ARE YOU BORN AGAIN???

Peregrinus · 12-06-2025 06:27AM

I think this is right. A particular religious identification (and for this purpose I would include "athiest", "agnostic", non-religious", etc as religious identifications) will tend to rise if it is supported by social approbation or other rewards, and tend to fall if it results in social disapprobation or other penalties. In particular if the identity gives you a sense of belonging, that's a powerful reward, and vice versa.

I think this is particularly true for the majority/dominant religious identification.

There's plenty of, e.g., anti-Muslim sentiment in Ireland and many other Western countries, but I think the likely consequence of this is probably to intensify the identifiction of Muslim people — partly out of self-respect ("I won't be bullied out of my faith by people who are ignorant of it") and partly because for most Muslims in ireland a Muslim identity is wrapped up in a broader ethnic and cultural identity. Any exclusion from wider society that they experience as Muslims is compensated by inclusion in/affirmation from the Muslim community.

But in Ireland today, or at least in some social circles in Ireland, there's probably a fair amount of disapprobation/dismissal/marginalisation associated with identification as a Christian. Iscreamkone above asks how an adult can be a Christian; that implies an infantilisation of those who identify as Christian. In circles in which that view is widely held there would be a definite social cost to identifying as a Christian, and the identity isn't supported by a cultural minority identification in the way that a Muslim identification would be. So I would expect the effect of this would be a decline in Christian identification as people seek to avoid the social cost of the indentification.

So, if you have a society in which religious identifications of all kinds are broadly accepted and carry no social penalties or social rewards, that gives maximal freedom.

Will that result in more diversity? I think we can probably say that the two are correlated, but the causation might be the other way around — a society which is already religiously diverse is more likely to be equally accepting of diverse identifications than one which is religiously homogenous.

smacl · 12-06-2025 07:31AM

My take on it is that there is a steep rise of intolerance and 'othering' in our society, and many other western societies, that is encouraged and being used as a tool by certain political factions, notably the far right. Their trick seems to be to find a strata of the community that is struggling and failing to cope, e.g. those who can't afford accomodation, and convince them that this is the fault of another visible minority, e.g. Muslim immigrants. While these arguments are clearly bunk at even the most cursory level of inspection (Mahmood the deliveroo driver and his ilk aren't hoovering up all the good properties around town, they're sleeping five to a room in the worst dives) it is an easy sell to those who are struggling, much more so than the considerably more complex underlying problems.

The problem as I see it is normalizing the acceptability of hatred, which in turn undermines any hope of having a properly plural society. Religion and religiosity are really just confounding variables here.

Peregrinus · 12-06-2025 08:23AM

I agree.

While religions generally do lay some stress on the question of belief, right belief, wrong belief, etc, people's reasons for adhering to or separating from a religion are usually more complex, and belief may play surprisingly little role in the matter.

If people have other reasons for adopting a particular religious identity, they can generally conform their beliefs to those associated with the religion, or simply not worry too much about the nonconformity of their beliefs, or a bit of both. But their beliefs are not often the primary driver of their religious identifiction.

I think the same is true for most people who separate themselves from a religous identity. The driver is not often that they find the beliefs unacceptable; more often that they find no value in participating, and/or that their experience of participating is negative (they, or someone close to them, is disrespected or worse). When they separate from the religion they no longer have any need to conform their beliefs to its, so they reject some of the beliefs associated with the religion.

(But, usually, only some. Ex-Christians tend to reject beliefs about, e.g, the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, etc, but they will continue to hold a great deal of beliefs in common with Christians, e.g. about how we should treat one another. They rarely construct an entirely new belief system from the foundations upwards. They don't need to — their separation from the religion was not primarily driven by belief.)

