Running across a passage in the Bible that tells you the Bible is right and you should just believe it isn't that uncommon. I've no doubt you could find thousands of passages that not only answer your question, but say essentially the same thing.

Zadocfish2 wrote:
Cherry-picking or no, it's a frankly erroneous to look at the Bible without understanding context.

In any event, Justin, it's pointless to treat the bible as an inspiration of faith without desiring faith at least a little bit. So, the context you're talking about is that of desiring faith. That said, you can look at the bible in a host of other ways, including as a bunch of myths written by ignorant goat roasters who lacked even a scientific theory of disease-causing microbes, which is what they are empirically. The stories you hear about people who read the bible with an "open mind", and were converted, are anecdotes about people whose unstable mental states have not been ruled out. The rationales you hear about the wisdom of the ancients and primitives are just that - rationalizations. Those people would look at you on your motorcycle and think you were God.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Zadocfish2 wrote:
Cherry-picking or no, it's a frankly erroneous to look at the Bible without understanding context.

In any event, Justin, it's pointless to treat the bible as an inspiration of faith without desiring faith at least a little bit. So, the context you're talking about is that of desiring faith. That said, you can look at the bible in a host of other ways, including as a bunch of myths written by ignorant goat roasters who lacked even a scientific theory of disease-causing microbes, which is what they are empirically. The stories you hear about people who read the bible with an "open mind", and were converted, are anecdotes about people whose unstable mental states have not been ruled out. The rationales you hear about the wisdom of the ancients and primitives are just that - rationalizations. Those people would look at you on your motorcycle and think you were God.

Why would anyone of stable mental state seek to rule in stable mental states for writers of a book where virgin births and the like are afoot? The Bible is for those who appreciate the fruits they can pick from a particular sort of unstable mental state.

John Platko wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

Zadocfish2 wrote:
Cherry-picking or no, it's a frankly erroneous to look at the Bible without understanding context.

In any event, Justin, it's pointless to treat the bible as an inspiration of faith without desiring faith at least a little bit. So, the context you're talking about is that of desiring faith. That said, you can look at the bible in a host of other ways, including as a bunch of myths written by ignorant goat roasters who lacked even a scientific theory of disease-causing microbes, which is what they are empirically. The stories you hear about people who read the bible with an "open mind", and were converted, are anecdotes about people whose unstable mental states have not been ruled out. The rationales you hear about the wisdom of the ancients and primitives are just that - rationalizations. Those people would look at you on your motorcycle and think you were God.

Why would anyone of stable mental state seek to rule in stable mental states for writers of a book where virgin births and the like are afoot? The Bible is for those who appreciate the fruits they can pick from a particular sort of unstable mental state.

I'm not talking about the writers, here, as regards 'unstable'. All we know about them is that they were ignorant goat roasters. I'm talking about modern folks who understand the microbe theory of disease. The goat roasters were stably ignorant as they concocted their myths.

Sometimes the result is like Justin's, flip-flopping between faith and unfaith. I'm not saying unfaith is for everyone any more than you're saying faith is for everyone. Sometimes the faith result is like the one you get, where there isn't any particular source of inspiration of faith, and you just look wide-eyed at anything that might be pressed into service, wedged into position, because there's no limit to the amount of stuff some people need to sustain their unstable faith. You've never made any pretense of the sufficiency of the bible, only declared its usefulness.

Cito di Pense wrote:

John Platko wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

Zadocfish2 wrote:
Cherry-picking or no, it's a frankly erroneous to look at the Bible without understanding context.

In any event, Justin, it's pointless to treat the bible as an inspiration of faith without desiring faith at least a little bit. So, the context you're talking about is that of desiring faith. That said, you can look at the bible in a host of other ways, including as a bunch of myths written by ignorant goat roasters who lacked even a scientific theory of disease-causing microbes, which is what they are empirically. The stories you hear about people who read the bible with an "open mind", and were converted, are anecdotes about people whose unstable mental states have not been ruled out. The rationales you hear about the wisdom of the ancients and primitives are just that - rationalizations. Those people would look at you on your motorcycle and think you were God.

