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Your conversation comes from a soulish perspective.

There are three generally accepted forms of perception at the time of the Incarnation.

Rationalism, which is similar to Platonic reasoning,
Empiricism, say similar to Aristotlean perception, and faith which is purely from God which is a spiritual perception.

Once a person exercises faith in God through Christ, a human spirit is reborn in the man which he was dead to beforehand.

From the perspective of a soulish person, one only with body and soul, but without a living spirit, rationalism and empiricism are the primary methods of perception.

Science has value, but generally more from an empirical and rational perspective.

Upon a saving faith and regeneration of the spirit, man also has a spiritual perception through faith.

From the perspective of the soulish person, the natural man, faith appears to be a leap of logic without substantiation. it is foolishness, yet soulish men observe others involved in religion and attempts to understand what religion means. Without a living spirit, the soulish perspective will tend to interpret the observations and place them in terms of comparative religion. To the soulish man, policies such as those held by freemasons appear very reasonable, i.e. just believe God exists, but don't get mired in the details, therefore Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all appear comparatively coequal, just different perspectives or variations on a theme.

This misses the unique feature of faith through Christ which is very, very real. Namely the regeneration of the spirit and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each believer through faith in Christ. This doesn't occur in any other flavor of religion.

An additional facet of Christianity and the Church Age, is the continueing sanctification of the believer by a continuing ministry by God the Holy Spirit in the mind, soul, heart and spirit of the believer.

Just because a person isn't a believer, doesn't mean they aren't influenced by the spiritual domain. Without the Holy Spirit, though they may be deceived and lack discernment of spiritual truths, which are required in discerning spiritual phenomenon from deception. There do exist deceiving spirits, so the issue isn't moot.

Many other religions might segue from a point of truth provided and revealed to man by God, with a counterfeit substitution. Some of these substitutions might emphasize physical, soulish, or spiritual aspects of perception.

For example, in Islam, there are many facets within their architecture, their 'holy books', their culture, their rituals, which strongly indicate spiritual involvement. The issue really is whether that spiritual information is trustworthy and true. Without God revealing and enabling the believer, one might be influenced or even possessed by demonic spirits.

God provides a solution through faith in Christ, at which time God the Holy Spirit performs all the work in the believer and provides all the faith from Himself.

Strictly speaking, faith is not rooted in the unseen, unmeasurable, and unknowable. That definition might be closer associated with the word "Hope". Hope is faith in things not seen. An intersting thing about faith through Christ is that upon saving faith, hope becomes seen, known, and perceptable through grace. A second hope then arises for the believer to continue in sanctification and renew his mind daily, putting on the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ, leads to changing the heart, which in turn provides the tools to apply in daily problem solving, again through faith in Christ.

Since this faith is from God and involves the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, providing the temple for the Son who is one with the Father, all three persons of the Godhead indwell the believer through faith in Christ.

This doesn't occur in any other religion and it is very, very real. It is so real that no power is able to overcome that faith. All things are possible through it.

It a nutshell, that's why Christian believers tell others about it. It isn't to inflate our own egos, it's a recognition of a power system, faith, love and relationship with God which is provided by no other, in main part because it is all provided by God Himself.

Is it possible to know the mind of God? When He reveals it to a believer through faith in Christ, it not only is knowable, He actually indwells the believer and makes what He wants us to know available to us on His terms. Since He is omniscent and omnipotent, it's a bit foolish to rely on any other teacher except those who He also indwells and provides spiritual gifts, such as the spiritual communication gift of pastor-teacher.

Don't take my word for it,..take His, it's trustworthy for all eternity, regardless the time, place or circumstance.

I have to dissagree- Faith is based upon observation of the work of God as I tried to explain in my previous post- Not all faith of course- but faith is not exclusively independant of reason.

To explain a bit- when You ask specifics from God as an unbeliever, and God grants requests that could not have resulted in any other explainable manner- then you are an observer to the workings of God- you then reason that God is real and therefor base you faith on reason.

A bad example I guess would be soemone who perhaps run out of gas with no money- walks to a store without anyone witnessing & doesn't know what they're going to do- they offer up a quick request & a stranger out of the clear blue comes up and for no reason insists the person take some money. (I've had this happen)

Another might be a person who needs guidance in a matter and God leads them to the answer in most unusual ways.

A relationship with God is a dynamic personal experience- I've only listed a few bad examples, but I can assure you that all these little things do add up & these are things that go way beyond mere coincidences- the odds being such that they are impossible to be coincidences tiem and time again. When God comes calling, the person who is the recipient knows beyond doubt. A person absolutely CAN see God's hand at work and can correctly reason that God means to get their attention. To rule out reason altogether is blind devotion to the fact that faith and reason have no connection.

The scientist that delves deep into the workings of biology and sees clear patterns of design reasons that a designer had to be present just as astutely as someone never havign seen a watch before and breaking one open can correctly reason that a designer created the watch.

The 'science' you claim trumps reason is nothing more than blind faith that disregards reason and takes a leap of faith in order to beleive as far as evolution goes. In order for evolution to be viable, it MUST transcend biological boundaries that goe directly against natural laws and HAS to be based on the faith that DNA is eternal and was so prevelent that it completely choked the universe so that someday, after 10 billion years of lightening strikes on a pond would produce just the right mutation to start an impossible leap from single amino acids to protiens- Scientifically, it has been pretty well established that it would take 10 billion years of constant 24/7 lightening strikes to create just one NEUTRAL mutation that wouldn't be detrimental to the whole process of evolution even if it were biologically possible.

That takes a HEAP of faith- yet incredibly, it is presented as 'science' and therefore noone should question it? Sorry- but as I stated, the whole process of evolution takes an amount of blind faith that HAS to disregard reason in order for the model to be perceived as sound.

Yuo claim science has to see, measure and know in order to be sound right? Mind explaining how we can 'see measure and know' events in the past? Evolution does away with the 'know', does away with the 'see' (We were NOT there to see what was going on and therefore we can't know- we HAVE to have faith that our reasoning is right if we are to believe the theories of evolution)

Ah you say, but we can assemble many present knowns and make a reasonable judgement on certain things that happened in the past. You would be correct- BUT let me point out that a person seeking God does the exact same thing- the only difference being that the person assembles an assortment of knowns that happen in the present as well as some knowns of past happenings based on sciences of archeology, geographical histories, eye witness testimonies from the past etc. and DOES make reason a part of faith.

If you're attempting to state that science is the end all be all of reason, I would caution you that science of the past is based upon faith every bit as much, if not more, than religious faith is. There has NEVER been an instance of evolution that we can point to- the closest any have come is asserting that Pyrokytes (sp?) evolved into another organism- BUT upon closer scrutiny, science HAD to back away from this lie when they wer3 pressed with the truth and facts- the organism they supposedly evolved into (can't remember the name right now- think it was eukoroytes or somethign liek that) was NOTHING but a symbiotic relationship much the same as a parasite invading a host.

Yet, this science you assert is based on reason, told us all along that this WAS an example of evolution.

I'm not going to get into the evolution debate here- but suffice it to say, it takes a whole heap of faith to beleive in a process that is biologically impossible, and it takes a profound audacity to claim that because it is 'science' that it is above being labelled what it really is, and that is faith. To insinuate that it is superior to religious beleif is just wrong and perhaps even an attempt to look down ones nose on religious faith when in reality, the same faith is need3d to beleive in the science one calls immutable.