Yes. Exactly. We do not need faith to believe that God exists. The person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know Him. These are called proofs for the existence of God, but not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences but rather in the sense of convincing arguments which allow us to attain certainity about the truth. One of the arguments is we can know God by the natural light of reason. 

The desire for God is written on the human heart because mankind is created by God and for God and God never ceases to draw man to Himself so as to find life and happiness.

Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But this search for God demands an effort of intellect and a sound will.

So, in different ways man can come to know that there exists a Reality Who is the first Cause and final End of all things, a Reality according to Saint Thomas Aquinas "that everyone calls "God'".

The proofs of God's existence however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

 

Lula, you know what you now call atheism was in existence well before Jesus was a spec in God's eye. So after you find your faith in the impossible IMO, you classify those who came first as atheists and in competition with you somehow when you are the usurpers new kids on the block (relatively speaking). And just because you insist, the world at large is somehow beholding to you and your beliefs … tell me why? Personally, I cannot take much you claim to be true to be, if for no other reason than you refuse to allow empirical contemporary science to enter into the discussion. And when you try to use the sciences to somehow prove your supernatural beliefs (not sure that is even possible?), you always get back to “all one has to have is faith and all will be revealed” poppycock. I do not have to have your faith or believe as you and I think all your silly classifications for various segments of society (circles) are ridiculous and counterproductive in dealing with people, especially individually.

Exactly ...no faith required here. Universal reasoning or universal belief is a proof for the existence of God.

The basic idea behind the argument for universal belief  is given the fact that people in all times have believed in some kind of supreme being and it is reasonable to conclude that there is a justification for that belief ..that there is in fact a supreme being who is God. 

Throughout history, every civilization, down to the present day, man has quested for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. 

Okay...you believe in nature and I'm telling you that God created nature and nature as part of the created world is a proof of God's existence.

 

 

I don't even know what universal reasoning or belief are? I do not think you know much about the universe so I would have to question your reasoning and beliefs which of course I do.

Are you sure you want to go this route through pagan history? I do not think it will offer you much help, just a thought.

I don't believe you, sorry.

Got it, yep I am guilty. It gets confusing at times ... I think I am involvrd in a discussion about the universe somewhere and ... sorry.

Lets not, unless you can prove they ever existwed and of course you cannot ... without an inter-office memo from the theological department.

I like the words of Noam Chomsky ... I am a child of enlightenment. I think irrational belief is dangerous phenomenon, and I try to consciously avoid irrational belief. On the other hand, I certainly recognize that it’s a major phenomenon for people in general, and you can understand why it would be. It does, apparently provide personal and solidarity and a means for expressing elements of one’s personality that are often very valuable elements. To many people it does that. In my view, there is nothing wrong with that. My view could be wrong, of course, but my position is that we should not succumb to irrational belief. While I think in principle people should not have irrational beliefs. I should say that it is a matter of fact; it is people who hold what I regard as completely irrational beliefs who are among the most effective moral actors in the world, in many respects. They are among the worst but also among the best, even though the moral beliefs are ostensibly the same.
  
Take say the solidarity movement in Central America… To a large extent, it comes out of mainstream Christianity, based on beliefs that have had outrageous human consequences in the past, and that I think are totally indefensible. In this case, they happened to lead to some of the most courageous, heroic and honorable human action that’s taken place anywhere in the world. Well, that is how life is, I guess. It doesn’t come in neat little packages. The US is a very fundamental society. It is like Iran in the degree of fanatic religious commitment. You get extremely strange results.
 
Who wrote the current Bible? Current scholarship to my knowledge assumes that the material that constitutes the Old Testament was put together from various oral and folk traditions, many going far back into the Hellenistic period. That was one of several currents, of which the collection that formed the New Testament was another. Biblical archaeology was developed in the last hundred years in an effort to substantiate the authenticity of the Biblical account. It is now generally recognized in Biblical scholarship that it has done just the opposite. The Bible is not a historical text and has only vague resemblances to what took place as far as can be reconstructed.

 

Let's go back to Adam and Eve.

Me too.

That's my position too.