Why would anyone of stable mental state seek to rule in stable mental states for writers of a book where virgin births and the like are afoot? The Bible is for those who appreciate the fruits they can pick from a particular sort of unstable mental state.

I'm not talking about the writers, here, as regards 'unstable'. All we know about them is that they were ignorant goat roasters. I'm talking about modern folks who understand the microbe theory of disease.

We can't rule out the unstable mental states of modern folks who understand pathogens? I suppose that's true but so

The goat roasters were stably ignorant as they concocted their myths.

The Bible wouldn't be very interesting without the unstable mental states that made it what it is. It's hard to imagine what the NT might be if Jesus didn't seem to his family.

Sometimes the result is like Justin's, flip-flopping between faith and unfaith.

That is so much better than latching on the wrong state. There is no hope in errant stability. That's a lesson the good nuns and priests taught me well - the parable of the irreformable dogma - it ends badly.

I'm not saying unfaith is for everyone any more than you're saying faith is for everyone.

Faith is for everyone - even if it's just faith in unfaith.

Sometimes the faith result is like the one you get, where there isn't any particular source of inspiration of faith, and you just look wide-eyed at anything that might be pressed into service, wedged into position, because there's no limit to the amount of stuff some people need to sustain their unstable faith. You've never made any pretense of the sufficiency of the bible, only declared its usefulness.

Usefulness? Sadly, my extensive research has now concluded that the Bible is rarely useful to people - with a few noteworthy exceptional exceptions, e.g. MLK. And that's bad enough but it does seem to cause a great many people to loose faith in truth.

Zadocfish2 wrote:Cherry-picking or no, it's a frankly erroneous to look at the Bible without understanding context.

"Understanding context", however, does not mean "make up whatever interpretation you choose to suit the conclusion you fancy justifying today".

You're playing one of the typical rationalisation games that believers who want to justify belief play all the time - in this case, making an irrelevant but educated-sounding point and imagining it supports their position.

The point is this: you claim to have returned to faith because of a completely made-up interpretation of a so-called answer to prayer, where you have explicitly rejected the content of the answer, and instead chosen to focus on the timing. In doing so you're ignoring the obvious contradiction - if the timing was divine, you've no business rejecting the content. And if you're right to reject the content, then the timing isn't divine.

I put it to you that that is a ridiculous reason to believe, and that all you're doing is scratching around, making up reasons to justify your belief.

And not finding any good ones.

How old are you, by the way? Are you 26 as you say in your profile?

I was 17 when I became a Christian, and 24 when I finally came to realise what a man-made load of utter bollocks it all is. 30 years later I can just about excuse my woeful credulity on my youth and inexperience, but unless you're also very young, there's really no excuse if you want to consider yourself intellectually honest.

Proverbs 26:4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. 

Proverbs 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

I think we can all learn something fron that. Don't you?

Fenrir wrote:

Proverbs 26:4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. 

Proverbs 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

I think we can all learn something fron that. Don't you?

for reasonable values of: all

One night I dreamt I was walking through an airport. A friend of mine dreamt that same night that he saw me walking through the airport. The next day he said to me, "I had a dream last night... And you were in it."

I flippantly asked, "Was I at the airport?"

The look on his face is still fresh in my mind.

Spiritual significance? Zilch.

Therefore Cthulhu. Checkmate, atheists!

A friend and I were standing in line at a lunch counter, and he seemed lost in thought. He came out of his fog and said, "You won't believe what just popped into my mind."

Without hesitation, trying to say the funniest and most unlikely thing I could conjure up, I blurted out the name of an obscure band from the 70s.

"The Bay City Rollers".

I struggled to explain it was just a wild guess, but he still thinks I have weird powers.

