also, if I think up an argument for myself, which I have, and someone else has used it before, is it then not thinking for myself? I don't think so. And I reason through every argument I come across, from you or from my pastor or in a book, including the Bible. But I didn't learn reason by myself - others taught me to do so. I'm pretty sure others taught you to do so, as well.

Knowledge of the Lord can come through both faith and reasoning. He's certainly not a one-or-the-other God. But, since he is not here now to tell you, "Hey, I exist, and the Bible is my words to you" you have to go on at least a little faith. Something even Christians have a hard time with.

Also, if we fail to learn from the experiences of others, we may repeat the mistakes made in the past.

did you discover how to think logically by yourself?

There's a difference between learning what the concept of "logic" is, and developing one's skill in it. What I am trying, clumsily, to impart, is that in order to approach your own skills in logic, you have to start each concept from scratch. You can't start a logical argument from the place someone else left off at, because...well, you tell me because why?

I'm pretty sure others taught you to do so (logic through things), as well.

And what makes you think this?

"And what makes you think this?"

Because you are debating with me right now. You have debated in the past. Those are learning experiences involving other people. Based on how good you are at it, you have probably had a lot of practice with logic and reasoning with other people. Logic and reasoning with yourself has very little meaning, as there is nobody on the other side to test yourself against.

Regardless, as that was not your actual point, your point being:
"in order to approach your own skills in logic, you have to start each concept from scratch."

"You can't start a logical argument from the place someone else left off at, because...well, you tell me because why?"

So in order to prove to you the Bible has any truth in it, we have to go through every bit of evidence on the subject, that would prove each point that is true... prove that it was written when it was written, and that the Bible today is mostly the same as it was then (I saw mostly because I don't read it in the original languages, I read it in English, and there's got to be some lost meaning that English doesn't have... but the Bible I read has explanations of the original words and what they mean, so it's as close as I can get without learning a third language)

So yeah, we could go ahead and do that, write our own history of the Isrealites based on the evidence now, and our own story of Jesus' life based on the evidence now.

There are stories of people digging deep into Christianity expressly for the purpose of disproving it, and finding that all the evidence was in fact, pointing towards the Bible as being a true and accurate record. I chose, rather than to waste my time going through the evidence, to stand on their shoulders and believe. I think a lot of science is done that way, too. You don't go back and prove what's been proven, you go forward and try to prove something new BASED on what has already been proven.

So, if you feel that in order to believe, you need to dig up all the evidence, be my guest. It won't be a waste of time. But it would be a waste of time for me to do so, as I already believe, and no-one would take my work seriously anyway. "Oh, he's a believer, he's just making his findings up to prove Christianity." So I will continue to believe in The Bible, which I haven't found an illogical bit in yet.

Well, sorry. You're wrong. I don't know why I began to feel safe to question things others had told me, but I didn't debate it with anyone to practice. I am an only child which, were I to use logic, which I will, probably indicates a whole lot of instropection for lack of having anyone else to discuss things with. I won't claim that's an absolute truth, but it is my current theory.

Me:


you:


This had nothing to do with your beliefs. It was a logical thread asking why you cannot pick up in the middle of a logic thread and continue along that course.

The answer, (since, sorry, you didn't get it right) is that humans are fallible and might have gotten some of the first part of that logic wrong. Or from where you sit, you might see something they missed.

My logic further tells me, as I have expounded on endlessly to the sound of my cranium punching a hole in the wall, that one cannot believe something that they do not rationally conclude, from SCRATCH, using NO reference tools, all on their own. Because belief is an indiviual thing. It is a conclusion you come to. But if a large part, or in your case I'd wager about 99%, is just someone else's conclusion, then it is no conclusion of your own at all. You're just a lemming at that point.

I'd further contend that if the Christian God DOES exist, that he'd rather see you try and fail, than to just parrot the words of some other guy whose ability to comprehend matters of this nature you cannot POSSIBLY have any sincere knowledge of. At least then it was YOU doing the thinking.

You seem to feel no responsibility to your thoughts at all. Will you say, if you die and go to the pearly gates, and they turn you away, "b-b-b-but....I read it in this book!" Because if you do, my guess is ole St. Peter will say "Yeah, but the idea is *still* in the book. It's just a copy in your head, because you never thought about it."

Think that's wrong? Stop this dance. Let's take an easy one. Explain the logic to me of light being created before stars. No quotes from the bible allowed. (And, there IS an answer that still supports the bible, but lets see how you, as you claim, have logicked through it all.) This was one of the first puzzles I worked on, all by myself, without debating a soul.

