Faith is the one thing atheists go crazy about

@LeopoldBloom
Faith isn’t completed by human effort but “whosoever believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life”
That is speaking of Faith in Jesus.

@Pfuzylogic Are you saying God bestows faith on people? What makes him choose some but not others? That would be the Calvinist view, that God decided before he created the universe which souls he would save and which ones he would condemn, so we are powerless to choose.

@LeopoldBloom Rhat is why I included That is in the key scripture of John 3:16. God is not going to trap anyone out of salvation rather he gave his life me and only Son so that Salvation would be available for all. First the Jew and then the Gentile.
No one is forgotten!

@Pfuzylogic OK, but my point is that no one can force themselves to believe something, especially if what we are asked to believe seems absurd or incoherent to us.

@LeopoldBloom The scripture addresses exactly what the Word of God accomplished in Isaiah 55:11

@Pfuzylogic Again, no argument there, but that's not what we're discussing. Obviously, Jesus, or at least the words people attributed to him, have had a vast and profound effect on the world. But that doesn't address individual belief.

Also, Isaiah wasn't talking about Jesus specifically, since he hadn't been born yet. He was talking about scripture in general. That same verse could apply to Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Marxism, or any other major religion.

@LeopoldBloom Not to be argumentative but I seriously doubt that Isaiah a Prophet of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would include other religions from a Word inspired by the Ruach Kadesh.
Jesus stated in John 8:58

@Pfuzylogic I'm not trying to be argumentative either, but Isaiah was talking about Judaism, since Christianity didn't exist yet at that time.

We're getting sidetracked. The discussion is about how belief is not subject to free will. No one can choose what they believe. This is easily demonstrated.

@LeopoldBloom That is why I shared the second part of John 3:16 with “whosoever”

@Pfuzylogic Yes, I get that. It says anyone who believes is saved. What I'm saying is that belief is not subject to free will. So God's love is limited to those who believe in him. A truly merciful God would also love unbelievers. But a God with this level of mercy is beyond our ability to imagine. We can only imagine a limited God, patterned on ourselves, who only loves those who love him and rejects those who don't.

If it is better to be saved than not saved, God should want what's best for us, even if we don't know ourselves.

@LeopoldBloom I take the Rorah at its word and the Adam and Eve existed and were made perfect. I do believe the sin of Adam separated him from God’s presence and that there was a flood where Boah in holy fear built an Ark to save his family from the waters. I also believe that God led Abraham away from the home of his Dather to a new land and promise.

@Pfuzylogic Again, that's great, you're free to believe anything you like. But you're not addressing my point that belief is not subject to free will. You can't force yourself to not believe the Adam and Eve story, can you?

Moving on, I have a problem with the Noah story (other than the lack of evidence for a worldwide flood. Genesis 7:7-9 says "And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah." Genesis 7:13-16 continues, "On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in."

So far, so good. Noah built the ark, and took on board a male and female of every animal, bird, and insect, including, I assume, Australian animals who were somehow included despite the distance. Genesis 7:23 then says "Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark."

We know that plants are alive (and that plants "breathe," therefore, in the year the floodwaters covered the earth, all of the plants on earth died. We know that land plants can't survive underwater for that long. We also know that Noah didn't bring seeds of plants onto the ark, because the Bible doesn't mention them. So how did plants survive? Any answer requires speculation, as there are no clues in the text.

This proves that the Noah story was made up, and the author simply forgot to mention plants. The dove does return with an olive branch, but that's impossible, as olive trees cannot survive for long underwater. Miracles are one thing, but inconsistency is something else.

@LeopoldBloom I would push back on the impossibility of plant life to continue. Even now we discover the possibility of flood gates with 5x the amount of water of the oceans underneath in the earth. I am not a botanist but don’t see the impossibility of seeds or bulbs if you will continuing dormant until the waters recede, But again with God in control the Bible is not just a narrative. What I find incredible and personally true is the provenance from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Jesus and the count of the generations.

@Pfuzylogic If you were a botanist, you'd know that most plants and seeds can't survive a year under what would have been brackish water (fresh rainwater mixing with saline sea water). That also conflicts with the verse that clearly said everything not on the ark died. It didn't say "with the exception of plants." If there was a worldwide flood, all of the plants on earth would have died. Since they clearly didn't (the "Pando" stand of quaking aspen in Utah is around 80,000 years old), that provides objective proof that the flood story is fictional.

Moving on, there's no evidence for the provenance from Adam to Jesus outside of the Bible. I agree that it's "incredible" (lacking credulity). If it's "personally true" for you, that's great, but it's unreasonable to expect anyone else to accept it just because you find it meaningful.

