> If you have evidence external to yourself and your feelings (and preferably the Bible--although if you're going to use the Bible to present evidence for God, at least don't start by asking me to assume that God inspired the Bible and it is therefore inerrant)

Assumptions are dangerous things. There are several reasons why believing the Bible is God's Word makes sense. First, it is one of the very few books that actually claims God wrote it. Michael Bere, a Bible textbook author, said that "Some would argue that it is circular reasoning to use the Bible's claim as a proof of its inspiration. They say that *any* book could make such a claim. But the fact is that very few other books *have* claimed to be written by God Himself. And those which have claimed such did not stand the test of time or are of obviously inferior quality...We accept the authorship of reliable literature until proven otherwise...Should we not also accept the Bible's claims of being written by the One it claims to be written by until there is evidence of deceit?"

Second, no matter how many times people have tried to destroy it, the Bible survives. Diocletian, in AD 303, wanted every Bible destroyed. When he thought he had succeeded, he went so far as to put up a column saying "The name of Christian is extinguished." In less than ten years, Constantine succeeded him and later made Christianity the national religion (I am NOT advocating this). The Bible states several times that it is indestructible, one instance being Isaiah 40:8: "The word of our God shall stand for ever."

Third, the Old Testament prophecies about Christ's first coming were all fulfilled. The New Testament prophecies where often fulfilled historically. For example, Jesus told His disciples of the destruction of the Temple: "And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." (Matthew 24:2) In AD 70, the Romans besieged Jerusalem and finally leveled it to the ground with fire. The Temple's walls were overlaid with gold, and the heat from the burning city caused the gold to melt down between the stones. The Romans, not wanting to let the precious metal go to waste, pried each stone apart to get the gold.

And fourth, many people have had their lives turned around by the Bible. John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, ran away to sea as a young man, where "his sinful behavior nearly cost him his life on several occasions." He was captured and sold as a slave to the Africans. After his escape, he met a missionary and became a Christian. Another example is George Muller, who was an alcoholic, a gambler, a jailbird, and a thief by the time he was 16. At 20 a friend invited him to come to his house for a prayer and Bible study. Muller accepted Jesus and went on to put a roof over more than 2,000 orphans, relying solely on God's provision. I can't help but see a book that can do that as one *powerful* Book.

John Wesley said it best: "The Bible must be the invention of either good men or angels, bad men or devils, or of God.
"1. It could not be the invention of good men or angels; for they neither would nor could make a book, and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord,' when it was really their own invention.
"2. It could not be the invention of bad men or devils; for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and comdemns their souls to hell to all eternity.
"3. Therefore, I draw this conclusion, that the Bible must be given by divine inspiration."

>Just because parts of it jive with what we already know doesn't mean the parts that go against modern scientific knowledge are also true.
>

What parts go against modern scientific knowledge? Every time the Bible speaks scientifically, it is correct, even though Science wouldn't know some of those facts to be true for centuries (and certainly the human authors of the Bible didn't).

For instance, Job 28:25 talks about "the weight of the winds", yet atmospheric pressure wasn't discovered until the 1600's. Leviticus 17:11 says, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." George Washington was bled to death by a surgeon.

True, miracles cannot be *explained* by scientists, but that doesn't mean they go against science. Scientists thought the earth was flat for hundreds of years, but the earth's being round didn't contradict science any more then than it does now. God and science jive perfectly.

> And I still don't understand how a God who apparently made us in his image chose to give us the supremely useful tool of rational and logical thought, which is our most useful tool when learning about ourselves and our environment, and then deny us the use of this on the simple matter of his existence? I'm not saying logic and reason *alone* should lead us to everything spiritual, but I *am* saying that logic and reason should unequivocably point us in the right diretion instead of the wrong one.
>

There are two ways God reveals Himself. One is general revelation (logic and rationale), which is the way He reveals Himself to the non-Christian (the other is special revelation, which is how He reveals Himself to Christians, but I'm not going to go into that here). Nature, intuition, and tradition play a part in general revelation. Nature's the biggie. Why do trees grow with their roots in the ground and leaves in the air? Why is each leaf uniform, acting on the same principles and undergoing the same photosynthesis? Why aren't they all different? Why don't bananas and roses grow on the same plant? On that tangent, why are plants so uniform that there are genus and species divisions that a plant will grow true to? Why is the same true for a dog or cat or bacterium? "Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner as to make use of it?" (Isaac Newton)

I once read a short story about a Chinese man who lost all his family (to a flood, or something like that). Because there was nothing anyone could do to save them, the man cried out to God,"I wish human lives were governed by Chance rather than Your foolish Laws!" He had a dream that night, where he left Earth and traveled to a place goverened solely by Chance. He met some ugly little creatures with differing shapes and numbers of appendages, and learned that they were humans. They invited him for dinner, where they had a hard time cooking because the fire was cold that night instead of hot. The next day, the sun never rose; apparently he just didn't "want" to. He did the next, only to be closer to the planet than he was before, scorching it. I don't remember the rest, but the point is that the uniformity of nature can only be of God.

Intuition and tradition go together. The Greeks and Romans had gods. The most remote tribes of Africa had and have gods. Why? How did they come to the conclusion that they needed gods? This is where intuition comes in. It's been scientifically (here comes science again) proven that man has a part of his brain that needs God. (I think it's called a spiritual hole...I'm trying to remember where I read this so I can look it up.) Someone without God usually tries to fill that hole with something else. The tribes of Africa had no way to know God, yet they had that need to worship *something*, so they invented their own gods to worship.

> Of course, I know I'm not supposed to presume to understand God. But what *is* religion if not presuming to understand God, at least in some way??
>

I don't think understanding God is the purpose of religion. I think its purpose is serving Him and returning the love He's shown us. His attributes like omnipresence and infinity can never be understood by the most seasoned religious leader, but His love and gift of salvation can, and that's what really matters.

> Which is exactly why I don't understand the argument I've heard many times as to why God doesn't just make his existence plainly obvious with regularly scheduled miracles or something. Some people have told me that God respects our free will, so he leaves it up to us to choose to believe in him or not. But that's patently ridiculous. Only the very first step is belief in God. The rest of the steps are acceptance and belief in his teachings. However, it's that VERY FIRST step that is the hardest of all of them by an insanely huge margin. People could know with absolute certainty that God exists and *still* exercise their free will to do whatever they pleased rather than follow God's teachings. I'm sure that even if God routinely revealed himself and his nature to everyone, there would *still* be plenty of people going to hell just because they're either headstrong, stupid, insane, or just plain infinitely contrary.

Aboslutely. It's just human nature to be, as you put it, infintely contrary. Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus' 12 diciples, spent three years listening to His teachings, watching His miracles, and running His errands; yet he never put his faith in God or asked His forgiveness. God had made Himself more visible to Judas than to any person on Earth today, yet he rejected Him completely. I cannot even begin to guess why.

>So what's the issue?
>

That's something you're going to have to answer. What's the issue?

> -- Dave

La"if any of that sounded arrogant, my apologies"Zorra