: Through faith, you perceive and see the spiritual which results in the conclusion that we are more precious and valuable in the eyes of a creator. Subjective; not objective. Since you can't actually provide third-party confirmation of your perceptions, any such conclusion is your own personal conclusion, not a necessary Universal Truth.
A Moslem would be equally entitled to say what you've just said and put it all down to Allah; a Parsee could say the same about Zoroaster.
: That there is a highter meaning to life than what we perceive while walking in the spiritually numb valleys of it.
Again, an entirely subjective statement. Which is just fine for you to hold, but cannot be inflicted on anyone else.
: I guess love, joy, pain, deception, truth, etc. doesn't really exist either since we can't prove it.
Nonsense. What you can't prove is that human emotions are anything more than human-created.
: Maybe the question isn't whether there is proof or not the question is, if he is real, would we want to accept him into our reality and way of thinking.
So if you don't believe in "proof", how can you hold the Bible up as anything other than allegory?
Your extremely relativistic statement is in direct contradiction to the supposed infallibility of the Bible.
I'm not saying I object to theological relativism; but it does rather make a literal interpretation of the Bible impossible.
Do you believe the Bible to be infallible?
: So all this witty, banter back and forth whether God is real or not does nothing but build walls of pride and ignorance.
Not at all. There are states in the USA teaching the story of the Creation as actual truth, despite it not having been mentioned prior to the Deuteronomist movement in c.700 B.C. in Israel.
To do this, they are trying to hinder the progress of a useful and flourishing branch of science; evolutionary biology; and their methods are the faulty use of logic and science; see Robert's posts for a typical example.
My point is; you can never prove God. Anything that seems to constitute 'proof' of God is therefore not really proof; it is fallible and finite. The Bible, the Universe and all physical phenomena fall into this category; the realm of the physical.
So stop using the Bible, or the Universe or other physical phenomena as 'proof' of God; they can't ultimately do it.
If you believe, fine; if you don't, fine; but don't use logical terms like 'proof' around God, because God is unproveable.
: The real question is, those who have given there lives over IN FAITH to God, is the fruit of there life reflective of the fruits of the Spirit proclaimed in the Word of God. Love, patience, kindness, forbearence, honesty, humility etc. If so and if these fruits are genuine and not based in pretense, people pleasing, manipulation, wanting to appear godly etc, then we can conclude that there is something of TRUTH there.
No you can't. You can't conclude anything of the sort. It seems that way to you; but your reasoning could equally well be used to justify a belief in the Flower Fairies; and good done in their name.
: No one can prove the reality of a vision but it is through the visions and hopes of our forefathers that we reap all the inventions and comforts of today. It was not because of evalution that made the Wright Brothers design an airplane.
Yes it was. Check out the life's work of Leonardo, Cayley, Lienthal, Stringfellow and all the other people who tried to fly. Successful powered flight was the culmination of a thousand years' work in various countries.
Again, you can't put the concept of flight as "something out there waiting to be discovered"; an equally valid theory is that humanity observed birds and tried to copy them as a good way of getting around.
: And the only proof I have that He exists is within me, more than a concept or an ideal. He's more real to me than myself.
This is fine; I have absolutely no problems with your belief; as long as you don't pass it off as The Ultimate Truth. Humanity simply isn't equipped to define the Ultimate Truth; which is why I simply deal with the observable physical world.
: So lets all get real here and quit asking all the wrong questions and arguing mute points. Bottom line is this. If you've met Jesus. There's no denying He's real. If you haven't then He still remains some cool dude with good ideas who died 2000 years ago.
Yeshua was probably a cool dude; a liberal socialist in an age of brutality; but that doesn't make him God.
You can't prove God; as such, my challenge still stands.
And as such, you're in no position to say: "if you want to cast the stones at lies make sure not an embelishment, a justification, a rationalization, a manipulation never spills forth from your heart and onto your very own lips."
Because you can never prove that your personal God is everybody's personal God; thus, you should not accuse others of lies simply because they don't agree with you.
Gideon.
