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The Forum > Article Comments > On faith > Comments

On faith : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 13/9/2018

I waited for God, or Jesus, to speak to me. No message has ever come to me from on high.

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To Yuyutsu. I don't go seeking out ghost stories or ghosts in general. But I have asked people in conversation "what are some of the stranger things you've seen." I've heard a few stories that are more on the strange side, and in that context, there's been at least two unexplained help kind of thing. One who attributes it to God helping, another one who because of it questions if God or someone exists up there, but doesn't agree with religions. At least a few had a kind of a ghost story kind of thing to share. Dreams and weird predictions have come up, as well as a more casual occurance of talking about someone and having them walk in or call around that same time.

The question when I had asked it before was mostly because I think there are strange and awe inspiring things that happen to everyone. Too many things that are unexplained to be counted as nothing, and so far most everyone has at least one story of a strange occurance to stand in wonder about. But to ease your concern, I'm not looking for ghosts, and I agree with you that the bible teaches to stay away from that kind of thing.
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To Banjo Peterson. That God has no beginning or end is in the bible. I would also assume that because of this, most church denominations adopt a doctrine to state that God always was and always will be. Here are a few verses to consider that this is in the bible.

Psalms 90:2.
"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

Isaiah 44:6.
"I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."

In several verses in Revelations Jesus and God are both called the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. Revelations 1:8, 1:17-18, 21:6-7, and Revelations 22:13.
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 5:18:02 PM
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Dear Not_Now.Soon,

.

Thank you for indicating that various verses in the bible are the source of your belief that “God has no beginnings, but instead is eternal”.

As I pointed out in my previous post, interpreting “eternal” as meaning “without a beginning” does not correspond to the OED definition of the term which is “without an end”. For good measure, the authors of these verses you cite employ the term to cover both the past (“without a beginning”) and the future (“without an end”).

By means of this linguistic contortion, they very astutely create a conundrum that is perfectly unintelligible to the human mind (how can anything exist if it never began to do so ?).

As nobody has ever risked exposing himself or herself to contradiction and ridicule by attempting to describe God in any comprehensible detail, this unintelligible conundrum of his eternal nature is a perfect fit.

Subsequently, all the devotes are required to do is to believe. There is no other solution. It’s written in Scripture !

They can be reassured that “by their faith they will be saved” !

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Thursday, 27 September 2018 8:07:59 AM
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The E term exist is in present tense, OED. It doesn't have the connotation "from it's beginning of existence". It doesn't have the gloss of " existing and beginning within the last 4.6 billion years of post big-bang". It could be valid to say the singularity was derived from a state prior to that disturbance of space-time . Humans can conceive that. A different time-frame is implicit .
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 27 September 2018 9:26:40 AM
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Dear Banjo,

I don't quite see how this lesson in cosmology which you wrote to me, fascinating as it may be, fits into the topic.

Now you raised another fascinating question: "can things exist which have no beginning?". One cannot, however, apply this question to God because God is not a thing.

Let's see:

Space? OK, unintuitive as it may be, the theory of relativity claims that space had a beginning.
Time? again, relativity claims that time had a beginning, but it is mind-boggling to think of the time-before-time...
Laws of physics? One could claim that "before" there was a universe there were no laws either, but then it is really bewildering, by which laws was the universe formed...
Laws of logic and mathematics? ?
Existence? Was there existence "before" anything existed?

For me, I won't lose sleep over those issues because I know that space, time, the laws of physics, the laws of logic and mathematics and existence itself, are all illusions and all there truly is, is God. What is your take on the beginning-or-otherwise of the above?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 27 September 2018 12:18:30 PM
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While it was previously believed that a fish's memory span was only three seconds, scientists now believe they can remember for up to five months
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 27 September 2018 1:55:25 PM
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Dear Nick,

Well you know how this was discovered?

It's that man who ordered a fish in a restaurant, but instead of eating it he was placing his ear above the fish.

So the waiter was curious and finally asked him what he was doing:
- well I was just talking with the fish!
? and what were you talking about?
- I asked the fish about how life is in the deep blue sea, but he answered me that he can hardly remember because he wasn't there for over five months...
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 27 September 2018 2:16:09 PM
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