Why has God been silent for 2000 years?

Throughout the Old Testament, God never seems to go longer than a few hundred years before sending a new prophet, speaking directly to his people, or altering the course of history. Why has there been nothing said since Christ? How much longer do we have to wait? I'm amazed at how resilient Christianity has been, but I don't know how much longer it can continue existing without receiving an old-fashioned sign from God.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=_I-3CJUraCE&feature=youtu.be
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes_Medical_Bureau
youtube.com/watch?v=NGuVBLNkjiE&list=FLYkkO_w_4-94NSSC0foAUjQ&index=48
therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Mark 13:21, there will only be false prophets like Muhammad, everything has already been told. What we are seeing today is just the unfolding of revelations.

There’s no need for prophets in the sense of the Old Testament anymore since (according to christianity) they were all pointing to Christ, he is the end (fulfillment) of the prophets.
The real question is why is it taking so long for him to come back.

>taking so long
2000 years is a blink of an eye. The Earth is billions of tears.

What about Jewish prophets? Have there been any after Jesus?

You mean 6000 years?

How does God expect us to believe him if there is no proof, miracles and so on?

The hebrew people don't really exist anymore

its a mystery religion. And by torturing people until they do.

2000 years is not the blink of an eye within the context of Abrahamic religion. It makes up about a third of it's history. An entire third of the Christian narrative is nothing but silence.

He’s just subverting everyone’s expectations, just like he always does.

>implying Saints are not prophets
Shiggy diggy

You can't drop the Messiah on us and then just sprinkle 'saints' on us for two-thousand years.

Faith.

To God it is. Humans aren't the center of the universe.

u just gotta wait senpai

>2000 years is not the blink of an eye within the context of Abrahamic religion.
It is within the context of God.

How is faith enough proof...? You could have faith in literally anything. I like the Bible a lot, one of the best literature ever written, but I don't see a reason why I should believe in the religion when there is no proof for it's claims, no miracles, God hasn't appeared, and so on.

Maybe you should look up the definition of faith.

he’s a quirky fella

Perhaps the jews should have not murdered them.

So, what if I have faith that Allah is the one true God? Can I not have faith in this as well?

The problem with faith is, you have to actually seek after it and desire it. And it’s something most people aren’t going to really care about until (this has been my experience) the fear of God has been placed in their heart. So, ask yourself if the life Christ led and the words he spoke compel you towards him in some way, If that way of life is something you would want to pursue further, or at least study further. And if it is, keep seeking, if that is done with an open and sincere heart I believe faith can be found, or given.

>God calls humanity on the phone and says "Dudes, the world is totally going to end and your soul is going to be judged. You better get your shit together! Oh, hold on one sec, my popcorn just finished in the microwave, brb."
>Comes back ten thousand years later to find his religion dead and people faithless.
>"Dudes, wtf I was only gone a second!"

>hundreds of saints
Nyigguh.

No, that would be a delusion.

They're the same god you retards

You'd be better off talking to a local church; they usually have people with degrees in theology, rather than the reddit power users here.

nigga are you retard?

all religions are the same "god" is inside you. the Buddhists are the least wishy washy.

at the core; all religions are saying the same thing.

they had to invent a spooky sky god because they couldnt explain it any other way to the herd.

what you feel when you've been meditating is literally all that 'god' is....

I mean Christianity is very beautiful, great history, etc. But how can you have "faith" in something there is no evidence or even demonstration of? I do not feel this God, I do not feel spiritual longing or whatever, it is not part of my subjective experience. Is it just an emotional type thing? I really don't understand it, I wish I could understand why people believe in religion. If Jesus returned and did some miracles then I would believe, but how does this god expect us to believe when he hasn't given us anything? I know that it's supposed to a "choice" but why? It all seems very arbitrary, and this God does not seem very good or worth worshipping if he does not give us any proof yet still punishes people for not believing or breaking his rules.

I believe God is a person. Since human beings are the highest expressions of nature, God must be like a person or something even higher than a person. Either way, he must have person-hood of some sort. This makes sense, because the highest and realest love in the world is shared between people, not people and forces or people and objects or people and 'nature'. If I can't love your idea of God like I can love a person, then your idea of God is inadequate, because God necessarily participates in love since he is the one who made it possible in the first place, and his form of love must be the highest of all forms.

