Eric H

If and only if god exists, why would he reveal himself in a way that promotes scientific discussion? Can God do anything? Could there be a purpose so great, that possibly even God could do nothing greater? The following is just a simplistic collection of words to challenge the mind to think, if you choose to read further, search for something greater? Before the creation of the universe began, imagine God looking out over the vast empty void of space and thinking, I have the power to create anything I like, what is the greatest thing I can create? God could create all the stars and planets and be a builder. God could create vegetation and be a gardener. He could create animals and be a farmer. God could create children in his own image and be a father. Could God create anything greater than children in his own image? Could God love each and everyone of his children as he loves himself? This was before we started to label ourselves as Hindu, Christian, atheist, Muslim, Chinese, American or any other title. Could God love us more than he loves himself? Can there be any greater good purpose to create the universe and life? If and only if God can do nothing greater than love all of us as he loves himself, are we given the greatest commandments to do likewise? We should also love all our neighbours as we love ourselves, can we do anything greater? Just some thoughts.

I fully agree with you. Science has the ability to advance both weapons and medicine. I doubt that science will be able to answer the questions about God in my lifetime. In the meantime, I just put my faith and trust in a God that created the universe, and without the science to back it up. I am not anti science, I just find faith in God to be helpful.

Science logic and reason will conclude that it is far safer for pensioners to stay at home and watch tv. But faith in God has helped me confront the anti social drunken behaviour of the late night economy. Faith can be beneficial and used to try and bring about some good.

We have come across fights when the police have been called, and they don't turn up; they just don't have the resources. We have the choice to walk away; or we can try and do something. We genuinely do not like to see people get hurt; we want to see our town become a kinder and more caring place to live in, so we have the need to try and do something. One of our pubs has started to use a metal detector, and they have confiscated five knives recently. This is a worrying trend, but faith in God helps us to keep going. I sincerely believe that faith can be used to try and bring about some good.

They thought they had tons of objective evidence, but the evidence they lacked was, how long will a plane last before it breaks down. Orville Wright was responsible for the first death of a passenger in a plane crash. I believe that our aviation pioneers needed a mixture of hope, trust and faith in forces they did not fully understand. We have them to thank for our plane safety today.

Booze can cloud the mind and you can escape reality for a while, but the problems of life that we hide from; will still be there in the morning. The profound sense of peace that comes from God is without the use of stimulants. It comes in times when I should be feeling fear, worry and anxiety. Thousand of people have died over the last couple of centuries pioneering aviation. They had little objective evidence to suggest their ideas would work, but they had to put their trust in new ideas that sometimes led to their deaths. Thanks to these pioneers in aviation and all their failures; we now have more objective evidence to understand how flight works; and it is now much safer for all of us. Mankind would probably still be living in the stone age if we waited for clear objective evidence to move forwards.

There might be a billion Muslims and a billion Christians who have a faith; each one of them probably has their own "Substantial objective evidence" for their belief. Just because they have their evidence, this does not mean that I should believe too. I have seen many God coincidences happen through prayer and trust in God. The "Substantial objective evidence" that has the biggest impact on my life; is the profound sense of peace I experience in times when I should be fearful and worried.

Faith is very much a personal attribute, but I like to think it can be used to bring about some good. I could adjust your quote to read - Here is my definition: faith is a confident belief in the claims of God; with some substantial objective evidence for that confidence. I understand this is a difficult concept for someone who does not have any belief or dependence in God. Parachuting is the closest analogy I can think of. No matter how tough you think you are, you would not jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet without a parachute, you know it is going to hurt. If you put a parachute on, that would give you the confidence to jump. If you land safely, then you have the parachute to thank. In a similar way, faith in God gives me the confidence to go out on the streets and confront angry violence. My hope is that something good will happen. We can spend half an hour with drunken angry people, and that is the start of our journey together, we bump into these people in the months and years to come. Change is gradual, and we need the resilience and perseverance to keep going, even when things seem bad. We give thanks to God for all the good things that seem to keep happening.

All these things are just a thought process, and are almost meaningless. Faith only happens when you walk out the door and do something.