The relevance of all this to your point is that, nowadays, hostility to religion, or to other religions, is vary rarely founded on the beliefs associated with those religions. Nobody hates or fears Muslims because of what (they are told) Muslims believe. You can't build an Islamophobic movement by whipping up hatred over the the fact that Muslims deny the Trinity, for example.

redmeadow · 13-06-2025 05:54AM

Are adults who are “born again” in need of some help with their lives, and use religion as a crutch?
Yes they are. That crutch is the Holy Spirit who guides us on paths of righteousness. “Born again” is a spiritual rebirth. We are all born naturally and as we grow older our own spirit grows stronger and stronger, we generally start to live life on our own terms when we break free from any rules and limitations placed on us by parents or religion, we pick the bits we like and discard the rest. To be born again you first have to realise your sin/disobedience to God/ lost state and repent or turn away from it, that involves dying to your old self, the person who lived life on their own terms and submission to Jesus Christ as your Lord (implies obedience) and Saviour (implies you realise you need saving). When you genuinely do that you get the Holy Spirit who is also called the helper or comforter who changes you from within.

You also ask “is their evidence of God?” And then answer your own question with no and that you would believe if there was.
I would say there is overwhelming evidence for God. Yes belief in God is a faith as God is outside of creation so cannot be seen or measured with our senses but we see the evidence that there has to be a God everywhere.
1. Creation is proof of a creator firstly, we know from the laws of thermodynamics that the universe had to have a starting point so we cannot claim it just always was, we know it’s a scientific impossibility for nothing to create anything let alone everything so there has to be some uncreated source of creation that exists outside of creation.
2. Chaos doesn’t produce order, we live in a mind boggling complex and interconnected universe with evidence of order and intelligent design everywhere, to say that Chaos and Random chance produced everything is even more far fetched that dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere and expecting all the chaos to produce a fully functioning city with buses and underground railways and libraries and hospitals etc.

3. Life itself is evidence of God. It’s scientifically impossible for non living matter to come alive, it can’t happen without a supernatural process providing the spark.

4. Irreducible complexity- loads of species show irreducible complexity where again it would be impossible for slow incremental changes through evolution to explain how they could come about. The Bombardier beetle is a good example of this but it exists within all species.

5 Absolute Truth. We cannot claim anything is absolute in a world with God, without being able to know the source of absolute truth who made some things known to us. We live in a world that accepts absolute truth, we have certain immutable laws etc but we could never claim anything to be true in a random chaotic universe because there is always much more to know on any subject that could contradict everything we thought was true before. We see a little of this in eastern traditions where they say all is maya or all we see is an illusion. The foundations of Science are laid on the idea that truth is knowable, without God we remain infinitely searching but never finding.

6. Absolute morality. Without God, all morality becomes simply subjective decided by the majority or the most powerful. Murder, Rape, Child Abuse, torture, genocide all become simply subjectively wrong.
in Nazi Germany, morality was different, it was acceptable to wipe out certain peoples, children with disabilities, we could only say in our opinion they were wrong.
The fact that there was a war crimes court held after the war shows that we don’t believe in subjective morality, Germans who were simply obeying orders within their country were trialed and punished after war under laws that didn’t even exist during the war.

If you even look at those points you see the evidence for God is overwhelming and the efforts people go to try disprove God and the hollow theories built around that that people are willing to believe as fact yet they are totally ridiculous and devoid of truth.

The Bible tells us the real reason people deny God is because of Sin, it’s very convenient to disbelieve in God and judgement and to live life on our own terms, it’s made easy in modern society by constant claims that science has answered these questions and people are too willing to believe them despite them being ridiculous.

I could go on to the evidence for Jesus Christ which I think is also overwhelming

smacl · 13-06-2025 07:57AM

With the greatest respect, the evidence you might find compelling others might find variously flawed, inconsistent and littered with logical fallacy. Each of these topics has been debated extensively both on forums here, notably on the A&A forum, and elsewhere. Some wonderful discussions over the years which I've genuinely enjoyed, but nothing that has, upon close inspection, been a strong indicator to me of the existence of any creator, let alone the Christian notion of one.

