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Ok, hell!
Topic Started: Mar 29 2009, 10:35 PM (3,368 Views)
John D'Oh
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MAMIL
The description of the greatest power in the universe as 'A jealous God' has always made me uncomfortable. Jealousy is normally a sign of insecurity.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Aqua Letifer
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Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 06:24 AM
Free will has been supposedly given by the Creator. Yet, with the threat of Hell and damnation hanging overhead, that's not free will. That's coercion.
I dunno about that so much. I don't think of it as forcing or intimidating. More like, what you do has consequences. Like, you're entirely free to lose total control of yourself when you're drinking, but don't expected to be invited to too many parties if you do. Play nice down here, and you're invited to the Big Party up there. Heck you can still screw up plenty, just try to be civil is all.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Frank_W
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Right... This life, in the context of ETERNITY, is the merest breath, and yet, if we don't supposedly believe a certain way, or say the Magic Words and get the Celestial Fire Insurance, then we are banished to anguish, Hell, and separated from God for all of ETERNITY with no hope of reprieve or death. EVER.

Yeah... That's real justice, isn't it? "Oh.... But go ahead! You just go ahead and do whatever you want! Meanwhile, we'll show you this pitiful man who only wanted to SAVE you, and DIED for your SINS, with thorns jammed into his head, and nails hammered through his feet and hands. He did that for YOU! Now, you sinner, don't you feel terrible for your lack of gratitude? For your lack of remorse? Don't you feel GUILTY?! No?? Well, how does BURNING FOREVER AND EVER sound, then? If GUILT doesn't work, maybe SCARING YOU will!!"

It's all manipulation, and it's offensive in the extreme. (Including the barbaric images of crucifixion.)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Dewey
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If he intended it from the beginning and his creation didn't fit what he wanted then he messed up to begin with didn't he?


Not at all. You believe this only because you want to stop the creative process too early. God's intent was never to create what we have today as the endpoint; but then we humans mucked it up for him. If that were the case, you would be justified in questioning God's omniscience. God did not become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ simply to to provide a patch for a design error, but rather to continue the creative/reconciliative process that is only underway within this phase of our existence/creation (in fact, it's because of this that I differ with many Christians in that I believe the incarnation would have occurred even if we had never sinned/fallen). Christ's entry into the world, I believe, is one part of the continual, gradual unfolding of the reality of God and what I've called the "eschatological consummation." That consummation isn't a result of we screwed up(or by extension, God screwed up), so now he's got to go to "Plan B." The consummation is the entire point, and intent; what we are merely on the way toward.

God's creative act is not something that was done, and then went haywire. God's creative act is continuing to unfold, toward the end that God has always had in mind.

Quote:
 
Necessary labour pains. Necessary as in you can't get to the result without the suffering? That kind of necessary? Fine. But then of course the term omnipotent can't be used.


It certainly may. God is omnipotent, but we are not. God wants to end up with a creation that includes humans who have a human will that includes the ability to reject. In this phase of creation, we're sorting out who does, and who does not, use their will in a way that will make them elegible to be part of the final act of the play that is creation. A necessity of that process is that some humans will, and some will not, use the will properly, and suffering is a necessary part of that process.

Quote:
 
Because to someone omnipotent nothing is necessary. An omnipotent designer could have started off with this magic final step.


No. Being omnipotent does not eliminate necessity. Being omnipotent actually necessiates that one must act in accordance with one's own nature and will. Part of that will in this case is that God wants a creation inhabited by humans who have, of their own will, indicated acknowledgement of God and the faith required to be part of that final step. For God to have simply jumped to that final step would have eliminated our part in the process, which is contrary to God's intent for creation - in fact, to have done so would have been God acting contrary to God's own nature, which is something that even an omnipotent Being is incapable of.

Quote:
 
The character that you describe does not fit the infinitely powerfull, wise , good etc. etc. description that many monotheists like to use.


Actually, the character that I describe is only inconsistent with your viewpoint of what is powerful, wise, good, etc. As you are not yourself an infinite being, you aren't standing on a plateau sufficiently high to define those terms in their infinite sense. As I said earlier, God's goodness (and all other attributes) are defined from the total reality - God seeing over the horizon that we can't, as I said earlier. It's entirely conceivable that any of us might see any particular acts on God's part, and consider them to be bad for us on a personal level (something similar to a child yelling at his parents that something the parent is doing for the child's ultimate benefit is "mean" or "hateful," or maybe more relevant to the disputation of omniscience, a teenager yelling at his parents, "you just don't understand!"). But that isn't sufficient to negate the potential that the reverse is actually the correct view, able to be seen only by one who is omniscient.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Aqua Letifer
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Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 07:44 AM
Right... This life, in the context of ETERNITY, is the merest breath, and yet, if we don't supposedly believe a certain way, or say the Magic Words and get the Celestial Fire Insurance, then we are banished to anguish, Hell, and separated from God for all of ETERNITY with no hope of reprieve or death. EVER.