Perhaps you do. Were you ever bitten by a spider in a nuclear power plant?

pelfdaddy wrote:One night I dreamt I was walking through an airport. A friend of mine dreamt that same night that he saw me walking through the airport. The next day he said to me, "I had a dream last night... And you were in it."

I flippantly asked, "Was I at the airport?"

The look on his face is still fresh in my mind.

Spiritual significance? Zilch.

The spiritual significance is whatever one makes of it. One could make Zilch or, as many do, gain some insight into aspects of their unconscious - perhaps even the friendship.

We saw a demonstration of how that works here about 32 minutes in with Emma. It's amazing what can have "spiritual significance."

Thanks John, when I used the term "spiritual significance", it was intended as shorthand for " evidence for the existence of supernatural beings ". I should have been more specific.

pelfdaddy wrote:Thanks John, when I used the term "spiritual significance", it was intended as shorthand for " evidence for the existence of supernatural beings ". I should have been more specific.

Ahhh that's different, thanks for clarifying.

Eh... still, it's hard to deny these coincidences being connected somehow. Like, it would be easier for me if I WASN'T a Christian, to the extant that a lot of this is me trying to find reasons to disbelieve that these things have significance.

But what happens is, whenever I'm feeling the most conflicted, I'll try the random verse thing and, three tries in, I'll find the same verse I quoted to myself a bit earlier, or find that a verse of the day is the same as one of the randoms I looked at. Like, think about how crazy unlikely it is for those things to happen on the same day, in the same, like, four hours. These vod things have a limited selection of verses, but the selection is easily well into the hundreds. This "verses lining up" thing has happened multiple times, often in the same day. Things that statistically improbable just cannot happen that reliably without a reason. I think it's more absurd to think of it as mere coincidence, don't you?

Nope.

What are the odds that a Christian will be thinking about scripture? Especially one who is doing some soul-searching.

What are the odds that a random passage from the bible is about scripture?

What are the odds that both will happen at once? Not astronomical by any means.

Also, consider the number of occurrences you encounter in your life. There are a lot. It's expected that some of them will happen to be part of some weird coincidence, or found to be meaningful in some way. What would be more extraordinary is if nothing weird like that happens ever.

Zadocfish2 wrote:Eh... still, it's hard to deny these coincidences being connected somehow. Like, it would be easier for me if I WASN'T a Christian, to the extant that a lot of this is me trying to find reasons to disbelieve that these things have significance.

But what happens is, whenever I'm feeling the most conflicted, I'll try the random verse thing and, three tries in, I'll find the same verse I quoted to myself a bit earlier, or find that a verse of the day is the same as one of the randoms I looked at. Like, think about how crazy unlikely it is for those things to happen on the same day, in the same, like, four hours. These vod things have a limited selection of verses, but the selection is easily well into the hundreds. This "verses lining up" thing has happened multiple times, often in the same day. Things that statistically improbable just cannot happen that reliably without a reason. I think it's more absurd to think of it as mere coincidence, don't you?

If I read you right, you are saying you think that the odds of 'the random verse thing' happening once are fairly high but not impossibly high. But because it has happened several times you can multiply the 'fairly high' odds together several times to get an astronomical figure. Is that what you are saying?

If I have read you right, then I think you need to revise how you are thinking about this. Let's say that yesterday I spent a couple of hours tossing a coin. I happened to be doing it in series of 5. I think back to yesterday and remember I got all heads 3 times. The odds of getting all heads once is 1 in 32. So should I tell myself that the odds of what happened yesterday were the extremely high 1 in 32,768? Of course not. I have to take into account all the other tosses. The more of them I did, the more the odds are lowered.

In your quote above you mention, 'three tries in'. So the two non-hits significantly lower the odds. And of course, when you think back you remember the hits, but less so the non-hits. So I reckon the non-hit count may be rather higher than you think.

Beyond that, we'd have to know more of the specifics to calculate the actual odds. And these would have to take into account the sorts of points Shagz made above. These are likely to make the odds of a bit much lower than you think