Daniel 7:13 - If you don't have faith, what hope do you have? None.
Hope for what? I'm not a Jew living in the old days where their lives were living Hells getting attacked left and right. Darn right THEY need hope to get things better. This is the whole reason for the making-up prophecies of there being a Messiah to save them. And when they Messiah whom they believed so much in died? Their lives didn't get better so what do they say? There will be a SECOND COMING of their Messiah to save them, heh.
That's what all their hope was for.. for a better life. I doubt it had anything to do with their soul in the after-life. And if someone is going to live their life on hope for things to get better without doing a darn thing themselves to MAKE it better, they're a lost soul. In this physical plane of existance, we're left to ourselves so only we can make things better or worse. Don't rely on God to save you.
I have heard of this experiement also. But I think your forgetting that the group studied were college students sitting together, and the tendancy of peer presure would have been significantly higher.
Pssh, having a mass-vision of God happening would be TOTAL peer pressure. All those people with their belief in God and all the other mumbo jumbo that will happen if you don't follow Christianity. So if everyone is clamining to see God yet here some people (or most)don't.. what do you expect to go through their mind? Oh crap, if I don't see God, that must mean I'm going to go straight to Hell, oh noooooo! Oh wow, I see him now, I do I do! Okay, not really but I don't wanna go to Hell so I'll just act like it.
himself in a way that could be open to claims of fraud? God could prove himself, without a doubt, if he so wished. Adstar states verses that claim that the day of proofs is over. That the antichrist will use these methods to lure people into a way opposite to god's way. If this is so, wouldn't these incidents be more likely the work of the antichrist and not god? Convenient isn't it? It's basically saying the proofs we have seen are from god. Any proofs that come later will be the work of the antichrist. We're right, they're wrong. Again, inherently unfair. And how would one determine if it's the antichrist or the second coming? Seems the only way to know for sure is when you find yourself in heaven or hell. And then it's too late.
Heh, yep. With all the hypocrasy, contradictions, bad things, lies and other funky stuff in the Bible, I have a feeling (just a feeling) in the back of my mind that the Bible could be the book of Satan.. even moreso if God ever DOES show him/her/itself.
With all the delusional, hysterical, or just outright made-up events and writings of the Apostles saying something happened that most likely didn't, that's the way to make people believe in Satan and not God. It's all a matter of who did or said what first. It's written that the miracles done in the past were performed by God and when next miracles happen, it will be done by the Anti-Christ. Well if all of the past miracles are fake, what if that was Satan's doings and with all of this need for proof we have in this day and age, God FINALLY decides to make him/her/itself known. Well he/she/it goes and finally does some world-wide miracles, but since Satan did his miracles first and said the next time it will be the work of Satan, we will think the real true God is Satan, lol, go figure.
This is why I said if God even made him/her/itself known, people wouldn't believe it and would lash out at him/her/it. Heck, THAT could be the reason why God won't make him/her/itself known, because he/she/it wrote him/her/itself back into a corner. Hey, I didn't make it up. For Christians out there, that IS the reason why God won't show him/her/itself. If God reveals him/her/itself, it'll be assumed it's Satan because it says so in the Bible. And if God does show him/her/itself and it isn't the Anti-Christ, then it must mean the Bible is false yet again and heck, if it were the work of Satan himself, oh lordy, all that time worshipping the false Bible so much will totally create mass depression.
But seriously, what miracles were done in the old days? Any good stuff was all minor acts and well, Satan is a minor demi-god. What other stuff was done in the old days, the big stuff was all LOTS of violence and other horrid deeds. Geez, sounds like Satan more and more. Yet when the GOOD stuff comes later, people say it'll be the Anti-Christ/Satan doing it to fool us. We expect those minor miracles (which are most likely made-up stories) and violent deeds of the past to be done by GOD, yet when world-wide, OH MY GOD-type miracles happen in the future, it'll be the Anti-Christ or Satan? Geez, heh, need I say more?
- N