As I see it, Christian belief demands faith and in doing so relinquishes the need for testable proof.

redmeadow · 13-06-2025 12:13PM

of course, Faith is required, I spoke of evidence, not physical proof which we cannot provide because God exists outside of creation.
People get convicted of crimes on the basis of evidence, there may have been witnesses which we have to decide if they are trustworthy or not and look at the other evidence.
I do understand that many people look a say they don’t see the evidence, but I challenge them to look again because if they deny God they are automatically placing their faith somewhere else, either in nothing or in something that we cannot know or don’t know yet, both of those faiths don’t hold water on closer examination.
there is a concept known as the impossibility of the contrary that is worth looking up and thinking about if you really are interested in this topic.
Romans 1:20 says all will be without excuse on judgement day

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse

and goes on to say that people deny God because of their unrighteousness, it’s convenient to deny God and our sin and the possibility of judgement but in doing so we make ourselves deaf to the gospel or good news of Jesus Christ

smacl · 13-06-2025 02:11PM

I do understand that many people look a say they don’t see the evidence, but I challenge them to look again because if they deny God they are automatically placing their faith somewhere else, either in nothing or in something that we cannot know or don’t know yet, both of those faiths don’t hold water on closer examination

This is a common misconception that some people of faith have in relation to those that hold a contrary position. A lack of faith is simply that, it is not a faith in something else nor a faith in nothing. The position I hold for example is simply that there is an awful lot of stuff humanity does not understand and likely will never understand, which is to be expected given the relative size of humanity as a function of the size of the universe and sum of knowledge contained therein in time and space. This realisation of the vastness of the unknown leads in turn to senses of wonder and curiosity.

This is of course nothing new and very much a part of other philosophical and religious traditions, if you were to read the Tao te ching for example you would see that the opening verse alludes to the unknowable nature of the universe.

I personally see no merit in any evidence presented to date in support of Christian beliefs, as they do not stand up under close scrutiny. We also see many historical claims put forward by Christianity have fallen by the wayside with advancements in scientific understanding.

redmeadow · 13-06-2025 06:32PM

so you are putting faith in the unknowable nature of the universe, agnosticism but that’s a self refuting position because you can’t claim anything for definite including the claim that we can’t know God. Yes it’s common among eastern traditions, all is maya as I referred to in my last message.

If you told me the building we were in is on fire, get out quickly, i might say I see no proof of that, you could say listen to the smoke alarms, i might say they can’t be trusted, you might say look at the smoke, i might say that could be from anywhere, I could ask you have you seen the fire, have you proof that it definitely is a fire, in that case you would be putting your faith in the evidence that there is a fire and accuse me of having faith in there being no fire, and I would reply no It doesn’t mean that, I just have no faith because I don’t see the proof, we could never know there was a fire, clearly in that situation I would be placing my faith somewhere else, faith in the unknown, faith in the lack of enough evidence for me.
There is nothing wrong with not having faith in something in particular but I does mean that you have faith in something else or faith in something being an unknown.
If you explore agnosticism it falls apart, it gets contradictory and self refuting, I refer again to the impossibility of the contrary.
you could have laws of gravity or laws of thermodynamics of any law because there could always be some unknown that contradicts everything you believed, we couldn’t say that every 500 year gravity doesn’t change because we haven’t measured it, we couldn’t say that it doesn’t randomly change, only that as long as we have measured it, it hasn’t changed, but even claiming that would be a claim to absolute knowledge that would be inconsistent, then someone could say how do you know you senses are working correctly to measure gravity.
As you correctly stated the universe is vast and we only have a tiny amount of knowledge, we don’t know what we don’t know so unless we can actually know the source of all truth and knowledge then we can’t claim to know anything for certain.
there is no such thing as a consistent agnostic.

Dial Hard · 13-06-2025 06:36PM

This thread keeps popping up on the homepage and I feel very shouted at every time it does. Was the entirely uppercase title really required? 🤔

redmeadow · 13-06-2025 07:10PM

it worked to get you here, take it as a sign from God to seek him and his salvation

Dial Hard · 13-06-2025 07:17PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123541616#Comment_123541616

Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha!

You're grand, thanks.

redmeadow · 13-06-2025 07:55PM

maybe eternal life in paradise without suffering isn’t for you?
the alternative is unthinkable so I pray you reconsider

Hotblack Desiato · 13-06-2025 10:19PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123532237#Comment_123532237

So why didn't god give me this gift? Was I doomed to burn forever before I even started?

Or did that violent evil nun I had the misfortune to encounter on my first day in school change me from a righteous four year old to a damned atheist?

