Quote:
Originally Posted by fdpaq0580
Don't apologize, I thought you expressed yourself quite well. And don't worry about over crowding in Heaven. According to one old tv evangelist, only 144,000 Kings and priests are all that are getting in.
"Seem to indicate a huge lack of FAITH." Do not confuse faith with religion. Just because one does not exhibit your brand of Christian faith, does not mean they are without faith. I, for example, have absolute faith that when I am dead, the energy in this body which powers my brain which creates the sense of self, or ME, will be dispersed into the ether and I will be no more. The best sleep never known by a living person. Yes, "never".
Even atheists have faith that God does not exist. I consider myself a "spiritual agnostic". My way of saying that I don't believe in God or any god(s) in the traditional sense. But, I do believe or suspect that there is something more, unknowable, inconceivable, without thought or emotion for us, unlike the gods of human religions.
As for accepting God's gift, I say "Thank You". But I don't think he is likely there to hear. And, after all, a true "gift" is something given without thought of reward, praise or even thanks. A true gift comes with No Strings Attached!
Peace! í ½í¹
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Interesting post.
For me, the existence of the watch proves the existence of a watchmaker. I accept the idea that the Creator exists/existed because the more scientific advancements and discoveries we make, the more those advancements indicate to me that we, as with all life on this planet, are NOT an accident. The proof? I read recently that one molecule of human DNA contains something like 215 petabytes of information. One petabyte is equal to about 500 BILLION pages of typed text. The Library of Congress contains only (only?) about 20 petabytes of information. ONE molecule of our DNA contains more data than eleven equivalent Libraries of Congress. I have a hard time envisioning such a number. And that molecule, aside from being just a blueprint, is also in effect a computer program designed to run for about 70-80 years before self-terminating--and each individual "computer" is that of a person unique from all the billions of other "computers" both dead and alive--well, to believe that all of that happened by accident beggars the imagination.
But that is only half. The other half, that of salvation and the assumption into an eternal life in a place with an all-good and all-caring God, is based purely on faith, and no direct proof of that "place" exists. I do however think that there is indirect evidence: miraculous events that cannot be explained by science, for example, or of lives changed upon acceptance of a benevolent higher power. That fact has been part of AA since it's inception: the second step of the 12-step program follows the step where the addict admits that he or she is powerless, but in the second step acknowledges that reliance on a higher power is needed before the addiction is controlled. AA is no surefire cure, but many, many lives have been changed for the better because of it.
We have no hard answers, but when one looks at the evidence, the existence of a benevolent watchmaker is hard to refute.