You make claims of unequivocally knowing things and also tell anybody that challenges you that they simply don't have the ability to verify any of it. To me, that's hiding from being forced to answer some very tough questions.
I never made such claims. Any person who has a relationship with God and a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit can test my claims. A scientific method, however, cannot. And I have given an answer to just about everything you have asked me. Whether those answers are sufficient for you doesn't change this fact.
How can you be sure that the person who wrote that scripture wasn't imperfectly interpreting something? How can you be sure that you aren't imperfectly interpreting what you're reading?
Through faith, and through the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
You didn't answer my question at all:
If you don't hold yourself (or any of the humans who wrote the bible) to be perfect, then how can you claim that your (their) experiences and emotions constitute unequivocal proof of anything?
I believe in divine inspiration, and I believe so because I have experienced it firsthand. This is one of the examples of irrefutable evidence I referred to which I will not desecrate in this forum.
No, I write them off because there's no evidence that your experiences are reflective of anything real.
Scientific evidences, no. And why should you writing them off concern me? It is the carrying out of free will. A faith without the option to reject it is a meaningless one. And to reiterate, your actions are directly in line with the bible's description of non-believers' behavior. If anything, you are continually confirming its validity in this regard.
Exorcet just addressed this perfectly a few posts above. Anything my teachers every taught me can be verified by other people.
So can my spiritual experiences. In fact, they have been both witnessed and confirmed by others.
Again: You hold that people are inherently sinful and imperfect. At every step of the way - from the apostles seeing Jesus' resurrection, to the writing of gospels, to the translation of the bible, to your reading and understanding of the bible - how can you say that these imperfect, sinful people didn't get it wrong?
Because again, they were divinely inspired. Please refer to the book of Acts as an example of wholly ordinary men changing the face of the world's history forever through divinely inspired acts that led to the creation of the first church.
Claims are just that. Claims.
One can claim to have seen the lochness monster, but without proof (pictorial evidence) you're going to seem like a lunatic. I guess that can be transferred to the religious debate. Sure, "God" talked to you, but without proof, you're going to seem like a lunatic.
I do not waste my time with worrying about this. The course of events in my life rather decisively confirm the opposite about me.
And, reading books (Bible) is like reading on the internet. Just because you read it, or someone wrote it, doesn't necessarily mean it's true. Peoples different interpretations of words or meanings over time become used and warped into what they want it to mean.
I cannot seriously weigh the impact of random readings on the internet in comparison with that of the biblical accounts. These are actually very different things in both scale, and nature.
"A man sprinted down the road on a dreary day."
"A man ran down the street on a day when the sun shone rather dimly."
Please do not suggest that these 'interpretations' have not been scrutinized and confirmed to be in line with correct biblical teaching if they are yet still within the canon.
It seems religion or belief in God is something achieved by brainwashing.
However inaccurate.
My friend was told for the first 5 years of his life that God exists, all the religious stuff etc. and believes it because that's how he was raised.
Religion wasn't really discussed in my house for the first 5 years of my life, and I don't believe in a God or anything.
This is a rather weak argument for 'brain washing'.
Studies show that children absorb the most info at or around 5 years of age. As a result, if you're constantly told God exists at that age, you're mind is warped into believing it.
At around the age of five I learned many things. The number of these things which caused my mind to be 'warped' may be something I'll have to research further. Cookies and milk? Recess? My ABC's? All are possible suspects when dealing with a sharp development of the intellect, as you seem to suggest. Again, you have proposed a rather weak argument.
Personally, God has taught me nothing. I've taught myself much of what I know and use today, save for a few honourable exceptions where other people have taught me things.
Not once has any of that been the work of God. And since you claim he exists based on your experiences of him, surely I can claim he doesn't based on my lack of experiences?
You could do so vainly, you have free will to. Many years ago people attributed the rising and setting of the sun to misplaced sources as well.
"you are stating contradictions"
Paradox - a statement or proposition that, despite sound reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless,
logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory
Yes, I have mentioned this.
