Power of Prayer

[rockridgecattle]

I know there is a God, I know His word is true. I know this because with out Him sustaining me these many years I would be n lost, maybe even dead. This past year has seen me delve into scripture more keenly. It has been hard to read. My PTSD has made reading difficult. So I listen. The dramatized version NIV is amazing. Even better if you can get the previous version. The Old Testament come alive in ways I never thought of. Judges...amazing. Samuel...wow. So I suggest inyat23, take the time to listen to it. Apple has a free app called you version, bible gateway can play a version to listen to on line. But first ask. Ask in your heart...truth be revealed...no need to ask God, I mean at this point you do not believe...and that is ok...for now Just listen.

The book of Leviticus, I had my Sunday school teen class read any two chapters they chose...sit down and absorb it. The following Sunday their thoughts were amazing. The enormity of the the shear numbers of laws and needed sacrifices for atonement. The knowledge that they would be constantly sacrificing if they lived under the law. The knowledge of how much they are truly a sinner saved by grace.

While listening to the bible has been my salvation, music has uplifted my soul. Here is one of my favorites...I have a long list. Jason Gray stutters when talking but does not when singing. So please bear with it in the beginning.

http://youtu.be/FHJY1O8OGk4

Sorry, I used the youtube and there was no volume...

 

[TexasBred]

I have wondered why my mind totally rejects the supernatural. I wonder if in a simple basic way, I am wired to only know and believe what I can see, feel or taste. I often say, if I cannot measure it or weigh it, it does not exist.

I sort of know what you're saying although I find it a bit hard to grasp. Yet that same mind will accept the theory that somewhere, sometime long ago when there was nothing, something went BANG and nothing became everything....everything that can neither be destroyed nor increased......now I would believe in the Easter Bunny before I would accept that. But wait a minute. Spirit has no body...no mass, no matter...Maybe it was GOD !!!!!!!!

 

[melking]

That brings this discussion to this: Two predominant possibilities exist.

1. The Universe is the result of a natural process.
2. The Universe is the result of divine creation.

Currently, Homo sapiens are not in possession of data, evidence, or any other means to explain which possibility is fact. Homo sapiens are limited to either faith-based support for divine creation or theories that are advanced based on the meager data available that the Universe is the result of Natural processes and the Laws of Physics.

And therein lies the issue. How to resolve the differences between the faith based crowd and the crowd who believes otherwise? Things like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyfAfCBmOqI (thanks Herefordshire 2009)

Make it almost impossible to follow the faith based side.

 

[TexasBred]

Yet you believe this??

 

[boondocks]

That brings this discussion to this: Two predominant possibilities exist.

1. The Universe is the result of a natural process.
2. The Universe is the result of divine creation.

Currently, Homo sapiens are not in possession of data, evidence, or any other means to explain which possibility is fact. Homo sapiens are limited to either faith-based support for divine creation or theories that are advanced based on the meager data available that the Universe is the result of Natural processes and the Laws of Physics.

And therein lies the issue. How to resolve the differences between the faith based crowd and the crowd who believes otherwise? Things like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyfAfCBmOqI (thanks Herefordshire 2009)

Make it almost impossible to follow the faith based side.

Michael Tellinger isn't a scientist/expert (bachelor's in pharmacy, spent his life in the entertainment biz. Still doing it. Or trying)...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tellinger
I figure I won't call the "dearly" departed Fred Phelps a Christian (let alone a minister), if Christians won't call the odd crackpot like Tellinger a scientist...

 

[GMN]

Faith is believing in things you can not see-is what someone told me once, simple but true

 

[cow pollinater]

Currently, Homo sapiens are not in possession of data, evidence, or any other means to explain which possibility is fact. Homo sapiens are limited to either faith-based support for divine creation or theories that are advanced based on the meager data available that the Universe is the result of Natural processes and the Laws of Physics.

Now personal (forgive me, this is my conviction): The divine explanation never struck me as logical. Why a being powerful enough to create a Universe would mastermind a ritual for achieving spiritual existence in a good place or burn for eternity in a bad place, does not work in my head. .

Some things that can't be proven are still very real. I love my wife. I love my kids. I can't PROVE it... but it's in me and I know that it is real. I can't give evidence to anyone else that would support that my love for them is anything beyond my familiarity with them and a human desire to have others around but it is very real to me. I'm certainly not the type to preach the Bible to anyone who will stand still to listen but for me it is more than a fable. There have been to many times when I needed SOMETHING and I felt that the answer was handed to me for me to not believe that there is truth there. To many times I have gone to church only to keep my wife happy and have sat there and felt as though the sermon was tailor made for ME. It is very real at that point.