Yeah... That's real justice, isn't it? "Oh.... But go ahead! You just go ahead and do whatever you want! Meanwhile, we'll show you this pitiful man who only wanted to SAVE you, and DIED for your SINS, with thorns jammed into his head, and nails hammered through his feet and hands. He did that for YOU! Now, you sinner, don't you feel terrible for your lack of gratitude? For your lack of remorse? Don't you feel GUILTY?! No?? Well, how does BURNING FOREVER AND EVER sound, then? If GUILT doesn't work, maybe SCARING YOU will!!"

It's all manipulation, and it's offensive in the extreme. (Including the barbaric images of crucifixion.)
Untrue. Well, it depends on what you believe, but Benedict said just a year or so ago that atheists aren't guaranteed a spot in hell. I forget the details but if that's the case, it seems to me that alternative beliefs are okay.

As far as the guilt goes, you bet, it can be a good thing. But only if it serves as a motivator; feeling bad about your unworthiness does nothing for you if it doesn't make you consider how you can try to overcome that.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Renauda
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HOLY CARP!!!
AL, what makes you, me or anyone *unworthy*. That is just nonsensical mumbo-jumbo or, as Frank points out, manipulation.
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Mikhailoh
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Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 07:44 AM
.. and get the Celestial Fire Insurance....
:lol2: :lol2: :lol2:
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Frank_W
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I am not an atheist. I believe in God. I don't believe in the Christian version of God, nor Christian theology. That's all.
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Dewey
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Why not just say "God deserves glorification for all he has done for us" rather than "God expects us to glorify him"?


What God expects of us, is to do those things which are right in God's eyes. One of those things would include seeing and acknowledging that God is worthy of glorification. Therefore, God expects us to glorify him, just as he expects us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Dewey
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AL, what makes you, me or anyone *unworthy*. That is just nonsensical mumbo-jumbo or, as Frank points out, manipulation.


I'd suggest that if there is a Creator, then that Creator, and not the creature, is the only one who has the authority to determine if one is worthy or unworthy. If you don't believe in such a Creator, then you may very well consider it an attempt at manipulation and mumbo jumbo. However, if you believe in the Christian understanding of God, you don't have that luxury.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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PattyP
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Dewey
Apr 2 2009, 04:53 AM
OK, Moonbat, let me explain what I'm trying to get you to consider.

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he knew as he created reality all that would occur, he knew people would choose to kill and maim each other yet he still picked that universe, this universe, rather than one of the one's where people don't choose to kill and maim each other. ...

but he chose the universe where we choose to kill and maim and he did so deliberately because he had infinite knowledge beforehand.


God's intent in the process of creation was, and is, to create a particular type of cosmos - one in which all things have a particular type of what I'll call "perfection," although I stress that by this, I mean "God's full intention for that manner of creation" - which, frankly, we don't fully understand; not "perfection" in whatever meaning of the word we humans may assess to the word.

This idea of a perfect creation includes all physical, material existence. One aspect of this perfect physical creation is human life. But human life within the perfect creation of God's intent is not the type/manner of human life as we understand ourselves in our current state of being. The human creature that God intends within this perfect creation is one who

a.) is a being both body/physical and soul/spiritual;
b.) has a human nature, which has some real, but very limited, similarites to God's own nature; and
c.) exhibits a voluntary relationship of love of, and obedience to, God, even while the human nature permits the human to not do so

(The old-timers expressed this idea in the first question of the Westminster Catechisms: "Q. What is the chief end of man?" "A. To love God and glorify Him forever.")

Notice, though, that humans are only one aspect of the perfect creation. This idea of "perfection" extends to all of physical creation - humans are an important, but not the only, component of the perfect creation of God's intent.

Another important aspect is that we humans have never met the standard of God's pefection, to be part of the perfect creation of God's intent. Note particularly that this is even true of human creation before the "fall of man"/the entry of sin into our physical creation. (Many Christians who might read that sentence would take issue with what I just wrote, but I ask them to stay with me to the end, and you'll see that even if you've never heard anyone say that before, this is the consistent, orthodox Christian belief, at least in the sense that I mean it here. ) More on this aspect later.

