Hitler and Stalin were possessed by the Devil

[bevin]

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I understand faith in what the Bible says differently than you do.

I thought this would be the case.

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Faith is firm belief and doesn't waver or fail just because someone contradicts what God has said.

I agree.

However that is not the issue. The issue is huge amounts of testable and retestable evidence directly contradicting a specific interpretation of a very ancient set of documents pulled out of the social and historical context.

A loving creator God would not create a huge lie, and then condemn people to eternal death because He conned them into accepting the lie, and any God that would do so is not worthy of love or worship.

/Bevin

[Nicodema]

A loving creator God would not create a huge lie, and then condemn people to eternal death because He conned them into accepting the lie, and any God that would do so is not worthy of love or worship.

I'd say I agree with this statement -- knowing what it means to me -- but I'm curious what it meant to you, Bevin, in making it. What was the "huge lie" you had in mind when you wrote this?

[bevin]

To me the possible big lie is that our senses and reason are useful tools for investigating the universe.

This spills into creationism, into the year-day stuff, into what we eat, into how we worship, everything.

[Nicodema]

To me the possible big lie is that our senses and reason are useful tools for investigating the universe.

Do you think they are? And do you think God has hardwired us or otherwise conned us into thinking so?

Just wondering.

[John317]

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I understand faith in what the Bible says differently than you do.

I thought this would be the case.

Yes, I try to get my understanding of faith from the Bible because I accept the Bible as normative in matters of faith and doctrine. I assume you try to base your view and practice of faith also from the Bible. Please let me know if what I say about faith is wrong.

Hebrews 11:1-- "To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see" (TEV). "Faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen" (CSB).

2 Corinthians 5:7-- "We walk by faith, not by sight."

Read about the faith of Abraham in Romans 4:17-25. What kind of faith was it that resulted in Abraham's being reckoned by God as righteous? "When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said He would do."

Prov. 3:5-- "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

John 20:27-- "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

Saving faith is not something obtained by research and verification through science. Faith comes by hearing or reading the word of God and responding to it because of the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. This faith-- "the leaning of your whole personality on God in absolute, complete trust and confidence"-- is something that God gives but which will only grow or increase by excercise through study of God's word, prayer, and obedience to God's commandments. This faith is in us because the Holy Spirit makes His home in us. (See 1 Timothy 1:19; 4:6; 2 Thess. 1: 3; 3:5; 2 Tim. 1:14; Rom. 15:13; 5:5; 1 Cor. 2:11-16; 6:19.)

It's significant that when Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10: 15 about his readers' "faith increasing," he uses a passive participle, indicating that this faith is not something that the people themselves cause to happen but is rather something that happens to them.

Ellen White says that "faith is taking God simply at His word" (1 T 620). See under Faith in Vol. 1 of the Ellen White Index, pp. 968-978.

Where the evidence comes in is helping us see that the Bible is true and reliable historically, so that we know the prophecies have been fulfilled and therefore we can see that what God said about the future will also happen. But once we know the Bible is God's word and that we can trust Him, we should not need to constantly have to verify God's promises before we believe Him and His word. God gave Abraham plenty of evidence that he could trust God before He asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Perhaps you are still at the stage where you need to verify God's word in order to put your complete faith in Him and in His promises.

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Faith is firm belief and doesn't waver or fail just because someone contradicts what God has said.

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I agree.

However that is not the issue. The issue is huge amounts of testable and retestable evidence directly contradicting a specific interpretation of a very ancient set of documents pulled out of the social and historical context.

I'd be interested to know the details of those "huge amounts of evidence." You might share the specifics with us.

Based on the Bible, however, I believe the real issue is whether we believe God's word or whether we have greater faith in our own personal experiences. If we believe our experience when it contradicts God's word, then we are in real trouble. That is what Thomas did, and Jesus showed that God is not looking for people who trust their own eyes over the promises or prophecies of God. They are even more sure than our own personal experiences. (2 Peter 1:19)

It's important to keep in mind that the time will come when people will have to decide whether to believe God's word or their personal experiences. That is why it is so important to learn to trust God and His word NOW. It will be too late to learn trust and faith in God when the test comes if we haven't learned to practice it beforehand. Look at Matthew 24: 3-26. Satan will come as Christ and will trick almost the entire world into believing a lie. If we go by our senses, we will go along with the world. Also when the beast power threatens death for those who obey God, it will be very easy to disobey His commandments unless we have developed faithful obedience now, based on the naked word of God alone.

I'm sure you realize that for almost two hundred years, there have been books written supposedly containing "scientific" reasons why the Bible could not be believed, yet most of the old objections raised have been laid aside by new evidence proving the Bible right. I assume as a student of the Bible you are aware of these things and I don't have to list all of them (There was a time, for instance, when most historians said that Nebuchednezzar and Belshazzar never existed.)

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A loving creator God would not create a huge lie, and then condemn people to eternal death because He conned them into accepting the lie, and any God that would do so is not worthy of love or worship.

/Bevin

Satan is the father of lies, not God. So if there is a huge lie, we know who creates it. The biggest lie will be when Satan turns himself into an angel of light and persuades almost the entire world to worship Him. Many could blame God for the creation of that lie, I suppose, but they would be wrong. He has given plenty of warning, but most people aren't listening.

[cricket]

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It's important to keep in mind that the time will come when people will have to decide whether to believe God's word or their personal experiences. That is why it is so important to learn to trust God and His word NOW. It will be too late to learn trust and faith in God when the test comes if we haven't learned to practice it beforehand. Look at Matthew 24: 3-26. Satan will come as Christ and will trick almost the entire world into believing a lie. If we go by our senses, we will go along with the world. Also when the beast power threatens death for those who obey God, it will be very easy to disobey His commandments unless we have developed faithful obedience now, based on the naked word of God alone.