Hotblack Desiato · 13-06-2025 10:36PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123531170#Comment_123531170

Over 30 years ago a friend of a friend was a "born again Christian" and I even accepted a gift of a New Testament off her (she was one of the very few women at that time who'd give me the time of day, but she was up to something)

I read it. I'd been brought up RC with a devout mother but never felt that it was for me and I hated the nuns and brothers and priests who were such nasty judgemental types.

So I read it. I concluded that it's a belief system that makes perfect sense - provided one suspends disbelief and accepts it without question. I just couldn't do that. So that was when I finally knew that religion was not for me.

Hotblack Desiato · 13-06-2025 10:56PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123532878#Comment_123532878

Harsh. We all have a right to be baffled given what day to day life throws up at us. The other poster is holding a perfectly logical position of requring evidence to be convinced, that's not an anti-religion position. I would have got the head leathered off me in school for advancing this or any similar argument.

Iscreamkone · 14-06-2025 12:43AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123542244#Comment_123542244

My children are encouraged to question all the religious bull.
If anyone gives them grief then there will be trouble.

In my children’s school (catholic patron) approximately 25/30% of students don’t participate in religious instruction. What percentage does it have to get to before schools move religious instruction to extra curricular?

mazdamiatamx5 · 14-06-2025 12:56AM

I am a baptised Roman Catholic though currently non-observant.

I believe that Jesus is the son of God, was born in a manger, was crucified for our sins, and was resurrected on the third day.

That's my take.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA1P2jG-EnE

mazdamiatamx5 · 14-06-2025 12:56AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt3DEuw0wjM

mazdamiatamx5 · 14-06-2025 01:05AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123541754#Comment_123541754

With all due respect, I'm not convinced that your advocacy for Christian is as good as you think it is.

Peregrinus · 14-06-2025 02:31AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123542244#Comment_123542244

Nobody has asked the other poster to be convinced. Rather, the other poster has expressed surprise that someone else is convinced, and he has done this without enquiring why, or on what evidence, that other person is convinced. This suggests that (a) he thinks everybody else should adopt his criteria for scrutinising and accepting beliefs and, (b) on his criteria, he doesn't think this particular belief could ever be pass muster.

I invited him to elaborate on this position. I don't think that was particularly harsh of me.

Deregos. · 14-06-2025 05:34AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058398188/are-you-born-again

Luke 17:21 Jesus said, "nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

After reading your post, I'm asking myself if I'm born again, and the honest answer for me is no. Not yet anyway . . . but I do see the direction I must take so as to say with confidence, Yes! . . Not only am I born again, during the remainder of my earthly experience, i shall endeavour to walk with God at all times, so when I do finally succumb from this life, I am going to be united in heaven with our Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ, therefore saved from all the ravages of hell.

What is the direction must take to achieve all this? I hear you ask.

Its simply to allow myself to be totally immersed in the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, letting it take full total control over every single aspect of my life, let it rule and guide every little utterance from my mouth, any interactions, every tiny decision to be made concerning anything involving my current existence here on earth.

Only then could I truly claim to be born again.

https://youtu.be/0ou7Z6ntEmM?si=ls5eb9nrmpcEQFm1

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 06:04AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123542396#Comment_123542396

John 15:18-19

18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

1 Corinthians 1:18-19

18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will thwart the cleverness of the intelligent.”

I do understand that, you said

“I believe that Jesus is the son of God, was born in a manger, was crucified for our sins, and was resurrected on the third day.”

But have you repented of your sin? You cannot have Jesus as your Saviour if he is not your Lord first! Lord is someone you obey.

That is an offensive message that the world always has hated, that’s why we have invented religious traditions that make another way but the won’t work.
you don’t like the message I’m sharing because it convicts you and so it should because that conviction is your only hope of salvation.
The Book of James tells us that even the demons believe but Faith without works is dead.
if your not Born again then you are still a child of disobedience, a child of wrath, you need to give your whole life to Jesus Christ, that message makes the world hate Christian’s but that is the truth.

smacl · 14-06-2025 06:05AM

so you are putting faith in the unknowable nature of the universe, agnosticism but that’s a self refuting position because you can’t claim anything for definite including the claim that we can’t know God. Yes it’s common among eastern traditions, all is maya as I referred to in my last message.