The Christian understanding is that God has or will move within history primarily in one of three ways:

1.) creation - pretty self-explanatory
2.) reconciliation - the act/manner/process of repairing the relationship between God and humans, which had been broken through our rejection of God
3.) eschatological consummation - the final fulfilment and completion of creation; the establishment of the perfect, physical/spiritual existence of God's intention

It is Christian belief that aspect #2 of this list was achieved by the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, who is the eternal Son (one of the three identities making up the single triune God) who has taken on, in addition to his divine nature, a human nature and body, and through whom came the ability for humans to be reconciled with God. I am not interested, as part of this discussion, to divert into either a discussion about the nature of the Trinity, or a discussion of the Incarnation, or even a discussion of the understanding of precisely how Christ actually achieves that intent. For the sake of this specific topic, it suffices to point out that this is the Christian belief regarding how God works to achieve reconciliation.

Item #3 is very important to think about, in light of our current discussion. It is Christian belief that this eschatological consummation is a process that has begun to break into this current existence; that it began with the entry of Jesus Christ into the world, and most particularly in Jesus' physical resurrecton and ascension. It is Christian belief that this was the first, crucial step in God's finally completing/creating/establishing the perfect creation that God had intended since the beginning.

This is a kery important idea to grasp: This creation as we know it is not the ultimate creation of God's intent. Even the original creation, before the fall of humanity, before the entry of sin into this world, did not represent God's full, final intent for creation. At this point, many Christians reading this will say "Well that's not what I was taught/that's not what I always heard in sermons/Sunday School!" All probably very true, but still very true, for the following reason.

Christians believe in the coming final eschatological fulfilment; that this is the singular, particular event that all of creation and history has been moving toward since the beginning. Our creation is NOT simply about living good lives so that once we die, we'll live non-materially/spiritually in heaven, and avoid a similar existence in hell. That is NOT what Christianity teaches. Christianity teaches that the endgame is the fulfilment and establishment not just of a spiritual heaven/hell, but of this physical and spiritual existence. It is an existence where humans exist physically, in a physical way similar to, but different from, our current physicality. It is a vastly different type of physical existence, one which we can't even fully understand at this point, but which we have seen a preview of, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrected Christ is spiritual and physical, but physical in a manner which can use time/space differently thaht our physical bodies can (i.e., Jesus' post-resurrection accounts of his appearing & disappearing, his being able to speak with people who knew him yet couldn't recognize him until he willed that they do so - he wasn't able to do these things because he was a ghost, or because he was divine; but because of the particular nature of this physical resurrection body)

If this is the case - and Christians believe that it is - then we have to understand creation as have seen it play out, is not a completed act, but one which is not yet complete. In other words, God did not "choose a universe," to use your words, but more accurately, "is choosing a universe." God's creation is an as-yet incomplete process.

Christians, note that the eschatological fulfilment - the establishment of a physical Kingdom of God on earth/within physical creation has been God's intent from teh beginning. This is not changed by the idea that our physical creation originated "good," and that sin entered creation through our willful rejection of God. This is true. But also remember, God's intent is a creation populated by humans who have a human will that must, by definition, allow for rejection of God, but the human chooses not to reject - which clearly is not the case in this creation. Further, as we se in the physical nature of the resurrected Jesus, the concept of physical existence in God's intent is something very different from what he have now, or even had upon our original creation. God had a "step two" in mind from the very beginning.

Our current existence - one in which our own rebellion has indeed brought on pain and suffering because of our own willful rebellion from God - is, no matter how good its original state, nonetheless a transitional state - a waystation on the way to the completion of God's creation (heaven and hell themselves are also similar waystations en route to the completion of God's intended creation). This creation is, to paraphrase that Paul guy, exhibiting the labor pains of the final creation currently beginning to be unfolded. An important part of this transitional phase is allowing humans to exist, with full exercise of human nature, to find those who will ultimately populate the creation that God has in mind.

That does nothing to diminish the importance of our current existence. Our existence in this creation is actually of utmost importance; what we do in this physical existence determines whether we will enter into that final, ultimate physical existence. This life is a testing ground. Part of that testing - in fact, the reason the testing is needed at all - is that some will not pass the test. That's part of the paradox of our human nature: in order for us to be the kind of creatures that God wants to populate the as-yet incomplete creation, we have to have the human will to reject God. In our physical existence in that completed creation, we will continue to have human will - including the ability to reject God, even - but while retaining the ability to do so, we will be so guided by God that we will always choose not to reject God.