Faith does not make anyone bullet proof, faith is only faith when you come through these trials, and try one more time. We are out on the streets tonight until around 4 am tomorrow, we hope for a good outcome as we have done for the last eleven years; but this is not in our power to know. We have come into contact with fights when broken bottles have been used. On two occasions we met people with knives, and after a long conversation, encouraged them to hand the knives to us. We carry nothing to protect us.

In 2011 I had tests done for cancer, about a month later the doctor phoned and said he urgently wanted to see me, it was non – Hodgkin Lymphoma. This was a name I recognised, our friend had this cancer, and died a few months later. I prayed for the wisdom, strength and peace to do God’s will, whether the cancer was a death sentence, or just an inconvenience. I can only say that from the moment of making this prayer, I have experienced a profound sense of peace, and the thought of cancer has never troubled me for a moment. Cancer could be a truly worrying process, you wait a month or two for tests, you wait for the results, and you wait for more tests. I have never once prayed for healing, at the age of 62, the prayer for healing seemed too complicated, it might or might not be my time to go. Recognising this profound sense of peace comes from God, gives me reason to be thankful.

One night we observed a couple of lads in an ally, the lads saw us and they came towards us and pointing at us they said, walk on. I knew their anger was directed at us, and I said to my partner that we should walk away. He said, have you seen those other lads climbing over the garden wall? I hadn't seen them, but the moment they were pointed out was the moment I knew we would have to stay. All the lads came over, we were threatened and pushed around a bit before all the lads walked off. We noted this incident in our report the following day, and the police get a copy. The police caught up with these lads and asked us to make a statement; but I said no. First of all I am a Christian, and I am supposed to forgive, how can I forgive them if you punish them first? My ideal outcome would be, that we sit in a room with these lads, they talk, we talk, then the lads walk away. Sadly the police did not accept this as a solution. People often have a right to be angry, and this was the case for the most angry lad we met on that night. We later found out that he had never got on with his dad, then his dad had cancer and they started to make up, then sadly his dad died. We have since journeyed with this lad for a few years and we are starting to see a change. So zapatos, when you say people often look for a good outcome, we often don't know what the problem is, or how to go for the good outcome. Sometimes these good things take months and years to come about, it seems that we often have to consider what is good for other people, rather than what is good for us.

We go out in our weakness; and yes; I believe that God has kept us safe; but there are no guarantees for the future. I think the type of person who would find it harder to be a Street Pastor; would be someone like a super fit karate champion. The temptation might be to go out in their own strength and knowledge; but the peaceful solutions we seek do not depend on our strength. The volunteers who amaze me the most are the ladies in their sixties and over, they just seem to have a sense of peace and joy. These are the last people who should be wondering the streets until the early hours.

I could just sit at home and moan about the problems, or try and do something. As I have said before, I would like my town to be a kinder and more caring place to live in; we should strive to be the change we want to see. Prayer helps me to overcome fear, worry and anxiety. I see this as a positive aspect of faith, we need all the help we can get. Having seen many fights over the last eleven years, the only other people we have witnessed trying to bring about some kind of solution are big burly doormen and the police. You will never look into the eyes of anyone who does not matter to God. If God cares about everyone, then I should also care about everyone. That includes all the hooligans we see; who are punching the living daylights out of each other.

What you have described is just an exercise in critical thinking, there are no risks in critical thinking; that is until you put your plan into action. Change the word faith to trust. You know that when you jump out the plane, your life will depend on the parachute, you have to fully trust that everything will work this time. When you jump; the success rate of previous jumps become irrelevant.

We will all die at some point, so there are no guarantees in any situation. Faith is about giving you the courage to do doing something, when you are not sure of the outcome, we hope that something good will happen. I can sit here and say, I believe parachuting is easy, but the only way to have faith in parachuting, is to put one on, go up in a plane and jump. If I jump once, I have faith once, if I jump ten times, then I have faith ten times. But what happens if I have an accident or a close encounter with death whilst parachuting, will I have the faith to jump one more time? Street Pastors have secular risk assessments, policies and procedures to comply with the law of the land. We had training from the police and paramedics, much of which was about trying to avoid risks and risky situations. We have had no training at all regarding self defence. I guess it is hard to understand our motivation to do things, I hate violence and I hate to see other people get hurt, I want to see our community become a kinder and more caring place for my family, friends, children and grandchildren. Faith in God helps me to do something, rather than sit in the pub and moan about the state of the world.

