I figured I would ask this, because there are individuals who end up believing they can fall away.  Others believe in unconditional eternal security.  However, when I hear people talk about "losing their salvation" I have to wonder where they would happen to misplace it.  Calvinists end up believing people are preordained and the elected, and the elect never fallaway.

As far as knowing something is correct, that is the rabbit hole that runs REALLY deep and leads into a reason why asking God for signs is an absurd proposition, that really doesn't get anywhere.  For me, a big question would be: What would be the expected manifestations of someone who is a real Christian, and how can you tell them apart from those who aren't?  I ask: Do real Christians glow in the dark?  Understand that second meaning.  I also have to ponder, exactly WHAT would one expect to have as an outcome from connecting with God in a real way.  Are Christians to be happy for no reason, for example?  Look at the book of Job where Satan asks God if Job does good for no reason.  That is a trap.  I see it as a trap question fitting into Proverbs where there is a prayer which asks God to have enough to not steal, but not so much as to forget God.  The short of it, the middle path between sin and Godlessness.  And yes, that may be a possibility.

Pardon my ramblings here.  These are just tough issues I deal with in my own life.  I also think the right answer would end up answering the questions of signs.

@ Jay

To answer your question God has used people to communicate His thoughts to me. For example I was at a bus station and I thought to myself I miss God. At the time I backslid and sin separates you from God. Right after I had that thought a random woman came up to me out of all the people and said don't worry God is still with you. I was totally shocked. It was only fleeting thought I had too.

I also had a woman pray over me at church and she told me a lot of things she couldn't have known. It was my first time at the church. I was going through a lot of hard times and I was seeking God for answers. It was so very comforting what God said through her.

I have had many prayers answered. Some of them miraculously answered at the moment.

God's goodness is beyond what a person can imagine. I can't really describe His goodness. I really don't deserve to know Him with all the bad things I have done. But most people are separated from God because of their sins. God wants people to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ and what He did for the world on the cross. He wants people to come to Him with faith and humbly like little child.

Jesus Christ really loves everybody but things such as unbelief, pride, and the preoccupations with the things of the world which are passing away hinders people to really come to Him.

Many people are really missing out on the awesomeness of God by not seeking Him. What He gives is better than all the gold and silver in the world.

I don't want to offend you, but this was hilarious, specially if it's genuine. Enough to leave my lurking position.

Also, I'm not clear on your position on atoms, but if atmos aren't real (or more precisely a very good aproximation in the concerning scope, which is as about "truhfull" as anything can get in science), than even basic eletronics, let alone computers, are the culmination of an amazingly huge pile of unbelievable guesswork. I like my chances of having millions of people believing for centuries in something I made up much, much better. Your position about both hell and atoms being beliefs of the same nature is just absurd.

Also, it's the one with the claim who has to provide evidence. The Bibble tells you Hell is real. You believe The Bibble for some reason. Why is that? Upbringing? Because God told you so?

Which brings me to the more interesting:

Now this is really an issue. If some supernatural entity tries to prove me it's  God (or any other "know" entity), why should I believe it? Why couldn't it be a Djin or a demon or something impersonathing it? I mean, I can see religious people saying the real entity wouldn't allow that, but that means you already believe in the existence of the "real" entity and lots of other doctrines about the universe and the supernatural, which makes the whole exercise pointless.

So yeah, in my opinion asking for signs from the perspective of someone who doesn't already believe something can only ever have the effect of showing you that some kind of thing with superpowers exists, but it could never show it's true intentions or nature. It couldn't even give you much in the way of a minimun given extent of it's superpowers since it could be all mind tricks.

Of course this all stays true if the "signal" is just a feeling or something metaphorical.

Also, if something with the ability to bend reality at will exists but can't know it's true intentions or personality than you have absulutely no reason believe anything at all, which makes everything pretty meaningless.

So all in all, yeah, I don't see how asking for a sign would help.

Sorry for the possibly bad structure, I had to type in a hurry.

Well about writing between workhours i totally understand, I was doing exactly the same. Hard to make very long points when you have to minimize the window all the time lol.

Anyway, back to our small exchange:

1- I started reading the article and so far I just see a discussion on semantics. Apparently to read the full article i need to be registered on this website which I am not. In any case it seemed more like a filosophical discussion than a scientific one that was being put forward on the part of the article i red. In either case I believe what's being fought is a strawman in which a person's view of a specific phenomenon that seems obvious to this person should be considered a fact (the example on the article of the glass of ice water). One important thing to keep in mind is that in science you don't rely on your own observations to determine a fact. You need to put forward what you observed and wait for the rest of the scientific community at large to test your observations and compare if they get the same readings as you. For something to become a 'scientific fact', it requires an enormous ammount of confirmation by independent sources and only after enough time has passed such thing can be considered a fact. Key words ; time and many independent observers agreeing with you.

