Quote Originally Posted by John T View Post
Well, you can see why I asked the question that I did. Neither the preacher nor I are God, so it is unrealistic that we on our own, will come up with something that will "scratch your itch" when it comes to the "proofs that are acceptable to you".
Then the only honest conclusion I can come to is that God, if he exists, doesn’t really want me to know him.

God is not hiding like a chameleon; He has made his works apparent to everyone:
If God exists then yes, he is and no, he hasn’t. What is apparent to everyone is the existence of things that we see and things that we don’t see. What is not apparent is that those things are the “works” of any deity.

Indeed. that is the reason I dialog with you. You stated it, and I will not deny it. Do you think that a discussion on the real nature of prophecy, the rules of Einstein about prophecy and the result that the odds for all of the prophecies about Jesus coming true, are greater than a billion to one would help you understand?
I’d be willing to discuss the odds of this, provided those odds have been calculated by a group of impartial professional statisticians, each with a masters degree, and provided I'm able to comprehend it. It would be interesting to see what kind of experiments they performed, what the ****yzed results were, and if they’d be able to accurately predict future events based on their findings.

Before I go further, I believe that you MAY not have committed the unpardonable sin due to the fact that that last statement indicates that you want a reason to believe, and as far as I am able, and with help from Holy Spirit, I will be as dilligent as I can.
It’s not so much that I want a reason to believe. What I want is to know that my beliefs, whatever they are, have a reasonable justification and aren’t merely based on what makes me feel good. In other words, I’d rather be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie. So, if God exists, I want to know that, regardless of my opinions of the way he's depicted in the Bible.

But let's not get distracted from those in the "peanut gallery". On this particular forum, there will be some who wish to be snarky, and destroy any sort of civil discussion between us. I will ignore them if you agree to do likewise. If need be, this can be moved to another area where only you and I can participate.
I like the “peanut gallery”. I even like the snarky ones. At first, I’ll simply ignore the first instance or two, but after that the gloves come off. Sometimes a good “snark contest” can be fun. I suppose its entertainment value depends on how easily one is offended (I’m not). I try not to start them but, I figure, if someone starts one with me and winds up angry or with hurt feelings, well, they did ask for it. On the flip side, I’ve been out-snarked before and then life went on. It’s no biggie.