Wrong. Your assertion is that I have some kind of faith, just as you claim to have a faith in the doctrines of the Christian belief system. Let's look at that. Faith can be variously defined as 'belief and trust in and loyalty to God' or 'belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion' or 'firm belief in something for which there is no proof' or most simply 'complete trust'. I have none of those things. My position is an understanding based on where I see balance of probability lies at any given point in time. That understanding has changed significantly over time, not least through being critically challenged in discussions here and elsewhere, it is not based on trust so much as that critical investigation.

As @Peregrinus posts above, if a Christian tells me they have faith in the divinity of Jesus, I don't question that. It is what I consider to be an honest expression of their firmly held beliefs. Should a Christian tell me that I should share there faith, on the basis of evidence in support of the veracity of their beliefs, two things happen. Firstly, I investigate the evidence if it is new to me. Having done this over many decades and in some depth, I have yet to find any such evidence convincing. Secondly, I question whether the person trying to convince me actually has any faith themselves. After all, if they fully trusted their beliefs to be true, why would they need evidence to support them?

We also have faith in people we trust and tend to believe what they tell us to be true, particularly at a young age but also during adulthood. To my mind, this is the principal vector for the spread of religious faith and increasingly, for a lack thereof.

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 06:21AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123542143#Comment_123542143

Romans 10:17

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

When the 4 year old you met the wicked violent nun she undermined your faith that was in a religion that supposedly represented God. The priests and other religious people went on to further undermine your faith in them.
You weren’t damned as a 4 year old as you were still innocent and hadn’t fully reached the age of accountability.
Most people are lost in a dead faith in religion and its traditions, being born again is when you find a living faith, that definitely doesn’t involve belief with our questioning.
Jesus said “seek and you will find, Knock and the door will be answered” , if we want the truth more than anything else we will find it. When we truly seek the truth it’s a humbling process because it reveals all our flaws and failings, it convicts us and shows us we are not good enough, we are broken by our sin, in that humble place we can suddenly hear the gospel and realise why it means good news, the word of God can become alive to us, it all makes sense and we find a living Faith that we know is complete truth.
Jesus said “I am the way, the TRUTH and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me”.
If we deny our sin and we can’t find repentance then the Gospel just won’t make sense to us, it remains allusive and we remain in our sin and awaiting the judgement of God.
John the Baptist came preaching Repentance in the wilderness to make straight the way of the Lord, Repentance opens up your salvation through Faith in your Lord and Saviour.

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 06:47AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123542465#Comment_123542465

Faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1 in the bible

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I would say you are largely engaging in Semantics as people are very put off by the word Faith.
You said “My position is an understanding based on where I see balance of probability lies at any given point in time. ”
Here you are placing your Faith in your own opinion or your own judgment and understanding, if it is not in God then it has to be in something else, there is no such thing as no Faith.

Yes I agree with you that we place Faith in other people, starting as children with Faith in our parents. That definitely is the principle vector for the spread of religion but that’s why this thread is significant because Jesus said “unless a person be born again they will not see the kingdom of heaven”- Jesus is not talking about religion here, he is talking about Faith in him, the Truth, the Gospel, it’s something very different.
Religion is heritable but Christianity is not, you need to be born again.

Jesus commands his disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel, he tells us the world will hate you for this as they hated me, this is easy to see why because to get people to hear the gospel you have to preach repentance, you have to try pull down their misplaced faith in religion, in their opinions, in the opinions of others, in fallible scientists, where ever it is if it is not in Jesus Christ then it is misplaced.
If you don’t believe in God, then you must have some other theory as to how creation came about, how life came about, the evidence of complexity and intelligent design all around us, I have also looked at all the evidence and I have found it devoid of truth. When I was younger I blindly trusted it because I had faith in the scientists who presented these theories but now I can see how there world view has coloured their interpretation of the evidence almost desperate to remove the need for God but they are no further on

smacl · 14-06-2025 07:40AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123542504#Comment_123542504

Alas, not being a Christian, I don't place any value in your biblical definition of Faith. That definition is simply part of the system of religious doctrine to which you adhere and I do not. If you can accept that I am not a Christian, it would seem reasonable that I no more accept the veracity of what is written in the bible that you might in the Quran or Book of Morman. Faith is, as per my previous post, a well defined and broadly understood term that extends well beyond Christian belief. Your arguments above are all rooted entirely in your faith. While I have no doubt these are sincerely held beliefs, and that the anecdotes you provide to illustrate how you came to hold them are genuine, there is nothing in what you have said that would encourage me to share those beliefs.

