I do not understand you Peter.

On a he one hand you've got a good grasp of some theological subjects for transforming the bible into themes that can effect us each day in any sitution. However, in spite of this constration of applying the bible in a soul searching way, you still manage to not believe any of it. The way you describe it is that they were nessassery lies to make a theological point. Gifts from God but given by man.

Again and again I must ask where your foundation of faith is. And if it is in God, then why the doubt? Why the games of smoke and mirrors? Why would God play a song of lies just to make theological points, when He can do the things described in the bible without making it up? If it a gift from God but none of it ever happened, then God lied.

Which again brings me back to the question, where is your foundation of faith? I worry about you Peter. I greatly disagree with you on some points. But more so I worry about you.

Paul once write in a letter telling the people that he did not come with smart sounding words as his witness, but instead the power of God as Paul's witness, justifying what he preached and taught.

It's from a few glimpses of God acting in my life and the lives around me, that I've come to terms that nothing is impossible for God. It's a foundation that while unstudied in theology, does not rob me to understand theological points. No instead it grants great respect and faith to God for His truths, wisdom, love, and sovereignty.

I hope and pray one day you can come to God on simular terms. Find Him not just in the wisdom that can be studied out of the bible, but also in the reality and magnitude of who He is.

//that I've come to terms that nothing is impossible for God.//

Can he create a rock so big he can't lift it, then?

In a single galaxy, the milky way, there are more stars than there are grains of sand n all the beaches of the world. And circling around those stars are very big rocks some would describe as planets Toni.

Our's being the third rock from the sun. And on its surface microscopic life forms clawing around like blind ants trying to harm/kill the others before they themselves are destroyed.

And only because of inculcated indoctrination from early childhood!

Hate has to be learned, aided and abetted by falsehoods and fantasy, that only serves the interests of the power junkies in our midst. {Tyrants, dictators polleis and jesuits?}

Energy can be neither created or destroyed merely transformed. The entire universe including you and I are part of that unified field of energy, which because it can neither be created nor destroyed, needed to exist in some form before the allegorical big bang!

My best rationalization is as part of eternal dark matter/energy. As for big rocks and God lifting them? Where would he or she or? lift them to? Into other really big rocks or a black hole? And for what purpose?

Can the universe think, dream, love fantasize? Well, you and I can and we are an integral part of that unified field of energy called the universe.

The fact that we exist at all required the death and rebirth of countless stars countless times in timed sequence to make a periodic table from the first element, hydrogen. And part way through that periodic table is carbon and consequential carbon-based oxygen-breathing life forms.

To even suggest that the entire universe created itself from nothing is not only fanciful but absurd beyond belief! In order for the universe to have been assembled in the unimaginable size of a Galaxy filled universe, one has to believe either intelligent design or magic. Because from nothing you get nothing!
Alan B.

Not_Now.Soon,
I am moved that you worry about me. However, I must assert some major points.
As I noted, the gospel writers were intent on communicating to their own communities. This led them to sculpt their narratives to purpose. As readers in late modernity we find ourselves at some distance to the original writers of biblical texts. Firstly, we live in a scientific age that, for good reasons, does not recognise the miraculous as the breaking of natural laws. This makes biblical texts difficult for us. However, it is often the case that writers use the miraculous to point to a theological reality. For example, Jesus is present to the Church as a living body.

Secondly, our place in modernity has made us cling to facts. " If it cannot be proved to have actually happened then it is untrue." This is a new attitude in the theological and hermeneutical landscape that relies on Enlightenment rationalism. The problem is that it cripples our interpretation of texts because we insert a different understanding accessible only to us.

In writing my recent article I am relying on established Biblical knowledge that is pretty well a hundred years old.

I would say to you that you should let go of the idolatry of Enlightenment so that you can see Scripture as it really is.

//that I've come to terms that nothing is impossible for God.//

Not_Now.Soon,
He appears to have difficulty in giving us more evidence of this so that we find it less difficult to understand & make us truly believe in what the Bible states. Or, are young children already so guilty to deserve illness & misery whereas politicians, Judges & other megalomaniacs live to old age ?
One side of me tells me that it'd be wiser to have faith but the other side tells me I might be taken for a ride.

To Individual.

What proof should you like? What proof would you find acceptable? What I have to offer are from my life. Nothing more, nothing less. They big to me because I can tell the difference between regular everyday life, and the few times when God acted in my life. Some were answered prayers (ask for something and God gives it), another was a response to prayer (ask for something and God gave something else, but still delivered the heart of my need).

If none of that counts as proof, then I can only say for you to search for God yourself and see if you can find Him. The only other points I have are from growing in my faith, trusting the wisdom of the bible and trying to apply it.

...However, if you ask for proof before considering to search for God on your own, then I doubt I'm much help. I've tried this conversation witha few others. Most ask for proof without really wanting to look for it, or even consider it. Or they want a burden of proof that I don't have. All I can offer is based on what I've seen and experienced.

I can offer a few other things other people have shared for how God has been in their lives. However, if someone is unwilling to listen to what I've seen, they usually are even more unwilling to listen to what I've heard from others. That limits what proof is available, because they are unwilling to hear or even consider the possibility of testomies of God being real.

If you are intreasted I can give any detail your interested in. If not, that's ok too. There's no reason for me to push and put my life under scrunity for those who don't want to hear it.

My one recommendation though is regardless of wanting to hear my experiences or not, is to search for God on your own. Be willing to at least seek the truth on your own. If I can find God so can you. I'm sure of it.