The opening post asks how has faith helped, I have simply replied. Our intervention was non religious, we did not preach, we just walked in the middle of angry drunks fighting. Why would you call that a religious intervention? We already know we could get hurt, but faith helps us to take that risk. If it were risk free; then we would not need faith. Of course they do, and I admire them greatly. We don't get paid; nurses and ambulance drivers generally do, so they have an incentive also. And I still respect and admire their dedication to the job, generally ambulance drivers will not try and break up fights, they leave it to the police. When we try and help someone, we put their needs first, we pray and ask for God's help, because so often we would feel out of our comfort zone doing the things we do.

From the opening post. I think this is a good start to try and understand faith. Science is not an attack on faith, but there are situations where you cannot rely on science for help. I have volunteered as a Street Pastor for the last eleven years, we wonder round our town until 4 -5 am on a Saturday morning; just to be with people who might need help. We come across a whole range of situations including drunken violence; I can remember the first time a group of about a dozen people were fighting. We have this dilemma, on the one hand there are all the risk assessments; policies and radio contact with the police; or we can just pray and go. As we approached; one man was punched to the ground, another was being kicked on the road and we saw a woman punched in the face. There is very little we can do other than walk in the middle and try and keep people apart. I can only say that I experience a profound sense of peace which is beyond my understanding, it seems that over time these angry people absorb our peace and the fighting stops. We stay with them a while, and when it is time to part company, these once angry people shake our hands and give us a hug. I was in my sixties at the time and my partners were two ladies in their seventies. We go out in our weakness and put our faith and trust in God; and somehow good things seem to happen.

Faith can have positive and profound benefits, whether you can quantify them or not.

Maybe more people need to take this on board. What positive thoughts could you use in similar situations?

My mum lived her life in a way that someone would if they had both arms and both legs amputated; she was paralysed from the neck down. There were no prosthetic limbs for her to use during the last twenty years of her life. Her faith helped her to find a peace that was truthfully beyond my understanding.

The doctors didn't see a calming voice as an option open to them, they walked away and said there was nothing they could do. As I said before, I shall never meet a stronger person than my mum. She endured the last twenty years of her life being paralysed from the neck down, she suffered daily in ways that no one should suffer; yet she had a peace and kindness about her that was beyond my understanding. I can imagine you might like to take the credit for all the good stuff that happens in your life, but mum seemed to find some strength from God? We are all different.

Of course. Irrespective as to whether we will ever know what happened before the BB, mankind will still keep searching for answers. Maybe you are right, but life throws things at us. My mum went into a coma and was rushed to hospital, her breathing was a horrible gurgling sound. The doctors said she had days to live and there was nothing they could do for her. We called a priest, although none of us had a faith at the time, we just thought it was what you should do as mum was bought up a Catholic. As the priest prayed my mums gasping for air seemed to change, she seemed to relax and started to breathe more normally. About ten minutes after the priest walked out the door, mum came round and started to speak, she had no recollection of anything that happened in hospital, or that the priest had said prayers over her. We thought it might have just been a temporary reprieve, but she lived another eleven years. Having our mum back was a mixed blessing, because she had suffered with multiple sclerosis for about twenty years prior to the coma, and she had gradually lost the use of both her arms and legs. Before the coma, there were times she said she wanted to die. But after the coma my mum regarded her healing as a blessing, despite her paralysed body, and she said she was not ready to die at the time of the coma. I can only say that I will never meet a stronger person than my mum.

It seems to suggest that some of our facts might be incomplete or wrong. Facts have to satisfy the mind also. The 'Big Bang' leaves the question of what happened before. To say the universe always existed, lacks the mathematics of how it always existed. We still desire to know the truth of how the universe came to be. "The Truth" keeps us searching. Just my 2c.

How do you know that? What is the alternative?