 

But it's not irrational to believe in Adam and Eve and that all human beings descended from them...not irrational at all. Why?

Because God is the principal Author of the Holy Bible, (in that the human writers were inspired by Him to write what they wrote) the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis is certainly true.

There is nothing in favor of Darwinian Evolution, "the creation story" of Atheists, to justify doubting the direct formation of Adam and Eve by Almighty God.

Just as an aside,  haven't scientific and mathematical tools detected Adam and Eve? Wasn't a reputable study done comparing the mitochondrial DNA of people from different areas of the world and it was concluded that all had the same female ancestor now called mitochondrial Eve? She was the woman who was ancestral mother to all living people. Then they also determined where mitochondrial Eve lived...which matched perfectly with the Biblical Eve and Noah's 3 daughters-in-law and as a result each one of us can claim on of them as our ever so great grandmother. And according to the calculations, mitochondrial Eve lived only about 6,000 or so years ago.

 

 

 

To be perfectly honest I do not really care. But I am not going to be made to believe that God or any other supernatural ‘source’ snapped their proverbial fingers and reality was born.  I am of course interested in the past, but I am much more inclined to look to the future because that is where I may have some influence.
 
There is little taking your sheep away from you … you are chasing them away with this constant prattle of perfectness and the Only Truth. The reason why abortion is so high is because you are providing the establishment an enemy for them to sink their finances (trolling for votes) against you. Now how is your sole saving going as compared to the death toll? I believe the paid for votes are still winning. But because of your perfect God anointed morality, saving fictitious soles is all that really matters. How can you just disregard the numbers of deaths you have caused in your quests to save recruit more people? This is pretty much the same tactic the USG uses to gain more assets … they send in the anarchists. In their case, it is in the form of the CIA, in your case they are called missionaries.
 
I can think of very few institutions of man that so pointedly espouses the degree of hypocrisy the religions of the world exhibit in all their perfectness. You first insist the world at large not only participate in your irrational beliefs, but they have to believe in them too. You offer no choice, proof or options and you ignore the scientific world almost as if it were the irrational side. You can barely answer simple questions without reverting to theology. I do not have the answers to the mysteries of the Universe and nobody else does either. You make enemies of every circle of society you so choose to demonize and you pretend they are all attacking you and your religion. Homosexuality exists in all sections of society, in most church … and all the way to the Vatican, yet you condemn them (those whose soles haven’t been saved I guess) … I do not like hypocrites. (NOT you personally!)

You have built in excuses that seemingly grant you the authority (?) to do anything in His name and you have built in excuses for failing sheep to keep them in line, got to keep the coffers full. And you have nothing besides condemnation for any and all that see it in a different light ... just more self-made enemies for you to attack while pretending they are attacking you, go figure.

Lula – On some post somewhere in here, there was a discussion on the origin of the universe. Many of the religious justifications were from a documentary called “The Privileged Planet” by - Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards … so I looked into it and it was interesting… I am planning to start an article to review the film in 12 11 segments (YouTube). Thought you might be interested in some different ping pong commentary for a change? First segment is an introduction so I will skip it when I get started.

Lula, I am not (mostly) talking about you personally, I just get all wrapped up with all the various theological things so I call it “you” pretending I am conversing.
 
You have a need to know because it is fundamental to your faith but I do not. I understand and accept empirical evidence on its face value, not because someone tells me or because of some book that forces me. I know we are like ‘babes in arms’ in the development of technology and the furtherance of our knowledge. A couple thousand years ago the world was flat, everyone knew that. Say, wasn’t that back around the times when your bible was being composed? I do not think the concept of a universe or galaxy or even a solar system was much in their minds … so I do not think your arguments for universal scope came from the writers of the bible??? Egad … everyone knew the stars and the moon rotated around the Earth in the mid-16th century. You see, science has a way of sneaking up on people and more or less forcing them to at least explain themselves and present their evidence. You cannot do this and will accept no outside evidence at all. And yet in all your failings, you have spent the last 100 years trying to use my science to prove your irrational beliefs (is that possible?) and have only harmed your own cause in the process. I have a working viable theory on the origins of human kind and the universe within my scope of understanding and you just want me to have faith in the supernatural, how silly is that? If God exists indeed?

