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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 3rd mo. 25, 2011 at 1:09am

To actually know God is the only effective way to peace

 

1) because any peace we find, short of that, is temporary.

 

2) because this puts an end to arguments about different views. There exists one and only one God, who can be asked to settle any such question!

 

3) because the better anyone actually knows God, the less he needs to fear, and the less reason he has to cling to anyone's hearsay about God.

 

No statement about God-- including "Love is a part of God"-- is a substitute for actually knowing the reality. God is, truly, a loving reality-- but that is something to be intuited and observed, not just asserted!

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Summers on 3rd mo. 25, 2011 at 2:13am

You said there exists one and only one God-many say they know that on earth and know they are right. Yet what they know is different. Why do you think God cares if we know God in different ways?

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 3rd mo. 25, 2011 at 12:09pm

You are confusing "knowing God in different ways" with "being certain about different things about God."

 

I know more about my neighbor down the hall than you do; it would be silly for you and me to get into an argument about facts & mistatements about my neighbor. It would be sillier for other people as far away to argue about her themselves, or to insist: not only that she doesn't exist, but that I must be in some way self-deceived to think that I know her, or anything whatsoever about her!

 

If she were near you (as God is) then I might be able to introduce her to you. One or the other of us might come to know her better; we might disagreed on what she is like-- but that disagreement could be resolved by asking her.

 

As George Fox might well have put it, God doesn't care what practice leads us to know God-- but practices that don't work are an obstacle to be removed, like the "pharisees" Jesus described as "standing by the door to the Kingdom, neither going in themselves nor letting anyone else in."

 

God does care that we actually know actual God, much as any doctor would want sick people to know where to find his office. A doctor might well have more than one office-- but the undertaker's next door just won't do!

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Summers on 3rd mo. 25, 2011 at 3:34pm

Forrest, I honor your beliefs and have no  desire to change them and think Victoria said in her blog,  "Will the Real Christian Stand Up." what I was trying to say far better than I did. Peace to you. Kathy

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 3rd mo. 25, 2011 at 3:44pm

I do not "honor" anybody's scientific beliefs, nor try to change them, but to recognize that there are ways to test such beliefs for truth or falsity.

 

The ways of testing religions truth are different. But to honor truth, that is to test and see what happens.

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