The difficulty here is while I have no interest in dissuading you from your own position of faith, by entering into discussion and positing various bits of evidence to support your position, you are inviting critical examination of that position. This is a natural side-effect of Evangelicalism and other attempts at proselytising those who do not share your beliefs. If anything, it comes across as both an expression of doubt on the one hand and a clear disrespect for the sincerely beliefs of others on the other.

When you say if I don't believe in God that I must have a theory as to how creation came about etc… why precisely is this the case? Has it occurred to you that very many people on this planet have zero interest in such questions? For those that do have such an interest, of the very many alternatives out there, whether based on a religion, a scientific theory or a philosophical or mathematically abstract position, why plump for your preferred version of events?

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 08:19AM

“Alas, not being a Christian, I don't place any value in your biblical definition of Faith.”

Yes I understand that, I am sharing how the bible defines Faith so you can better understand what I and other Christians believe Faith is, not that you have to agree.

If anything, it comes across as both an expression of doubt on the one hand and a clear disrespect for the sincerely beliefs of others on the other.

Just to be clear, I completely respect you as a person and your right to your own beliefs or the same applies to anyone else but I don’t respect your actual beliefs and I’m sure you are the same. If someone believed it’s ok to steal all your money, you wouldn’t respect that belief and neither would I.
I respect the truth, and the claim of Jesus Christ is that he is the truth, he said “I am the way, the TRUTH and the life”. You are free to not believe/respect that claim and free to think that the truth is unknowable but I definitely don’t respect that claim.
You can view evangelism as an expression of doubt or an expression of complete confidence in Gods word that says all unrepentant sinners who don’t believe the Gospel are on the broad path to hell hence why Christians go into all the world trying desperately to convince people to turn around.

Has it occurred to you that very many people on this planet have zero interest in such questions?

Yes, most people I speak to are completely indifferent, I was assuming maybe wrongly so that you are not completely indifferent considering you are on thread discussing these things.
I am saying you don’t have to think about or claim understanding on these things but you are still placing you Faith maybe unwittingly so somewhere else.
it maybe in that there is no God, it maybe that their might be a God, but ultimately you’re placing your Faith in your own self righteousness, that whatever happens after death, your relatively confident that you’ll be grand to the extent that it’s not worth thinking about very much because who knows.
The Bible tells us we can know and you won’t be grand, your self righteousness is just another sin that will condemn you.
Proverbs 14:12 says

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Other verses tell us that my people perish because of ignorance.
That’s why Christians preach the Gospel, because Faith comes by hearing the word of God.
I can’t make you hear it, I can try challenge your beliefs, if you are humble you might think about the things I said a little more and question yourself a little more, if you proud you will just get offended and see Christians and obnoxious and offensive and disrespectful to others beliefs or insecure in their own beliefs.
Ultimately its about Truth, the Truth sets us free but if we can’t know it we remain lost forever

smacl · 14-06-2025 08:52AM

Firstly, thank you for the clarification in your understanding of our relative positions, mutually exclusive as they likely are. My understanding of how the bible came to be held in it current position is based on reading the likes of Bart Ehrman and others and getting involved in many discussions here and elsewhere that are best described as various forms of apologetics. I would humbly suggest that my current position is not one of ignorance, it has involved no end of investigation over the years. Whether that was altogether worthwhile is another question.

You're quite right in saying that I personally am not indifferent to questions relating to the nature of the universe. I look in wonder and no small amount of joy at the natural world at every opportunity, marvelling in its intricacy and beauty and breadth. At the same time, I'm under no illusion that my comparitively miniscule intellect could ever comprehend it in its entirety. In my younger years and greater arrogance, I might have thought differently. At this stage, I realise I'm no more than a mayfly enjoying his day in the sun before the inevitable oblivion, something I'm entirely happy with.