BT posts #3

You have me pegged wrong as far as your statement about history is concerned. I'm interested in both history and Biblical salvation history because they overlap. Agree or not, believe it or not, there is actual history in the Bible. There are also parables, poetry, songs, prophecy and other kinds of writings. 

The early Protestant translations were full of gross errors which no unprejudiced Protestant will deny. So, I agree there are lots of mistranslated Bibles out there. There are also incomplete Bibles as we shall see later. These and the misinterpretation of the Bible create errors, problems and confusion.  

Fortunately, the Church has provided a substantially accurate version....the Douay Rheims Version. It's an accurate word-for-word translation from the original Hebrew and Greek made by Saint Jerome (343-420) in the 4th century.

#60 

Let's be clear. 66 Books make up the Protestant version of the Bible. Protestant Bibles, beside other things, are incomplete.

The Catholic Bible has 46 Books in the Old Testament. The 46 Books are those contained in the Greek Spetuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible. This was the translation made in Alexandria, Egypt that started in 250 BC. by 70 Jewish scholars residing there. This translation was made during the 3 centuries before the birth of Christ.

I know the Holy Bible has come under much criticism, but even so, that doesn't change the fact that the Bible is the Word of God, inspired by Him and therefore guaranteed by Divine inerrancy in its own authentic meaning.

What Biblical scholarship are you referring to?

Actually archaeological finds have shed positive light on the Bible. Ancient monuments and entire cities have been unearthed and historians have obtained a more accurate picture of ancient times and many aspects of life as mentioned in the Bible.

One of them is the discovery in 2001 of Herod's magnificent palace in Jerusalem. You know Herod the ruler who asked the 3 Magi where he could find Jesus that he might adore Him? The Jewish historian Josephus writes Herod was "a man of great barbarity toward all men equally and a slave to his passions; but above the consideration of what is right. His dominant passions were ambition and jealousy" ---traits which fit in will with his slaughter of the innocents recorded by the Gospels of Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John if you care to read about it. 

Turns out Herod and his sons were considered the greatest builders of the ancient world. Among the most notable projects were the Jerusalem Temple, theaters, hippodromes and palaces. Archaeologist, Amit Re'em is convinced he's uncovered Herod's lavish palace and massive walls.

ANd what about the great 1947 archaeological discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of nearly 1500 ancient manuscripts printed on leather and papyrus? The scrolls were written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and some Greek. Talk about a rare peak at what the ancient Hebrew Bible looked like. We have it. 

And oh for the wonder of modern technology!!! The world's oldest text of the Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates from 350AD, contains all the texts of the BIble including the first Greek version of the Old and New Testaments is going to be/has been digitized in high resolution images.

 

Lula, the bible was written when these aspects of life were actually (go figure) the real aspects of life of those times ... how could it be otherwise written? But there is nothing that I have found that substanciates biblical ... anything?

I would expect nothing else from you. I have never said there were not good things in the bible many of which you listed. It sends shivers down my scientific spine though when I see stuff like “a substantially accurate version”. Be as clear as you like, I am not going to play with all your different religious circles, no way. 44-66-27 hike, they are just meaningless numbers as they came from a quick search is all.

You put a lot of effort here but this stuff is just above my level of forbearance. I am amazed that you covered this stuff as well as could be, I expect. I couldn’t question your numbers or dates; it just doesn’t interest me much anymore. I am working on a lot of things and most of them stem around 9/11 and the violence in the Middle East, is all. I looked up ‘Herod's magnificent palace in Jerusalem’ and could not find any references that were not theological in nature. When I finally forced it out of Wikipedia I ran into this … According to the Bible … so I am not buying it. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts and prove nothing whatsoever concerning the validity of the bible as far as I could see (Wikipedia again) so I am not buying this one either. Best I could find was “… of great mythic and historical significance.”  And that doesn’t pass the science test. You always end up back to theology to support everything.

Part 2

Part 3