 

[txffamom]

This has been a very interesting thread to read and think over and I don't have anything profound to add.

Very simply, there have been times in my life when all I had was a prayer and faith and I thank God for giving me both to get me through.

 

[inyati13]

I have wondered why my mind totally rejects the supernatural. I wonder if in a simple basic way, I am wired to only know and believe what I can see, feel or taste. I often say, if I cannot measure it or weigh it, it does not exist.

I sort of know what you're saying although I find it a bit hard to grasp. Yet that same mind will accept the theory that somewhere, sometime long ago when there was nothing, something went BANG and nothing became everything....everything that can neither be destroyed nor increased......now I would believe in the Easter Bunny before I would accept that. But wait a minute. Spirit has no body...no mass, no matter...Maybe it was GOD !!!!!!!!

The Big Bang Theory reads more like an essay than like a specific "Theory". I am not an astrophysicist so I will not debate the details. It does have a basis in information that is observable. The matter of the universe is expanding from a center. That has been observed by astronomers. The galaxies, solar systems, etc are moving away from a center at a mathematically calculated velocity.

For me the difference between divine phenomenon and natural phenomenon is that divine phenomenon often strikes me as "wizardry". For example, in Genesis God creates the heavens and the earth. It leaves it to our imagination. Perhaps he was very scientific about the genesis and employed accelerated genetics to produce the birds and beasts, on the other hand, he may have accomplished it like Gandalf employees his staff. God the Wizard or God the Scientist.

In science, there is a body of work that can be studied to provide a foundation for understanding natural processes. For example, evolution has its foundation in the sciences of biology, anatomy, physiology, population genetics, paleontology, taxonomy, and many others. If you consider how every course in biology is treated, it is based on the ascent of organisms from the lowest level to the highest. There is a fossil record to explore. You have the existing flora and fauna that provide an insight into the Phylogenetic tree of all life known to mankind. One could begin as a child, study the information every day of their life, live for 92 years and they would have only covered a small fraction of the total body of information that supports evolution. To debate it with a layperson is the ultimate folly.

Natural processes have a mechanism which can be observed, tested, subject to acceptance or rejection. Remember, scientist often reject long held views. In the study of natural processes, there is no disgrace in being wrong. The disgrace is not striving toward the best possible understanding.

 

[HDRider]

We are most all good people on here. We all make choices, and we live by those choices. Faith is a choice. God blessed us all, whether we choose to believe it or not.

 

[TexasBred]

The Big Bang Theory reads more like an essay than like a specific "Theory". I am not an astrophysicist so I will not debate the details. It does have a basis in information that is observable. The matter of the universe is expanding from a center. That has been observed by astronomers. The galaxies, solar systems, etc are moving away from a center at a mathematically calculated velocity.

Inyati I ask to satisfy my own curiosity. Can or have scientist actually discovered the "center" of this expansion? It still amazes me that scientist observe light an say it originated a billion light years away or even farther yet cannot detect or locate the most distant edge (if there is such thing) of the universe. If the universe is constantly expanding then the edge is constantly changing...going to places that actually do not exist except in the memories and calculating powers of a super computer. Most of the information about the distant parts of the universe are not observations...only calculations based on theory again. In affect they are simply taking today's observations and calculating backward.

 

[inyati13]

We are most all good people on here. We all make choices, and we live by those choices. Faith is a choice. God blessed us all, whether we choose to believe it or not.

Disagree. I understand your intentions. I could not "choose" at 5 pm today to be a Christian. My mind contains conflicting doctrines that would render that "choice" hypocritical. No, everyone who knows me would hold that choice as a farce.

I respect Billy Graham. Could he choose to be a Pagan?

TB, you probably know more about the Big Bang than I do. But I think your assessment is as I remember it when I last read about it.

 

[HDRider]

We are most all good people on here. We all make choices, and we live by those choices. Faith is a choice. God blessed us all, whether we choose to believe it or not.

Disagree. I understand your intentions. I could not "choose" at 5 pm today to be a Christian. My mind contains conflicting doctrines that would render that "choice" hypocritical. No, everyone who knows me would hold that choice as a farce.

I respect Billy Graham. Could he choose to be a Pagan?

TB, you probably know more about the Big Bang than I do. But I think your assessment is as I remember it when I last read about it.

So you are saying your "DNA" prevents you from choosing to believe?

 

[inyati13]

We are most all good people on here. We all make choices, and we live by those choices. Faith is a choice. God blessed us all, whether we choose to believe it or not.