If you'll have some dispute on this we can get back to it. But again, it seems more like a semantics discussion, not very relevant for our main point.

2- I take your point on the court example and give you credit for that. I should have been more precise.

So I'll rephrase my own point. Given a certain claim, your belief or disbelief for such claim depends (or should depend) on how convincing the evidence provided for it was. Of course different people will have different standards of evidence, but the point is, You don't actively chose to believe X. Rather you believe X because many facts add up that cause X to be a believable claim.

There are indeed people who will claim to 'believe' something for other reasons (makes them feel good, were raised to believe it, etc). I submit to you these are terrible reasons to believe anything. It shows intelectual lazyness and total disregard for the actual truth.

I don't 'believe' the theory of evolution by natural selection because it makes me feel good about myself or because I was raised to believe it. The reason I am convinced it's very true amounts to the gigantic pile of evidence supporting it (fossil record, DNA, observable testing in laboratories, explanatory power, etc). Please be aware that the entire basis for the modern medicine as it is practiced is based on evolution. The reason why you need new vaccines for certain viruses is because they evolve over time. The reason why the flu vaccine of 20 years ago is not used anymore is because this virus mutated and evolved to resist this past vaccine. Only the theory of evolution by natural selection can explain all of these observable facts.

When someone puts up a theory that will have more explanatory power than the current one and proves to be accurate I promise you we'll embrace this new theory. Until then we don't chose to believe evolution. We are forced to accept it as a matter of fact :)

1 more thing before I go. Many times you'll hear stuff on the news about 'some scientists have said (insert bold claim)...'

That's all fine and good, but scientists are people and before you have a generally accepted theory (and I honestly can't think of one mroe bulletproof than the current theory of evolution) you'll have many an enourmous ammount of hypotesis put forward by smaller groups of scientists. These hypotesis are like bullets being shot at whatever currently accepted theory is in the moment. And the more shots the accepted theory takes and resists, the more confidence you should have in it.

I studied physics engineering, so take it for what it's worth, I've never heard of any impossibility of planets being 15x more massive than earth. Case in point, Jupiter. Sounds like you probably red some terrible interpretation made by some publication who probably didn't understand what they were told and put the information to the public in such a terrible way. Sometimes when something sounds ridiculous, it's probably not true :).

time to get back to work, I'll let you take your time and respond to this if you'll feel it's worth something :P

cheers

I'm glad that god you speak of is simply a product of your imagination. What's curious to be is why would you want to worship it if what you claim is true.

seems like you'd be the kind of person who would worship a dictator just because their power is much supperior to yours. The correct action is to oppose a dictator, not worship him. if whatever president of whatever country you live in sent people to life in jail for not believing and agreeing with him I'm sure you'd be pissed off too. so why this imaginary creature gets a pass?

This Jesus?

Nope, the one I mentioned earlier, the Son of the most High God. The living warrior of light, the Lion of Judah, the Savior of the world and all of mankind, the redeemer of humanity, the first and the last, the Bright Morning Star.

Someone basically you like to make fun of, but if you knew who he really was, you would not be able to stand in front of him.

ahhhh, that guy.

c'mon happyd, I'm just joking around. I thought this thread was light hearted!

It is light hearted! The news is only good, that God is like that!

I will reply from a general Christian angle, and in general.  Several things:

* If you are a Christian, are you not supposed to have the Spirit of God within you? If you do, then how can you "miss God"?  I once missed a pager I had one week which I returned.  But the Spirit of God is supposed to be in someone.  So, how the heck do you end up missing God?  Jesus also said "I will never leave you or foresake you", so how does that happen, unless you decide to look away?

* In regards to more general, how do you actually know you are dealing with God and not some sort of idol you made up you project your feelings upon?  It is very easy to get duped.  Some people flat out get lucky in life.  This does happen.  You have guru types who end up doing things and get certain percentage of the audience have positive happen.  This is by the laws of probability.  Not saying you don't, but how do you know?

* And it may be appropriate to wack you with the Book of Job.  Maybe you personally have stuff work for you, but there are numbers for whom it doesn't.  There are people who come to the Christian faith with expectations and hopes.  They don't come off as they expect and their hopes get deferred.  People also oversell things. And there is this obsession with getting manifestations of God being real and so on.  I found it a vain pursuit actually.  What I see in all this, with the hellish stuff I need to deal with, for example, is that it doesn't pan out as one would expect. An maybe the motivation of this thread is to do a sales pitch for the Christian religion, focused on concerns over hell, either possible genuine on the part of the original poster for others, or out of their own because now they feel they MUST evangelize and warn others or else God is going to look at them sternly over things.

* Exactly how does one seek God?  Where does one go to find God?  One of my many projects I have kicked around to do is to take a road trip and trying to find the Kingdom of God in America.  Idea would be to ask people and go find it and see what people have to say.  Things have not aligned right with me to do that.