Originally Posted by misesfan

1) The physical evidence is that the universe had a beginning in the first place. The logic from this one bit evidence will show that God exists. (read - circumstantial evidence)

How does the logic from the universe having a beginning show that God exists?

2) You only need to talk to any Christian to see how God makes a difference.

I need only to talk to a Muslim to see how Allah makes a difference. What makes their experiences invalid and your experiences valid evidence?




Lurker

Since you asked, here is a site that documents truth, proof that Islam is an evil religion (whether you like it or not).

Islam | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

Only Christianity has a Savior, and one who died (AND rose from the dead) to save people from their sins, as a FREE gift.

If you truly care for PROOF, spend time reading the evidence and prophecy forum area. Ample truth, ample proof.

Originally Posted by Chad

Since you asked, here is a site that documents truth, proof that Islam is an evil religion (whether you like it or not).

I didn't ask whether or not you think Islam is an evil religion, I asked why the personal experience of adherents of other religions (such as Islam) are invalid evidence for their gods while personal experience of adherents of your religion is valid evidence for your God.




Lurker

I think Islam is an evil religion, therefore their "god" is not real and does not exist.

Our GOD is real, and the only Living GOD. He performs miracles. He blesses His children. He died (and rose) to pay for our sins. He gave us His Word, Jesus and the Bible...the love story of GOD for His people. He gave us free will to either love Him or reject him. Love requires free will.

Read the testimony forums of believers who post their miraculous testimonies of what Christ has done for them (and me too). Did "allah" perform miracles? Never. He can't, he doesn't exist.

I gave you a place (Forum) to go to read about EVIDENCE of why our GOD is real, exists and the only GOD. You clearly reject the knowledge before you, so why bother asking any more questions?

Originally Posted by namith

Okay, but many other religions have the same or similar promises/results. Once again, how does this differ from any other faith?


I still have seen no evidence whatsoever that I should accept these events. The earliest manuscripts we have of the gospels have been tentatively dated to 125 AD. It is generally thought that they were written around 60-80 AD, at least 30 years after the events they describe. The earliest writings are those of Paul, and he never even met Jesus. And there are no contemporary, non-Christian sources writing of Jesus's life at the time it happened.


Whether or not he existed is debatable. Death would logically follow from life, and resurrection is almost entirely unsupported. Even if we had eye-witness accounts, should that be taken as sufficient evidence? What about eye-witness accounts of alien abductions? Do you believe them?

My question remains: why do you reject things that use the exact same standards of evidence as Christianity?

[Wow - lots of editing on this post- sorry about that.]

I am not stating that I reject these other religions because of my own ideas - I reject them because I have concluded God exists and by extension what God has revealed by the Bible says of these other religions - that they must be false since other religions state Jesus is not the Incarnation of God on earth. That is, to be logically consistent I must reject them since I accept Christ.

Of course one of the reasons why I accepted Christ was because of the evidence of His birth, life and resurrection. You may state that the life of Christ is not in any meaningful way historically accurate. However, I think the evidence is fairly conclusive that Jesus existed and I know that others agree, including historical experts on the matter. I am not trying to argue to authority. I am stating a fact, which is that historians agree that Jesus is not a mythical person.

For example, do you think Caesar lived? Do you think Archimedes lived? Plato? Aristotle? What evidence do you have for these men's existence? I think they lived because I have read historical accounts of their lives from those who knew them or those who knew of them. Further I can see their effects throughout the course of history, humanity and civilization.

You and I both know that the life of Jesus dramatically altered and changed civilization. You and I both know that the accounts written of Him were from those who knew Him (Matthew and John) or were disciples of those who did (Luke and Mark). You and I both know these accounts were written within the same generation of the time of the Crucifixion, and thus could be proven incorrect by those who would denounce the facts.

Historically speaking, the life, death, and Resurrection of the Lord is most assuredly proven. What you do with this mass of evidence is up to you. Logically you can either accept or reject the truth of these facts - I pray for truth.

Let me ask you something. I dont know if you stated that you were an atheist or not - I think you are attempting to find honest answers to these questions. Consider however, by being an atheist, one rejects the existence of God, even though we know that science cannot prove His non-existence. Doesnt that show a bit of intellectual dishonesty, since the atheist must assume infinite knowledge including knowledge of the supernatural and its existence? Even though he cannot prove the fact, he knows God doesnt exist because why? Wouldnt you agree that this is more akin to blind faith than reason? And wouldnt you agree that the Christian who has "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" is being at least internally consistent with his logic as opposed to the atheist who states that science proves something in which it doesnt?

To me the agnostic is much better equipped to argue than an atheist since at least he states that the evidence is still unclear to him. His intellectual honesty is such that he understands the limits of his humanity and his finite capabilities. However, atheists do not display this type of honest self-awareness. Why do you think that is true? And, I am not trying to incite anger - just curious on what you think.

Originally Posted by ItinerantLurker

How does the logic from the universe having a beginning show that God exists?



I need only to talk to a Muslim to see how Allah makes a difference. What makes their experiences invalid and your experiences valid evidence?




Lurker

1) Classic proof:
- Everything that has a beginning has a cause for its existence.
- The universe had a beginning
- The universe thus must have a cause to its existence.
- That cause must be God (since only God exists outside of time and space capable of creation ex nihilo - by definition)
Of course you can argue what caused God ad-infinitum... But you must then count an infinity backwards in order to arrive at a first cause. However infinity is not a countable number, therefore that must be untrue.