Disagree. I understand your intentions. I could not "choose" at 5 pm today to be a Christian. My mind contains conflicting doctrines that would render that "choice" hypocritical. No, everyone who knows me would hold that choice as a farce.

I respect Billy Graham. Could he choose to be a Pagan?

TB, you probably know more about the Big Bang than I do. But I think your assessment is as I remember it when I last read about it.

So you are saying your "DNA" prevents you from choosing to believe?

I am saying it is not a "choice". To believe or not to believe; to have faith or not to have faith is based on convictions. You stated, "Faith is a choice." I think there are folks on CT like DeepSouth and Bigfoot who can do better than I can at addressing it from the Christian persective. I would bet they will tell you, they did not "just" choose to have faith. They have faith because of their convictions. I hope one of them helps us out here.

 

[rockridgecattle]

Backwards....

I don't have faith because of my convictions

I am convicted because of my faith. My convictions are alive because of faith in the one who paid my sin debt. A debt I could not pay.

Here we are talking about science, Big Bang theory etc. we forgot the most simple thing. The faith of a child. This is where it starts. Even as an adult, it's child like faith knowing that God loved me enough to send His only Son to die. To be the sacraficial lamb to payn mine, yours, our sin debt. Only in this belief can we be reconciled to a sinless righteous God.

Faith of a child! Knowing there is nothing I can do to save my wretched soul. Christ did it all

Keep it simple. The choice is do I believe a righteous God loved me enough to reconcile me to Him?...or not.

 

[rockridgecattle]

Sometimes I hate lightbulb moments

The choice is not dependant on convictions but rather....

The choice is, do I believe I am a sinful person who can do nothing to merit God's love and grace?

Or

Do I wish to remain in my pride?

Submission to God vs the prideful self

Finally us believing or not believing in God or prayer does not change the facts. We have a lifetime to make the choice. Sadly, we just don't know how long that lifetime is.

 

[inyati13]

Backwards....

I don't have faith because of my convictions

I am convicted because of my faith. My convictions are alive because of faith in the one who paid my sin debt. A debt I could not pay.

Here we are talking about science, Big Bang theory etc. we forgot the most simple thing. The faith of a child. This is where it starts. Even as an adult, it's child like faith knowing that God loved me enough to send His only Son to die. To be the sacraficial lamb to payn mine, yours, our sin debt. Only in this belief can we be reconciled to a sinless righteous God.

Faith of a child! Knowing there is nothing I can do to save my wretched soul. Christ did it all

Keep it simple. The choice is do I believe a righteous God loved me enough to reconcile me to Him?...or not.

Alright. I resign these discussions to those who are grounded in the Christian faith. The information I wanted to express is "simply" this: For me, I cannot make the "choice" to have faith in a doctrine that my mind and heart do not embrace any more than I could convert to being a homosexual. And I have no problem with anyone who is homosexual. I totally lack faith in all the divine explanations for our Universe. And least we forget, not all faiths who embrace a divine explanation for the Universe are Christian. Must be some who are on the wrong path. Boy will they be disappointed.

 

[inyati13]

Sometimes I hate lightbulb moments

The choice is not dependant on convictions but rather....

The choice is, do I believe I am a sinful person who can do nothing to merit God's love and grace?

Or

Do I wish to remain in my pride?

Submission to God vs the prideful self

Finally us believing or not believing in God or prayer does not change the facts. We have a lifetime to make the choice. Sadly, we just don't know how long that lifetime is.

Sorry, we were both making hay at the same time.

 

[TexasBred]

Backwards....

I don't have faith because of my convictions

I am convicted because of my faith. My convictions are alive because of faith in the one who paid my sin debt. A debt I could not pay.

Here we are talking about science, Big Bang theory etc. we forgot the most simple thing. The faith of a child. This is where it starts. Even as an adult, it's child like faith knowing that God loved me enough to send His only Son to die. To be the sacraficial lamb to payn mine, yours, our sin debt. Only in this belief can we be reconciled to a sinless righteous God.

Faith of a child! Knowing there is nothing I can do to save my wretched soul. Christ did it all

Keep it simple. The choice is do I believe a righteous God loved me enough to reconcile me to Him?...or not.

Rock...faith has little meaning to someone who does not even accept that God exists. As Inyati said he trusts, believes or perhaps "has faith in" what he can weigh, measure or see..(paraphrased). One can preach and pray all day but final decision is up to the individual. Free Will.

 

[Ouachita]

Anybody ever read Lee Strobels "The Case for Christ"?