...

I think the problem is that I am not afraid to die? Maybe that's why I do not understand faith or anything, I am fine with dying and the vast majority of people have complexes and issues about it.

Your demonstrations and evidence don't mean anything. Skepticism can kill anything you throw at it. Logic becomes circular, induction becomes unfounded, causation is never observed, and a lying demon gives you all your impressions. Everything is faith at the very bottom of it all.

That's ridiculous. I know the limits of logic, but WHY choose Christianity of all things? Is it just a cultural, societal thing for you? I have no connection to Christianity, I am aware of it's history and art but the religion is alien to me.

Also, you can't just expect people to believe in things for no reason. Your argument basically is "just believe in it as strong as you can until you have no doubts anymore". Either do a miracle or something magical, or have God return to tell us, otherwise be quiet.

It's the only religion in line with Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. Greek philosophy got us so far to be able to say:
1. God is one
2. God is good
3. God is beyond being
4. God is the source of all knowledge
5. God is the cause of all things
Now, any person who is fair minded should agree that these positions are philosophically defensible. If you agree to these things, it really narrows down your options for a religion. There is one more thing that needs to be decided though before you get to Christianity, which is what is God? Is God a person in some sense? Is God simply Nature or the Universe? Is God some other sort of impersonal force?
If you think God is a person, then you require a monotheistic religion, hence Christianity or some other Abrahamic religion.
If you still agree to those five Hellenistic precepts and think that God is Nature, then you can be a Stoic or a Hindu or whatever other pantheistic religion suits you. If you think God is a mysterious thing/force, then maybe follow Confucianism or Daoism.
There are many good reasons to think that God is a person. So if you agree to the five Hellenistic precepts and think that God is a person, then you should most likely be a Christian.

Miracles are for women. The mundane is a miracle to the worthy.

>Also, you can't just expect people to believe in things for no reason.

That's exactly what you do when you believe in the accuracy and reliability of logic.

That’s the thing, evidence and proof as we know it in a scientific or judicial sense really doesn’t coincide with faith. However, that doesn’t mean you just put your faith in whatever someone asks you to, there has to be, like you mentioned, demonstration of what we’re to have faith in if its going to mean anything at all to us. As far as demonstration goes that was kind of what I was trying to get at in my last post about the life and teaching of Jesus, his Life and ministry was the demonstration of what he was asking us to have faith in. The miracles recorded in the gospels are all demonstrations of a deeper or more spiritual truth, which is what I think we are actually called to believe in, namely: The Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and that the path to enlightenment is in the Love of God and Neighbor. (Along with a few other things of course)
As far as punishment (eternal or not) goes it’s a tricky subject, to me I view hell as more of a state of consciousness that has less to do with an active retribution from God than as a place we stray to ourselves.

It’s all very complicated of course, and I’ve barely even touched the tip of the iceberg for the reasons I identify as Christian, it would probably take me days to go into adequate detail and then there would still be plenty that’s ultimately impossible to just fit into words.
I’ve been up pretty late so this all probably sounds pretty incoherent but if you’re curious about the idea of God, not just the christian one but God as the source of reality in a good deal of the major religions you should check out the book The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart, it’s a fantastic introduction.

You may have something there, I personally am terrified of death, not necessarily because of hell but because to me it represents infinite possibility.
Honestly it doesn’t happen to often anymore but I suffer from occasional panic attacks where I always think there’s a good possibility I’ll have a heart attack, or it will just stop beating or I blood will stop flowing to my brain or I’ll get a blood clot etc etc It’s always nothing but that feeling of being close to death has been with me for a while now and it’s not just something I can shake off. I try to live with it the best I can.

There's been a long line of mysticism and apparition in the Catholic tradition.

But you see, I'm not part of your societal/cultural history with Christianity, it is all alien to me. I choose to have full faith in the Buddha nature

I used to be Buddhist. Have you read any Plato?

