Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

Wrong.
I am just saying that your own efforts will bear more fruit with God's help.

Which implies, Alan, I could do better if only I were a Christian: right?

[Shaker]

Which implies, Alan, I could do better if only I were a Christian: right?

Alan doesn't seem to be sure, as he's just written:

I am certain that there are many non Christians whose service towards others are better than mine.

[Shaker]

There is that: but then I'm sure he doesn't try to walk on water

I wouldn't put it past him.

[Alan Burns]

Which implies, Alan, I could do better if only I were a Christian: right?

Anyone can do better with help from God through prayer

[Shaker]

Anyone can do better with help from God through prayer

So why do we not see this reflected in the results then Alan?

When I say results I mean real world, real time results. It's a certain fact that all over the world, right now at this very moment in time, there will be a huge number - millions upon millions - of faithful, absolutely sincere believers praying for some particular outcome. They may have an illness of their own. Worse (for any parent), they may have a sick child, suffering from something truly terrible such as leukaemia. They may have a loved one who has disappeared - not a random example; this evening I've been watching a film about a man suffering terrible grief, desolation and torment at his missing son, for whom he's looking. The film is fiction but the scenario, I'm afraid, isn't.

We can multiply examples almost ad infinitum and certainly ad nauseam but the point is clear. People get their wishes, or don't, and it looks exactly like the operation of sheer random chance. The rain raineth upon the just and the unjust alike, does it not, Alan? People pray and they either get what they pray for or they don't - George Carlin famously said that he gave up praying to God and started praying to the Sun - his prayers were still answered at the same random 50-50 rate but at least he could see the Sun.

You're engaged in a desperate process of trying to "rationalise" (that's in your mind, nobody else's) the random, Alan, and I strongly suspect that you know this perfectly well. I mean - just consider that fact (for a fact it is) and consider what it says about the God you keep saying you believe in.

[Gordon]

Anyone can do better with help from God through prayer

Which again implies that no matter how 'good' I am I could be more 'good' if only I were a Christian.

I'd have to say, Alan, were I not the laid-back coolest grandfather in this here town (so my grand-daughter asserts), I could easily be offended by your sanctimonious, simplistic and pedantic bullshitting.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlunderer,

I feel this is a piss taking misrepresentation from somebody who thinks its ok to humiliate certain people. No doubt you will reply glorifying the majesty of your oratory. That may wash with some denizens of this forum but not amongst those with any decency .Please take your offence elsewhere and take some of the others with you.

Then you feel wrongly. Believe me, my disdain for "hate the sin, love the sinner" moral grotesquery is as nothing compared with actually believing that in the first place.

Happy New Year.

And to you.

[ippy]

It may seem strange to you, ippy, but to me it is the most natural way of existence imaginable.

Unfortunately.

ippy

[Alan Burns]

Which again implies that no matter how 'good' I am I could be more 'good' if only I were a Christian.

I'd have to say, Alan, were I not the laid-back coolest grandfather in this here town (so my grand-daughter asserts), I could easily be offended by your sanctimonious, simplistic and pedantic bullshitting.

But I do speak from experience of how my Christian faith has helped me to be a better person, and from numerous witnesses to how they have been inspired to do wonderful things which they maintain would not have happened if they had not become Christians.

[Shaker]

But I do speak from experience of how my Christian faith has helped me to be a better person

Did you not consider that to be a worthy enough aim in and of itself for your own good and that of those you live with and encounter without Jesus holding your hand?

and from numerous witnesses to how they have been inspired to do wonderful things which they maintain would not have happened if they had not become Christians.

Just because they 'maintain' it doesn't make it so. We've abundant evidence of that with you.

[jeremyp]

But I do speak from experience of how my Christian faith has helped me to be a better person, and from numerous witnesses to how they have been inspired to do wonderful things which they maintain would not have happened if they had not become Christians.

God told Peter Sutcliffe to kill prostitutes. I'd say his Christian faith made him a worse person.

[SusanDoris]

The more I read AB's posts, the more the name Uriah Heep springs to mind, because of their apparently consciously, , to me, cringe-making humbleness.

[Gordon]

But I do speak from experience of how my Christian faith has helped me to be a better person, and from numerous witnesses to how they have been inspired to do wonderful things which they maintain would not have happened if they had not become Christians.

So, since you have been carefully avoiding this point, are you saying that I would be a better person if I were a Christian - yes or no?

[Alan Burns]

So, since you have been carefully avoiding this point, are you saying that I would be a better person if I were a Christian - yes or no?

Of course you would.
And the whole world would be a better place if more people accepted Jesus as their saviour.

[Rhiannon]

Of course you would.
And the whole world would be a better place if more people accepted Jesus as their saviour.

Nothing rude or arrogant there. 

[Shaker]

Of course you would.
And the whole world would be a better place if more people accepted Jesus as their saviour.

Apart from those non-Christians who act better than you. The ones you mentioned yesterday, Alan, remember? In #7905 a bit further up the page.

[Gordon]

Of course you would.
And the whole world would be a better place if more people accepted Jesus as their saviour.

You forgot to add 'Hallelujah' at the end of your post, Alan.

So, in what way would my potential for altruism increase if I became a Christian - it sounds like you think I (and presumably all non-Christians) must be deficient in some way currently: so what precisely is it I'm missing?

[Shaker]

Gordon, Gordon, Gordon mate - you're trying to approach this using reason, and that's why it ain't gonna work. Alan is saying two entirely different, in fact contradictory things, so patently doesn't seem to know where he stands.

[Alan Burns]

God told Peter Sutcliffe to kill prostitutes. I'd say his Christian faith made him a worse person.

If he read the New Testament he would have found that Jesus saved a prostitute from being stoned to death.

[Shaker]

If he read the New Testament he would have found that Jesus saved a prostitute from being stoned to death.

Perhaps why Sutcliffe used a claw hammer.

[Alan Burns]

Apart from those non-Christians who act better than you. The ones you mentioned yesterday, Alan, remember? In #7905 a bit further up the page.

I said that everyone would benefit from becoming a Christian, including those who currently do better work than myself.

[Shaker]

I said that everyone would benefit from becoming a Christian, including those who currently do better work than myself.

But Gordon has already asked you in what way(s) - specfically - he would be better if a Christian, and you didn't answer the question.

[Alan Burns]

You forgot to add 'Hallelujah' at the end of your post, Alan.

So, in what way would my potential for altruism increase if I became a Christian - it sounds like you think I (and presumably all non-Christians) must be deficient in some way currently: so what precisely is it I'm missing?

The power of the Holy Spirit.

[Gordon]

Gordon, Gordon, Gordon mate - you're trying to approach this using reason, and that's why it ain't gonna work. Alan is saying two entirely different, in fact contradictory things, so patently doesn't seem to know where he stands.

Perhaps then it is more the case a certain type of Christian: not all of course, but certainly those with Alan's outlook, their faith erodes their capacity for reason and insight thereby leaving those afflicted with a tendency to fall headlong into fallacy after fallacy.

It certainly seems that way. 

[Shaker]

The power of the Holy Spirit.

Empty slogans with no factual content already, Alan? Gordon was hoping for some concrete examples of how he'd be a better person if he was a Christian - I know I was.