2) I answered another post on that question, and I respectfully refer you there. In short - I state that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. Therefore, all other religions that do not include these basic facts must be false.

If Jesus was God then you will be judged and go straight to hell without passing Go. I go to paradise.

If Jesus was not God then we both perish none the wiser.

Is it really worth the gamble, I am not a gambler when eternity is at stake.

This is the initial cause of my conversion, I could not risk being wrong when eternity was at stake. Not worth the risk by any means.

There is no way out of the dilemma IL you must choose one or the other.

My heart does go out to you as I have been in that unfortunate position.

Originally Posted by brakelite

We embrace Christianity because of what it promises.
1. Forgiveness and mercy.
2. A relationship with out Creator.
3, Power in this life to overcome sin,
4. A resurrection to eternal life.

The first three are realisable and effective in this life, and our lives are radically and deeply changes as a result. Not just superficially like the solving of some personal issue , but deep lasting changes that affect our entire way of thinking and behaving, nor just once a week on Sundays but from the time we wake up to the time we retire at night, our thoughts, motives, and our actions reflect a change only brought about through the power of God. This changed life brings about attributes that to the normal person is unnatural, even hateful.
To the true Christian however, former things he once hated he now loves, and former things he once loved, he now hates. Even enemies are loved, and forgiven, even as they are preparing the very fires at our feet to destroy us. That my friend is the power of a gracious God.

Well said brother.

Men (and women) are transformed by Christ. This transformation is a miracle. It is as if natural selection were supernaturally charged - the process of Christ perfecting the man is certainly unexplainable in science.

And the Grace of God, to me, is the most contradictory thing of all. God doesnt need us. We need Him. And yet God wants to be our friend - unbelievably amazing fact and the mind reels at its thought.

Originally Posted by ItinerantLurker

Again, reality seems to contradict your assertions given that genetic algorithms regularly produce solutions to problems. In the real world this translates into variation and selection on living genomes producing novel traits. If that's not "new information" then your understanding of genetic information is seriously flawed and/or irrelevant.





Lurker

Maybe someday it will even solve the Travelling Salesman problem. Or maybe not. You dont understand the limitations of your examples, and dont have the intellectual honesty to admit it.

Genetic algorithms are basically a way searching a mass of data trying to find the best result from many possibilities. If you want to state that this is an increase in information akin to primordial ooze mutating into the sequence of a DNA molecule, then so be it.

I hate using Wikipedia but lets.... From their page - A genetic algorithm (GA) is a search heuristic that mimics the process of natural evolution. This heuristic is routinely used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search problems. Genetic algorithms belong to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA), which generate solutions to optimization problems using techniques inspired by natural evolution, such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover.

Originally Posted by David777

You did say,

Kindly pray before posting, I do hope as a brother in christ you understand what I'm saying and put that before your feelings of not having your way, your rights to speak and being smothered.

I do not understand, I prefer to debate, I do feel oppressed.
I ask that Jesus Christ open your eyes to the tremendous
onslaught that is overwhelming Christians all over the World.

Most Christians do not understand that a lot of what Science
claims is not necessarily scientific. It is conjecture. I hoped that
by offering different opinions that others may read and notice
what Science claims is not often what is.

I can see you don't understand. In all your debates how many people have turn to Christ and still today follow Christ ?
There's a big differences between having a discussion and debate. One carries humility and the other carries pride.

You feeling oppress...I can't see..me telling everyone to get to the point an present their final arguments as oppression. If this is oppression then what was slavery ? You have pm and emails to continue this conversation, ( never once was closing the thread mentioned, you made that assumption, therefore your feelings of oppression is a figment of your imagination )

Why is the Christian the one challenging what I say ? If you go back you'll see Namith ( the suppose big bad atheist ) listened and never questioned me. You're the long time member, the atheist is not , yet he respected what I said and answered appropriately.

I ask that Jesus Christ open your eyes to the tremendous
onslaught that is overwhelming Christians all over the World.

If you prayed as I asked you would not say this, because God would not tell you to give me milk when I'm munching meat. If you prayed there'd be an understanding. You haven't and that's why you feel oppressed, if you allowed the Holy Spirit to speak to you then your conversations would be different. Why isn't Namith feeling oppressed ?
I questioned Namith on his motive here and he could of lashed out, but he didn't.

If all you want to do is debate, what is your motive ?
Just to be right ?
To win the debate and shut the atheist up ?

Having the truth does not win debates. The person with the best arguments win the debate. A murderer can walk away a free man even though all the evidence shows he's guilty. His defense had a stronger closing argument, making the jurors forget all the evidence that was before them. It's the same with debates, it boils down to who present their arguments the strongest. He/She is going to be the winner.
I'll ask again what is the motive ?
If it's to debate, then it's just that a debate with no fruit. Namith arguments are good, that's why I was asking you if you read their responses. I didn't mean they were being rude. I wasn't convinced and neither were they. Thats why I used the origin of africa as an example, you didn't give evidence and it came off as the typical christian " I said it's the truth so it is ."

Prayer is very important, you can not see the hearts of men, your words can never penetrate their hearts and that's why we need God's wisdom in all our conversations.

Be blessed, please pray and give evidence to show where you got your argument from.
( You notice I don't respond the same day. I choose to separate myself from threads to allow God to direct me on when to speak and what to say. When you become emotionally attached to a conversation, you are easily offended, pridefully, not walking in love and the atmosphere becomes all about self glory. If there's no truth, embracing of salvation then it's fruitless. )
Why, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath James 1:19