@evograd you are hitting on a legitimate issue. It is called the “scandal of particularity”. You may be right to be scandalized.
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Then what’s all that about faith vs. works? Also, I’m not sure what “granular” means to you.
You asked (later) about children. If you are talking about life and death, the message has to be simple. Most will agree that this distillation of it is simple enough and close enough to the most important aspects of the gospel message itself. Beyond that, most of us will agree that you can dig deeper and find much genuine agreement regarding the rest of scripture. But remember the conditions listed above regarding the time, languages, genre, purpose, etc. There is a lot about which people can argue. It doesn’t mean that we generally don’t agree about the significance of most of it.
I agree completely with this comparison. This is one of the things that I have enjoyed learning here. It seems that in the creation of the universe, the creation and evolution of life, and the revelation of God, there is the perfect amount of indications of his presence to warrant consideration, but not enough to be obvious. At the end of the day, it comes down to the personal relationship. Once you have that, you know for sure, but the act of faith itself is very much a step into the unknown.
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From my perspective, you might as well ask me to seek Porky Pig. Before anyone seeks, there really ought to be some kind of indication that the thing being sought might exist. Now what sort of God will make me seeking him a requirement yet discourage me from seeking him by convincing me that he doesn’t exist?
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I like to think that I’m pretty open, but at the same time I’m quite sure I have plenty of subconscious factors that would make me reluctant to believe in such a being. Pride probably being the most significant one. I also feel like I already have some pretty good reasons for disbelieving right now, so I’m certainly not “on a knife’s edge”, reading to “fall” into Christianity. That’s not to say that I don’t find aspects of Christianity (and other religions, for that matter) appealing. I can scarcely imagine anything I’d like more than for my loved ones to have some kind of eternal blissful life in heaven, for example. So answer your question, I’m probably not “open” at the moment, and I’m fine with that in terms of not receiving a supernatural revelation. For now I’m just asking question about your guys’ beliefs.
I’m also quite sure that I was much more “open” as a child. Perhaps up until the age of ~10-12, I would fairly regularly “talk/pray” to God in times of anguish. Nothing ever came back, even when I asked with the naivety of a child. That’s why I asked about children. Perhaps I should also pre-emptively say that I’m not “bitter” because God didn’t answer me or anything like that. At no point did the lack of reply/intervention cause me suffering - I don’t want to give the impression that I had some kind of traumatic childhood by the way - I certainly didn’t!
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Most religions present explanations why others aren’t believers. And to be honest, it’s a necessary axiom of many forms of Christianity that everyone had a legitimate chance to accept the Christian notion of God but didn’t. To suppose that others could legitimately and reasonably see things otherwise runs counter to this core belief/axiom and therefore other explanations need to be invoked for this failure. And so, I’ve since become less combative of people’s claims that God sufficiently avails himself to man, for these people cannot believe otherwise. At least not unless they’re willing to possibly give up on more critical core religious doctrines.
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The Ironic Designer wishes to be known through faith, not proof. Probably.
Plus humor. Lots of humor.
I have no problem with how God chooses to reveal himself because he is God. Is it easy to explain? No. Is it challenging to understand? Yes. But, we simply don’t know the best way for God to reveal himself to us. This may be the very best way.
The requirement is only for faith. You asked earlier about seeking (I cannot find the post now) and how one does so. It may sound simplistic, but yes. It is entirely appropriate to stand in a forest and scream to God that you cannot see, hear or find him and that you want him to reveal himself to you.
In Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby talks about waiting for God and knowing if something is from him. He says in order to know, do three things: 1. Pray, 2. Read God’s Word, 3. See what happens next. We confidently state that God is personal and will talk to you. We confidently state that God’s word is living and active and can speak into your life across time. We confidently state that God is active in this world and can cause simple things to happen that are not in themselves miraculous, but in context with your question are validating that he is there.
This is a good way to know, personally.
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It is hard to unsee something. It is hard to unknow someone.
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I would be particularly hard to unsee me wearing a Speedo swimsuit. But you’d desperately want to try, perhaps resorting to electroshock therapy.
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Do you understand why this is an unsatisfying answer to many people? Such reasoning can be used to shut down any line of questioning, basically making Christianity completely impossible to argue against. Literally any question or objection can be answered with “It’s complicated, God knows best”.
But why is that a requirement? It doesn’t seem to have been a requirement for those people Jesus met while he was alive. In fact Jesus supposedly went out of his way to prove to people around him that he was indeed God/the son of God.
That’s another question I have - what does you mean when you say God “talks” to you? Like a literal voice in your head that you can converse with? A “feeling” that washes over you? I’ve never heard it well described.
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But there are plenty of former Christians who seem to have done just that. While they were in the faith they were adamant that they “knew” God, but afterwards say that they realise now that they actually didn’t. Do you believe that these people really never “knew” God, they were just fooling themselves for however many years?
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Hahahaha… precisely why we moderate the profile pictures here! 
Even without the photo…I still can’t unsee @Argon in a speedo. Yikes!
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Yes, I understand. I’m answering honestly. Clearly not to shut down the dialog, but some things about God are mysterious. I don’t accept them because I accept mystery, per se, but because I accept the resurrection itself, and the person of Jesus Christ personally. So, while not satisfying (and I understand and agree) my answers are honest.
What is often said is that people either choose for or they choose against. Faith is a choice for. If God paid your way in, do you accept or do you say, no thanks, I’ve got this. That’s what faith is to me. It is the step toward him, saying, yes. But, for me at least, there has been a profound response as well.