I wouldn't be too hasty to even peripherally suggest that my mind is the sole composite of others. That's you projecting, bro.

Forgot to address this. No real science is done this way at all. My wife is a scientist, and I know a lot about all her experiments in the field of proteomics. Scientists will NEVER say something is true. They will only say when things are false once they have proven an exception to a theory. Just for the record.

There are points they get to when they're "pretty sure" but due to things like Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle and other choas theories dealing with the interaction of particles, they'll never stamp it true.

"It's just a copy in your head, because you never thought about it."

I do think about it, have thought about it, will continue to think about it.

"I wouldn't be too hasty to even peripherally suggest that my mind is the sole composite of others. That's you projecting, bro."

Not the sole composite, but others will certainly have an effect on you, challenging you, enabling you to think for yourself. Again, without someone to test your conclusions on, how do you know they're right? Again, if humans are infallible and I have to go back and check everything, do I not also have to check myself? And, while I'm at it, I'll have someone else check my work. Because I know I get things wrong, but I often don't see the mistakes. While I may be projecting, there is a high probability that you are not infallible either.

"Explain the logic to me of light being created before stars. No quotes from the bible allowed."


I'll think about it.

How can a star give off something that was not created yet? Light must have been created first in order for the star to emit it. Heat, too. And whatever the gases were that it's made up of. And UV Rays. And countless other things I don't know much about.

I feel that this may only be a partial answer - please let me know if I need to add more. As it is, I will keep thinking about it regardless.

Here's a post that got munched. For some reason if I reply from the forums, it often borks up. But I learned from the last one that got munched and copied this one. Here it is, and after that I'll comment on your light thing in a separate reply.

---

Well, I had a long post in here and Stardock ate it. Too tired to do it all again.

On the light/stars thing, I like fun stuff. To have a little fun, there's a hint as to the answer I arrived at in this very post! I like puzzles

Again, without someone to test your conclusions on, how do you know they're right?

Part of my "religion" is that IF there is a God, I see it as my responsibility to learn about the creation by using the mind I was given. And I want that to be purely me, for better or worse. That I be "judged" if such a thing occurs on my ability to take sensory input and logical thinking and turn it into something salient.

If I die and do appear at some pearly gate, and they say "Dude...what the hell?" I'll say "I'm sorry...I was trying to seek. I could have just believed what other people thought when they said they seeked, but how could I know for sure they were astute thinkers?" "Well, we left a guide." "Yeah, but the guide was assembled by seekers, and part of it was left out? Am I to be sure they knew what they were doing? They couldn't even microwave a hot pocket back then!" "Well, they were divinely inspired...so you should have known it was perfect." "But they went on to change it, and they did so pretty often!"

If there's a God, and he doesn't understand where I'm coming from with that, I'm dubious that it's really God and not just some control freak alien.

To answer your question about being right, there's only one thing I'm sure of. You don't know with absolute certainty what the turth is, and I don't either. It's impossible for a man to conceive the mind of God, but as the good book says, "Seek, and ye shall find." If you do NOT seek...what will you find? Only what others said they found when they were seeking, and at that point I see it as a pawned off responsibility of your own thought and the biggest slap in the face you could give a God.

Looking forward to your ideas on light/stars. Take your time.

How can a star give off something that was not created yet?

The question I thought of as a kid was "Why would a supreme intellectual being do something so silly? Photons (light) are a result of a process that stars go through. So why not just create the stars and let the light come naturally?" OR "If I'm going to create stars separate from light, why would I create the product before the source?"

I am a firm believer in that contradictions do not exist. That if you see a contradiction, then you should check your premises. One of them must be wrong. And this is a perfect example. Here is the contradiction:

God made light, then he made stars
Given power to create, I can conceive of a better way to create light - by making the stars first.

The contradiction here is that a man, myself, can conceive of a smarter way to do something than God can. It should be obvious that the brilliant thing to do would be to create the stars and let the stars create the light! It's a simple property of a star...they create light. All the time.

So looking at our premises, which is most likely to not be true. That God created light before stars, or that I am smarter than God?

I've diverted you however. There's another answer. The one I finally arrived at and believe for better or worse.

