Love me or else (Part Two) (Where is it now?)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, December 23, 2012, 03:36 (4355 days ago) @ David Turell

BM: Believe it or not, I don't take them on faith, not entirely at any rate. > 
> > So, no, I don't take it on faith. The evidence I continue to find strengthens my faith, however.
> 
> David: What you have presented I fully accept. Much of the OT is true history and you have just documented that. I've spoken many years ago to the archeologists in the City of David dig just outside the Walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was just as the bible said. I am aware of the recent computer model of a 60 mile an hour wind removing enough water from the Sea of Reeds to allow the Jews to cross. 
> 
> We each have our own approach to finding God. You said you were a Deist, but you sound like a Theist to me. Which is it?-As to the first comment, I guess I just don't try and pick and choose what to believe out of the bible. So much evidence has been put forward that verifies the text even down to the minute details such as the names of a simple servant, that I have come to trust it's reliability. I take the approach that I will believe it until it is disproven, which anyone has yet managed to accomplish. At best, all they can come up with is the absence of evidence, which is not the same as evidence of absence. -As to the second, I consider that to be a pretty null distinction, honestly. If you have a god, and God created the universe, than by definition Deism really doesn't work because god would have had to have interacted with the laws of nature and mankind at some point in some manner. Does god interact with humanity directly, I don't presume to know. I personally tend to think that he would work through intermediaries or via some other indirect means. -If the question of universal sovereignty is what is really on the table, then he would have to take a hands off approach. Let the other fellow have his turn at the tables as it were so that the issue could be resolved entirely. In Biblical terms, God has not interfered with humanity directly since Christ. I can understand why it is necessary, so the lack of YHWH appearing on late night television specials does not bother me at all. -In that sense, perhaps both Deist and Theist are correct. God does exist. God did meddle in the affairs of humans. God has not done so in a long time, or at least not directly because of the larger plot afoot. And there will come a time when he does so again. Though, if the biblical prophecy is correct it will not be YHWH that takes over next, but his son, his son is supposed to prove that his dad's way is better before handing the reigns back over to dear old dad for the final smack down on the mutiny.

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.