I'm just joking my guy, I don't care about religion at all. I believe it should be possible to gain scientific and direct knowledge of religious matters, for example it should be possible to find out what the afterlife is like without having to guess or assume.

I know, but it seems insubstantial after the Son of God himself graced the Earth with his presence. Encores should be performed by the main act.

> it should be possible to gain scientific and direct knowledge of religious matters
I have bad news.

the same is true for Yeezus

I’m pretty sure it’s some ultimate test of faith.

>God doesn't talk to OP
stop leaving Him weird messages at 3am and maybe He'll come round

But he does that in every mass.

Unsuspected poetry here. That's a lot of tears for a blink of an eye user

The Old Testament was full of allusions to the coming of Jesus Christ and how He was supposed to be the Messiah. That's what the prophets were for, but when He actually came to earth via a human mother, the ruling Jewish powers at the time (sound familiar?) saw him as a threat and had him executed instead.

Isn't there some verse in the Bible about a "great delusion" sweeping the land in the end times, something that causes people to think they have no choice but to disbelieve? Idk, maybe I'm imagining it.

What could he say? I mean, just look at the mess.

You do know we're celebrating the 100th anniversary of a major miraculous happening, right? One seen by thousands of people?

God stops 'talking' in Ezra and Nehemiah. And the implication that he is through (in the manner the OT and/or the TANAKH had accustomed [us] to) 'talking' is strong.

Christ already returned and the world ended. God is silent now because we are in hell

The name of God is "I AM"

When you speak, it is silent. When you are silent, it speaks

God came as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu 500 years ago

>no miracles
ok

It's not coincidental that today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Tilma is an on going miracle. It's amazing how inexplicable it is. So many scientific experiments done on it that we have yet to explain. here's a video on it (research the facts they talk about too):

youtube.com/watch?v=_I-3CJUraCE&feature=youtu.be

Look up Our Lady of Lourdes too. Tons of healing miracles there too. Look up The Lourdes Medical Bureau. So many miraculous healings. Vittorio Micheli's story is quite astonishing too; his hip bone completely regenerated. Here's the wiki page with short summaries of the cases:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes_Medical_Bureau

Our Lady of Fatima is another substantial miracle. Like 100,000 people saw this unbelievable scene with the sun. here's a video describing the apparitions and the actual sun miracle(again, research it more):

youtube.com/watch?v=NGuVBLNkjiE&list=FLYkkO_w_4-94NSSC0foAUjQ&index=48

Another fantastic miracle is The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano. The Eucharist, the host that Catholic consume, physically turned into flesh and began to bleed. There is a study done by an Italian biologist(pretty sure biologist, could be wrong), but it's in Italian only. There is a website that has the main facts translated from the scientific paper he wrote. Here is the link:

therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

So in short, what an ignorant statement you've made.
>How does God expect us to believe him if there is no proof, miracles and so on?

I hope this makes you more aware.

>but I don't see a reason why I should believe in the religion when there is no proof for it's claims, no miracles, God hasn't appeared, and so on.

this is just an ignorant aphorism based on a blind tunnel-like vision. Really, there's absolutely nothing to consider whatsoever? With full sincerity you're saying there's no possible proof or miracles of genuine consideration? It's clear you have not researched this at all; it's just a strong feeling of your's that appears true with no opponent to spar with. Can't tell if it's just edge or pure ill-knowledge. Please see this post:

It's stickied right to the front of the page.

"If you want to discuss history, religion, or the humanities, go to Veeky Forums. "

This is not a discussion of literature. Reported and saged.

because God is not real and you are putting way too much stock on the writings of dead sand nigger cultists.

>A crowd, desperately wanting to see something miraculous, stares into the sun until they start seeing funny colors

"The go-to argument against the miracle seems to be something like "everyone was staring at the sun for a long period of time, which caused them all to hallucinate." The problem with this argument is that they weren't staring at the sun for a long time. The sun was covered by clouds up until the very moment of the miracle. And up until the moment the children pointed at the sun, nobody knew what the anticipated miracle was going to be. So no one would have any reason to look at it until the moment of the miracle. Plus, photos show thousands of people looking up at the sun, with very few even shielding their eyes with their hands. That must mean the sun was in such a state that people could look at without it bothering the eye - just as described by the many witnesses. Plus, witness's testimony say it came about quickly and did not last long. So no, they were not staring at the sun for a prolonged period of time."

