- Speak for yourself. First time I heard of Him was before I could read.
I cannot confirm any personal revelations and so I must not include them as evidence. No disrespect.
- If you don’t want to believe in your own personal revelations or believe in any that anyone else, including me, share with you, is your decision. BUT like I said: don’t try to speak for me when you don’t know me or my history. When you said: “The ONLY way any of us even know of Jesus is because we read the Bible” you were speaking for a lot of people including me, and I decided not to let you do so publicly in this forum. I wasn’t asking you to listen to or believe some “personal revelation” that I alone witnessed, I was telling you straight up and truthfully: The first time I heard of Him was before I could read. Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but before you dismiss what I say and march off self-satisfied with your ignorance in tact, take a look at this:
- The 2+ year old in the old Deaf woman’s arms two rows from the front, on the far right, is me. The woman was my stepmother, who raised me till I was almost 12 years old. She’s the one who told me about Jesus … before I learned to read. Now you can march off in any direction you want, but don’t speak for me again.
Oh, that’s totally fine if your Stepmother taught you of Jesus before you read about him. I was making a statement against special revelation. As in seeing Jesus or experiencing Him before one even knows who He is. And the only way to know who He is, is to read the Bible, or in your case, have it read to you. Special revelation would be an untestable claim, your word, and I would not believe it.
- And I wouldn’t expect or even hope that you would.
Winning five independent lotteries within two days in the order you bought the tickets is pretty good evidence, but of course not proof to anyone who is of a denialist mindset (especially for those who presuppositionally and erroneously only allow for our four spacetime dimensions). That’s why this is good:
The grounds of [true] belief in God is the experience of God: God is not the conclusion of an argument but the subject of an experience report.
Nice question…very interesting…but no way to answer…the biblical text does not describe the means by which a concept of creation was conveyed…only that “In the beginning, God…”
Whoa! Who won 5 lotteries in 2 days?
Maggie. 
Originally recounted here, and reprised here. An experience report, never to be dissuaded from.
Wait a minute… Are we now discussing someone winning the Lotto several times as a miracle or God acting in one’s life? No… Wouldn’t a more impressive story of God acting in the world involve children and cancer or something truly meaningful?
We all die, so what’s truly meaningful is pretty relative in this life. What is truly meaningful may have more to do with eternity?
Believing God caused someone win the Lotto several times is disgusting. Anyone who would believe it is selfish, ignorant and arrogant.
You haven’t done your homework.
And do you have an explanation for your non sequitur? Is there an insightful connection between those two that I’m not seeing?
I read that one ago. I thought you meant “lottery” in the literal sense not as a metaphor standing for something else.
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About that happening in the literal sense…
And to @Benjamin87’s point, there is this:
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33
Likely a vision or dreams to Moses.
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I don’t accept modern miracles or Godly intervention. Unfortunately for anyone that frustrates, I also cannot be persuaded otherwise.
Believing in your heart that Jesus rose from the dead takes a modern miracle, and many of us would say a Godly intervention as well, since the former entails the latter. Or just being gullible.
- Okay, so you’re a mortal rock. What brings you here and what else do you have to offer?