Well, God didn't make light, then make stars. I don't remember reading anywhere that God made stars after light. When He said Let there be light, perhaps the stars were made and got the light going? But, of course, God, being God, can create light out of nothing if He wants. Are we just trying to reason why He would create light BEFORE Stars, when the Stars could in fact create the light just by being stars?

Well, you know, I use a flashlight to screw in a lightbulb in a basement. The torch is a temporary, but necessary, solution to the light problem - then I turn on the lightbulb, providing a more permanent solution to the problem. But I needed the torch to where the bulb goes, etc.

Saying God needed light to see to create stars would diminish Him, and is really not very logical regardless, so I cannot truly argue that point.

"I like puzzles"

Me too, especially when the answer is upside down at the bottom of the page. I like to think through what others have done a lot more than I like to think for myself. You're right. But that's probably because I'm mostly lazy - to come up with an idea all by myself... why bother when there are plenty of ideas out there to think through? Which is, of course, exactly your point. But my point was that God didn't want it to be hard. It's plenty hard to BE a Christian once you find God.

The danger with thinking it all by yourself, though, is that you will often start with incorrect premises, and without someone to point it out, you just keep going and going and have all kinds of great ideas, but not based on the truth. Of course, you say that one can't know the truth, and I believe I already addressed that to a certain degree, that one can know something is true by personal experience while not being able to show others that it is true.

"But they went on to change it, and they did so pretty often!"

What? Where? When? Who? Why?

"That I be "judged" if such a thing occurs on my ability to take sensory input and logical thinking and turn it into something salient."

Well, if that were the case you would be fine, but that's not the case. You're judged based on whether you believe that God actually was willing to send His Son to Earth to die for your sins, and that He actually did so.

"If I'm going to create stars separate from light, why would I create the product before the source?"

Again, from a human standpoint, a car factory was not built until the car was invented. The product came before the source. As it has with everything. You can't make something for the purpose of producing something that hasn't been created. You have to have the product designed and ready before you can create a way to mass produce it.

Yet again, it diminishes God to argue this point. Gah.

Except there had to be source parts for the product to exist . . . the "factory" may not have existed, but the "engine" and the "chassis" had to be made before the car could.

Good point, SC. But hey, this is a thinking process. I probably haven't used my brain in years, right Ock?

SC, I took your engine-Chassis thing further, and said without sheep, no wool would exist. But is there another source of light besides stars? I don't know enough about light. I think it is a form of energy?

Ok, I'm going to bed, so I'll just say my thought. And I won't rehash a lot of what you've said, 'cause that would take me a while.

There was some site that straniera posted that had all kinds of bibles you could look stuff up in. King James, New Translation, and every one in between. They're all different. And why? Well the obvious reason is because it was originally written in a different language, and so scholars must interpret meaning.

My guess is that everyone just got it wrong with the interpretation of the word "light" because they didn't have the scientific concepts we have today.

Such as how light is directly related to TIME. And there was the clue. "Take your time."

My belief is that it would have been a better translation to say "Let their be TIME." because the first thing you'd need to create a universe of any meaning, assuming nothing existed prior to it, aka Time/Space both = 0 would be a way for things to progress, and things cannot progress without a temporal-spatial continuum. Otherwise everything created just sits there.

Now what I did here was THINK about what didn't make sense, and I think the answer is a pretty good one. Might not be true, but it's MY creation and by proxy, God's.

So I have brought to you a concept that LOGICALLY puts God back in his position of superior intellect where he belongs, without a need for faith in it, makes the bible more believable to someone that thinks about it, and upsets nothing - all by thinking.

I don't mind being wrong. I am sure I am about a lot of things. But I'm not wrong because I refuse to think about contradictions and resolve them. I'm wrong because I tried to and failed. Your mileage may vary regarding whether or not God appreciates that effort.

Thanks Ock. Have a nice sleep (forgot that you're not in America) and I hope to continue to have such enLIGHTening discussions with you.

Also, when you wake back up, how is light directly related to time?

Jytheir writes:

I would highly recommend reading a book entitled, "Christ, the Life of the Soul" written by Rev. D. Columba Marmion. My copy is the 9th edition from B.Herder Book Co. St.Louis, MO. 1922.

It's 402 pages will do much good and be restful for the soul. It's the type of reading that's hard to put down yet easy to reference time and again. In the preface, "It must be read and meditated with the heart as well as with the head, ...there are perhaps some souls who will wonder at this simplification of sprititualit; they cannot accustom themselves to the idea that it is not necessary to seek difficulties where none exist, in order to arrive at perfection."