Is God not the Father of our senses? Isn't our relationship with Him to be one of experience? Faith is not reason, but experience. As children, we learn as children. We learn through experience and build trust based on experience. God is not so ignorant to overlook our experience based faith.

And yet, for many, God remains silent.

[Nicodema]

i can't enter this discussion at this point, because it would put me back to square one: relating my experiences with GOD that got me into so much trouble here with everyone hating me, shouting me down, lying about me, maligning me, saying malicious things about me, and trying to make it all out to be the devil just because they were not comfortable with looking me in the eye in the face of my experience.

so i will just shut up and keep REALITY to myself, like everyone wants. i will just smile sweetly and LIE THROUGH MY TEETH, like everyone needs. after all, EVERYONE ELSE'S COMFORT ZONE is WAY more important than my pain and anguish.

[John317]

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It's important to keep in mind that the time will come when people will have to decide whether to believe God's word or their personal experiences. That is why it is so important to learn to trust God and His word NOW. It will be too late to learn trust and faith in God when the test comes if we haven't learned to practice it beforehand. Look at Matthew 24: 3-26. Satan will come as Christ and will trick almost the entire world into believing a lie. If we go by our senses, we will go along with the world. Also when the beast power threatens death for those who obey God, it will be very easy to disobey His commandments unless we have developed faithful obedience now, based on the naked word of God alone.

Is God not the Father of our senses? Isn't our relationship with Him to be one of experience? Faith is not reason, but experience. As children, we learn as children. We learn through experience and build trust based on experience. God is not so ignorant to overlook our experience based faith.

And yet, for many, God remains silent.

Certainly God made our bodies and our minds, so, in that sense, yes, He is the Father of our senses. He gave Eve her senses too, but she misused them when she allowed them to lead her to disobey God's commandment. If I went by my senses, I would probably be disobeying God's commandments all the time, because my senses cry out for things that the Bible tells me are wrong. In other words, we live in a world in which we cannot always trust our senses. That is where the Bible comes in. We can always trust God's word to tell us the truth. It's kind of like the problem some people have when they go up in a plane and their body tells them they are headed up when in reality they are going down. They are better off going by the machine rather than going by what their body says. So we are best off going by what the Bible teaches. We can experience vertigo; but thank God the Bible doesn't get vertigo.

[John317]

i can't enter this discussion at this point, because it would put me back to square one: relating my experiences with GOD that got me into so much trouble here with everyone hating me, shouting me down, lying about me, maligning me, saying malicious things about me, and trying to make it all out to be the devil just because they were not comfortable with looking me in the eye in the face of my experience.

so i will just shut up and keep REALITY to myself, like everyone wants. i will just smile sweetly and LIE THROUGH MY TEETH, like everyone needs. after all, EVERYONE ELSE'S COMFORT ZONE is WAY more important than my pain and anguish.

Naw, don't be quiet. I for one really want to hear what you have to say about your reality. I promise not to yell at you or malign you, either.

[bevin]

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Where the evidence comes in is helping us see that the Bible is true and reliable historically

How does it do this for you?

When it matches the Bible, you say "there, the Bible is right"

When it doesn't, you say "there, the evidence is wrong"

You assume that your understanding of the Bible is correct, and discount any evidence that violates that assumption.

/Bevin

[Nicodema]

Naw, don't be quiet. I for one really want to hear what you have to say about your reality. I promise not to yell at you or malign you, either.

No doubt you've seen what some of the others do, though. There's only so much of it I can take. One of them was so rude he would not even let us have our conversation on the other thread but decided it was time to get out the rack and the stake on me and start probing for my "devil's mark". But you sound warm and friendly. I think I might like talking with you.

[John317]

Quote:

Where the evidence comes in is helping us see that the Bible is true and reliable historically

How does it do this for you?

When it matches the Bible, you say "there, the Bible is right"

When it doesn't, you say "there, the evidence is wrong"

You assume that your understanding of the Bible is correct, and discount any evidence that violates that assumption.

/Bevin

When I examine the Bible's trustworthiness in terms of prophecy, history, archeology, and the manuscripts, I don't find much there that doesn't support it. That doesn't mean I am not aware of some things that have appeared to contradict the Bible, but most of those things are gaps in our information rather than facts that oppose the Bible record. For instance, we have very little hard, physical evidence of the existence of King David. However, only a couple of years ago, an excavation uncovered part of a building in Jerusalem from the time of David that contains writing in the ancient Hebrew script about the "house of David."

Certainly the evidence supporting the Bible is enough that we don't have any reason to believe it is some kind of fairy tale, which, by the way, is what my atheistic friends in the Socialist Workers Party used to say on a quite regular basis--- despite their having never read anything but the critics.

I've looked at the question of the reliability of the Bible for years and haven't seen anything that persuades me the Bible is wrong. The point is that once you see that the Bible is reliable, you don't have to keep revisiting that point every day and questioning whether it is God's word or not. You have to get beyond that point, just like once you know your wife is faithful, you don't keep going over the evidence every day and asking if she is faithful, but you go on to develop trust in her (I hope!).

I don't assume my understanding of the Bible is correct. That is why I am constantly studying the viewpoints of others and comparing my beliefs with the Bible's in order to make sure my view is in conformity with scripture. It is also why I try to find Christians as well as non-Christians to talk to about these things in order to listen to what they have to say. For instance, I spent over a year studying the beliefs of Mormons, and this last 10 months I have spent studying Watchtower beliefs, attending their Kingdom Hall and conferences and meeting some of them in their home, asking lots of questions and reading everything I can that they have published.