@LeopoldBloom
I do find it meaningful. In a scientific manner the floods did not need to be brackish considering there are 5x the waters of the ocean underneath.
I am confident that there is a God and that he made himself known to Abraham and the following generations. I do believe that Jesus was born from a virgin and conceived by the Holy Spirit and that the universe was spoken into existence.
All of this would include an omnipotent God, a God that is holy.

@Pfuzylogic If the oceans were 5x the volume of the rain, that would be very salty water and even more harmful to any seeds or plants underneath them. I'm sure you've heard of "salting the fields," where an army adds salt to the soil to prevent the enemy from growing crops. The same concept would apply here.

I'm aware that you're a believer, you don't have to convince me of that. What I'm looking for is objective proof of God's existence, and I'm only finding the opposite. If you "feel God's presence in your heart," that's fantastic but expecting me to believe on that basis would be like me dropping a heavy weight on my foot and wondering why you don't feel anything.

@LeopoldBloom You have voiced several arguments that I never stated.
I never said the more expansive water was salt water. It is fresh,
I will go “God” mode in my knowledge of God just like science does all the time especially with big bang.
I have not seen anything in the Bible that is demonstratively false. We are talking less than 10000 years and the best people have come up with is that dinosaurs weren’t with Adam.
I’m not convinced that is true.

@Pfuzylogic What evidence do you have that the ocean used to be fresh water?

The Big Bang is a model that explains observations such as the cosmic microwave background radiation. The alternative explanation of goddidit may be satisfying, but doesn't explain anything. If future observations conflict with the Big Bang, the model will be revised or replaced. This doesn't happen with religious theories that aren't based on observation, but on feelings. There has never been a scientific theory that was later proven wrong by religious discoveries.

You might not see anything in the Bible that is false, but I do. What I'm looking for is objective proof of God's existence. Until I see that, the default position is to not believe it exists, same as not believing in the existence of the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy without objective proof.

@LeopoldBloom
I will share with you what I told my daughter on the existence of Jesus as Lord when she found out Santa wasn’t real.I told her
“I never said that Santa was more important than myself.”
As far as proof or evidence of God’s existence. I go to
Hebrews 11:6

@Pfuzylogic A verse in a book isn't proof. I'm asking for objective proof. Also, since faith is not subject to free will, people shouldn't be held responsible for not believing in something when they're incapable of doing so. That would be as unfair as saying people should only be saved if they have blue eyes or can play basketball like Michael Jordan.

No theist has ever been able to answer this:

An omniscient God would know what evidence I need to believe in him.
An omnipotent God would be able to provide that evidence.
A benevolent God would want to.

Therefore, since that evidence has not yet been provided, either God is not omniscient, omnipotent, or benevolent - or, he doesn't exist and the point is moot.

@LeopoldBloom We tend to attack God when there is no fear of him. I couldn’t imagine life without God.
You haven’t established that.
My response was to demonstrate that in scripture that you need to get beyond personal subjective observation to get any real u derstandi g of theGod of Abram. Wait that was changed to Abraham for some reason.

@Pfuzylogic I can't attack something that doesn't exist. I'm just countering the idea of God, which isn't the same thing. Your inability to imagine life without God applies only to you. Others could say the opposite.

I can't force myself to believe something I consider incorrect or absurd. But we can test this very easily. If your faith in God is subject to free will, then please demonstrate by forcing yourself to not believe in God for five minutes. If you're unable to do this, then we've demonstrated that belief is not a matter of choice.

@LeopoldBloom
You are full of all kinds of tricks today. The Holy Bible explains why that isn’t possible.
I suggest fixing it a serious read.
Romans 8:38-39

Something from the Old Testament is my very favorite scripture.
Song of Solomon 8:6
As soon as God saves you from condemnation You become baptized with the fire of the Holy Soirit and your body becomes a Temple to God.

@Pfuzylogic It's not a trick. It's an honest question. If we can choose to believe, then you should be able to demonstrate that. if you can't choose to not believe, it's unreasonable to expect me to choose to believe, especially without evidence.

Quoting Bible verses to someone who thinks it's fiction would be like me quoting passages from Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

Can you provide proof of God's existence without quoting the Bible or describing your own feelings?

@LeopoldBloom
I could give you hundreds to thousands of examples in my own life how God worked in it.
I do get concerned because as someone that was raised from the instruction of the Bible, to compare it to fiction is absurd.
For you it is at least historic and describes the passage of the Jewish people.