This is another great question. Who can know, really? Was their experience real, but they took their eye off their faith? Who knows what will happen later?
This is a deep conversation. Thanks very much for allowing it to take place!
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Sorry, I missed this one. I think that this is different for people. I have, three times, heard something in my head… it was not a sound, per se, but it was physical. It shocked me. The first time was when I was pondering the story of Abraham and Isaac, and God provided the ram. My first born was on my lap and I was thinking about how God could ever have asked anyone to sacrifice their own. I clearly heard, in my head, “… because I did so myself.” The next time was ten or so years later, when I was being called out of a leadership position. He said, “It’s time.” The final time, I was lying in bed, feeling sorry for myself because I had suffered a collision at 50 mph on an ATV… I (this is pretty funny) crashed into a porta-potty at 50 mph… no, there was no one inside. I was asking God, how could he have put that thing in my way. In my head, I heard him say, “What was behind it?” I thought, and realized that there was a wire cattle fence immediately behind it. Had I not hit the porta-potty, I would have crashed into a wire fence, at 50 mph.
Beyond that, I don’t hear words. If you read my comments above about Experiencing God, I do still try to use that approach, because its easy to get a feeling about one particular thing, and ascribe it to God. But, if you pray, read the word, and random people begin to say the same or similar things, it’s much easier to recognize.
These are my experiences. I’m certain that 100 people would have 100 others.
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@evograd, don’t take my view as representative of all Christians. But personally, I’ve never had a clear-cut, supernatural personal experience from God that caused me to convert or stay a Christian. God has never spoken to me directly like a voice in my head or even a dream. I’ve explored a lot of the arguments for or against the existence of God, and I have read reasonable arguments on both sides, so I don’t think they are undeniably compelling. You can still have some reasonable doubt.
My experiences have led me to the conviction that 1) encountering and experiencing God is not a rational experience, but something deeper - perhaps existential is a better word, and 2) looking for God to reveal himself personally to you in some unique way isn’t always going to give results. Sure, it seems to happen to some people. But we don’t get to dictate the terms of God’s engagement with us. In any case, personal dreams and visions are not infallible - many visions contain truth claims which are contradictory with each other, which is why we are exhorted to test them according to Scripture (1 John 4:1).
It’s also not clear to me if you would definitely believe if God appeared in a vision to you, saying “@evograd, I exist and I want you to believe in Me.” You could simply attribute that as a hallucination - a result of psychological suggestion mixing with existential anxiety. I’m sure this is how you currently explain the experiences of people who already claim that they’ve experienced the Divine. The same would be if you watched a miracle happen. So why would an experience happening to you be any different?
On the contrary, God has already provided a far more powerful means through which he communicates with us, which is through his Word - the most authoritative form of revelation. God communicates with us far more reliably and frequently through the experience of reading the Word. We learn more about God and feel his presence better the more we dig deeper into his Word.
Another way that God communicates with us is through his representatives on Earth, who bear his Image - fellow humans. Of course Christians have had far from a stellar track record in this. But there are so many stories of atheists converting to belief not because of reading some argument for the existence of God, or finding scientific evidence of miracles, but because of interacting with a Christian who truly conveyed through their words and actions what it meant to follow Jesus.
If you read the gospels closely, it gives you a far different story. Jesus never performed his miracles for the pure purpose of demonstrating his power. In fact, he outright refused so when the Devil asked him, twice (Matthew 4:1-11). Several times, when Jesus healed someone, he asked them not to tell anyone else about it (e.g. Matthew 9:27-31). Rather, Jesus’ miracles are more often performed out of compassion (e.g. Matthew 20:30-34, Luke 7:12-15), and/or a response to pre-existing faith. In fact, in his own hometown, Jesus did not do any miracles because of their lack of faith (Mark 6:4-6).
Even after his resurrection, which is the greatest miracle of them all, Jesus didn’t then go to the skeptical Romans or Jewish leaders saying, “I told you so!” Instead, he chose only to appear to those who were his disciples and devoted followers, with a few notable exceptions (such as Paul). This seems to reinforce that whatever kind of faith that Jesus wants you to have, it’s not one which is based as a response to an undeniable, airtight rational argument. Instead, Jesus wants you to trust him first, and only then will you fully encounter him. It’s a relationship based on love and trust, not proof.
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I think God is confused on that point. It’s “Never order a subordinate to do something you wouldn’t do yourself,” not “Always order subordinates to do thing you’ve done yourself.”
So God intervened to put a porta-potty there in order to save your life? I hope you realize how very self-important that sounds. And weird too. What about all the other people who don’t get porta-potties and die? Why don’t airplanes ever crash into outdoor piles of pillows? And if he wanted to save you, wouldn’t it be simpler just to prevent the accident, maybe even use his mysterious voice before rather than after the accident?
I’m sorry, but this voice of God seems to be just you talking to yourself and rationalizing.
But you wouldn’t if God wanted to be convincing. He could easily make a demonstration that he knew would work for you. He’s omnipotent and omniscient, after all.
Believe first, evidence later? This seems calculated to repel anyone who believes in rationality and evidence. On purpose, do you suppose?
But he did not order a subordinate to do something he wouldn’t do himself … He said to not harm the boy and provided the sacrifice himself, instead.
Right. Well, I’m sorry that my honest sharing sounds self-important. And weird.
No need to be so defensive. Your honest sharing was used to make a point, and I responded to the point. Considered without prior belief, they don’t hold together.