...

I don't care about historical miracles, I want to see a miracle. Look I love the Bible, I like Christian art and history, but I don't understand how people actually believe in this. Can someone please explain it to me, I really want to understand but I don't get it. How can people believe in this when there's not a single piece of proof or evidence or demonstration, or ANYTHING. There's no reason except societal or cultural reasons. I just don't get it.

Actually don't bother responding, its pretty clear that it's completely a social/cultural indoctrination thing imprinted on people's minds in the Western world at a very young age which they can't escape from, which is why Papuans or Amazon tribes don't see a reason for "faith" or "sin" or anything.

One of the most interesting things about the gospels is that even though Jesus performed miracles, and was generally considered a prophet, many people including his own brother (who changed his mind later) don't believe what he says. So he would perform these healings but when he said "I am the way the truth and the life nobody comes to the Father except through me" people thought he was bullshitting them. Ultimately what causes us to believe isn't "Reason" or a preponderance of evidence, because even when they had that people still didn't believe him

Sorry, man; if miracles happened left and right, they wouldn't be miraculous. Why doesn't a documented miracle work for you? The standard of you wanting to see a miracle for ultimate proof (I guess it would be 100% proof, individually) is kinda ridiculous and shows your refusal to open your heart.

Actually wait... There is a miracle that you can witness. The Tilma from Our Lady of Guadalupe. It's literally a perpetual miracle man. Please, I urge you to watch the link for that miracle at least :-( Look at the facts, the scientific studies, and books on it. Then you can go witness the miracle with your own eyes in Mexico!!!!!!

But why ignore historical miracles? That doesn't make any sense. I understand you would want to see a miracle, God knows I want to as well. But Again, what is so discrediting of miracles that happened in history and have been studied in the modern age?

Do you reject evidence of the Big Bang because you didn't witness it? Can you not trust the scientific processes that went into determining the beginning of the universe? Do you not believe in JFK because you never saw him with your own eyes? Videos of him wouldn't count because that merely "historical" evidence that you would completely disregard as you do for these considreable miracles. Shit, is gravity real to you? it can only be described or represented, not seen.

See how ridiculous that is?

>How can people believe in this when there's not a single piece of proof or evidence or demonstration, or ANYTHING. There's no reason except societal or cultural reasons

you're willingly blinding yourself to any coniderable evidence, proof, demonstrations and miracles. I literally gave you 4 huge pieces of observable evidence regarding miracles.

> its pretty clear that it's completely a social/cultural indoctrination thing imprinted on people's minds in the Western world at a very young age which they can't escape from

I was a non practicing person with the label "Christian" and knew barely anything about it. I became an atheist for a while. Then I converted to Catholicism. How does your blanket statement apply to me?

It wouldn't matter what your retort is. You're committing the genetic fallacy.

Man, those last two are something else.

Agreed, they are so belittling and mysterious, yet they are so comforting and fill us with awe

Maybe because God isn’t real?

>Humans aren't the center of the universe.
And yet Christianity claims that humans are special and all other animals are fodder. And God pays special attention to one region on this one planet in this one section of the universe for some reason

People eventually realised its all Judaism and abramatism and don't ttake it so seriously. Its kept around out of stu born embarrassment, nostalgia and novelty; entrenchment.

Not only fuck Jews, fuck all abramatism, fuck all theism in any real circle or debate

You clearly do not understand what is meant by 'God' in the bible. Hint: It is not a physical entity sitting in the sky, watching you masturbate.

God is and has always been an abstract metaphor for the defining qualities of life.

>before sending a new prophet, speaking directly to his people
Who's to say he didn't?

>when Veeky Forums accidentally into poetry and /phil/

lol at u

/thred

Not according to him

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>I would believe in the religion but only if it fulfills these specific requirements that I dictate and fit within my world view and perimeters
what's even the point? you'd probably just ignore it or deny it or just outright not care