Ultimately, if your faith brings you happiness and fulfillment, it is clearly something to be cherished. The same goes for those of any other religion, and those of us who muddle through life on very different paths.

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 09:51AM

I'm under no illusion that my comparitively miniscule intellect could ever comprehend it in its entirety. In my younger years and greater arrogance, I might have thought differently. At this stage, I realise I'm no more than a mayfly enjoying his day in the sun before the inevitable oblivion, something I'm entirely happy with.

Yes, the incomprehensible vastness of the universe and layers upon layers of complexity should leave us in awe, it should show us the futility of ever finding truth in our quest for our own knowledge which is the lie that the serpent told Adam and Even the Garden of Eden, there is always so much that we don’t know that could contradict everything we think we know. We can see that already as we scratch the surface of quantum physics.
The Apostle Paul speaks about the last days in 2 Timothy as a time when people are ever searching but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth! Every few years the age of the universe has to be increased to account for new discoveries, only recently with the James Webb telescope they have discovered galaxies fully formed in an area of space where they technically shouldn’t be if the current age is correct just as an example.

Agnostic means without knowledge, there is many problems with this view.
We are in agreement that we can’t comprehend the vastness of the universe or know Truth in our own right, the only other way we could claim to know truth is to know God, that God has in some way revealed himself to us. That doesn’t mean we know everything, it just means God reveals to us what we need to know.
To be consistent as an agnostic you can’t say that is not true (because you are without knowledge and you don’t even know if the information you do have is true) that someone else doesn’t know God, you can simply claim that you don’t know God personally. We can trace the evolution of that mindset, we can see for instance with Transgenderism, where people think gender is something subjective that we can decide based on what we feel we are, it denies objective truth so then all truth becomes subjective, we are just on our own journey to find our own truth.
We couldn’t say the genocide of Jews and Romani’s and Homosexuals and people with disabilities by the Nazi’s in World War 2 was objectively wrong, you could at best claim in my opinion it is wrong. The Nazis could justify their position in their opinion and how they believe the benefits will outweigh the negatives in the long term.
There is a great verse in Judges 21:25

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

When we abandon the idea of being able to know truth we all simply do what is right in our own eyes and unfortunately that is a very slippery slope as we have seen time and time again throughout history.

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 11:12AM

After reading your post, I'm asking myself if I'm born again, and the honest answer for me is no. Not yet anyway . . . but I do see the direction I must take so as to say with confidence, Yes!
I have not watched your attached video yet so I’m not sure if I’m misinterpreting what you are saying, is that a hypothetical uncertainty or is this you actually saying you are uncertain?
I think it’s worth reading 1 John as a test of your Christianity with the understanding that this letter was addressing Gnosticism or the idea that the flesh is evil but the spirit is good so we can continue in sin in the flesh but be pure in the spirit.
It’s a matter of surrendering your whole life to God, admitting you are lost and want his spirit to lead us. That doesn’t mean you will always know exactly what to do, our walk is like a sanctification process, we start of as a baby in Christ but we grow as we walk in obedience.
If you’re not walking in obedience it’s a sign you haven’t surrendered yet, you’re not born again, you have an intellectual understanding of what you need to do but you love the world or your sin more than God, like the story of the rich young ruler, he obeyed all the laws but he couldn’t sell everything he had to follow Jesus, it was a bridge too far for him.
Matthew 22:24 says

Many are called but few are chosen.
2 Peter 2:10

Therefore, brothers, strive to make your calling and election sure. For if you practice these things you will never stumble,

Phillipines 2:12

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling

This opens the door to the once saved always saved debate, when do we actually receive salvation, is at that point of being born again or is it when we have run the race to the end?
Most people I know are in the once saved always saved camp but I can’t see that myself, I think it just opens the door for our pet sin to remain, it prevents us from being sanctified or made Holy to God, I think we can have assurance of salvation as we are being obedient to the knowledge we have. If you know getting drunk or watching pornography is wrong but continue in it, it should be a warning sign

ARE YOU BORN AGAIN???

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