That's where I was headed in my asking you to consider the implications of your words. God has not "created" something and stepped back to watch it play out, to its own detriment. Rather, we ourselves are living in the midst of the continuing process of creation. We have not yet reached the endpoint, and the current suffering and lack of completion are the necessary labor pains en route to the completion of this creation. It is the necessary vehicle to reach the "universe of God's choosing" which is inhabited by human life which exists and wills as God really desires (and in fact, very similar, but not exactly the same, as a kind of ideal human existence described earlier by you). Finally, it is Christian belief that this final eschatological culmination of creation and eternal, physical/spiritual life in the presence of the Creator will be one of such complete joy and fulfilment that the struggles of our current existence, as real and painful as they are, pale in comparison to the ultimate reality. God can create a world that exists as our current world does, with all of its pain and suffering, and still be considered a God of love, because of that reality - what is yet to come is infinitely greater, and worth the current pain endured to get there. Our current struggles may be seen by some as evidence that God is neither omniscient nor loving, but they may just as easily be seen as evidence that he is, in fact, both. He can see the reality just over the horizon that we can't see, and that in our limited field of vision, we sometimes feel that we've been given a raw deal that if what we see, and know, and feel now is as good as it gets, then God is a joke, or a failure, or a sadist. In a real way, the horrors of this stage of creation point to the untold joy to be available in the next step.
Dewey,

+1 :thumb:

A tired dog is a good dog.

"Dogs' lives are too short...their only fault, really."
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Renauda
Apr 2 2009, 08:57 AM
AL, what makes you, me or anyone *unworthy*. That is just nonsensical mumbo-jumbo or, as Frank points out, manipulation.
We're "unworthy" in that we're all flawed. It may have been a bad word choice but it was meant to imply we're imperfect.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Aqua Letifer
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Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 09:00 AM
I am not an atheist. I believe in God. I don't believe in the Christian version of God, nor Christian theology. That's all.
Yeah I know you're not an atheist. Just an example of how the Church doesn't claim that those who don't adhere to their beliefs are destined for eternal damnation.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Frank_W
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All I've ever heard is that anyone who doesn't accept Jesus, goes to Hell forever, when they die.
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Aqua Letifer
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Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 09:11 AM
All I've ever heard is that anyone who doesn't accept Jesus, goes to Hell forever, when they die.
Well, I can't find it now (maybe IT knows what I'm talking about), but the word from the Pope a year or so ago was, "not necessarily."
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Renauda
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Aqua Letifer
Apr 2 2009, 09:14 AM
Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 09:11 AM
All I've ever heard is that anyone who doesn't accept Jesus, goes to Hell forever, when they die.
Well, I can't find it now (maybe IT knows what I'm talking about), but the word from the Pope a year or so ago was, "not necessarily."
So does that mean Palageanism is no longer heresy?

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Moonbat
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Not at all. You believe this only because you want to stop the creative process too early. God's intent was never to create what we have today as the endpoint; but then we humans mucked it up for him. If that were the case, you would be justified in questioning God's omniscience. God did not become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ simply to to provide a patch for a design error, but rather to continue the creative/reconciliative process that is only underway within this phase of our existence/creation


When I talk of different universes I'm talking about entire histories from beginning to end (or infinitely into the future). This page that I talk of a God choosing has written on it everything that has happened and everything that will happen. So there is no sense in which I'm talking about a process that starts at a certain point or ends point, at all.

This entire reconciliative thing implies a problem that needed to be reconciled - the human didn't live up to gods intentions. Which is a contradiction if he's a triomni-designer who created all of reality, if that were true it would be impossible by definition for humans not to live up to gods intentions. Everything humans ever do would be intended by the uber designer if that uber designer was tri-omni.

Quote:
 

God's creative act is not something that was done, and then went haywire. God's creative act is continuing to unfold, toward the end that God has always had in mind.


As i say i make no mention about time or processes. But if god wanted this mystical end point where everyone is happy and wonderful why didn't he just start with it? he could have just started with it.

In any case your story is consistent, as mythological stories go, but it's just that the character you describe is not tri-omni.


Quote:
 

It certainly may. God is omnipotent, but we are not. God wants to end up with a creation that includes humans who have a human will that includes the ability to reject. In this phase of creation, we're sorting out who does, and who does not, use their will in a way that will make them elegible to be part of the final act of the play that is creation. A necessity of that process is that some humans will, and some will not, use the will properly, and suffering is a necessary part of that process.


I've already answered why the human "will" makes no difference. You haven't answered my original argument. If he is tri-omni everything that happens happens because he chose this particular history, he chose a history where certain people fail to make the 'right' choices, he could have chosen a history of the universe where they did make the right choices, where everyone makes the right choice. The agents in that history have just as much "will" as we do in our history. You're putting forward an argument that I answered with my very first post - reread it.

If he wanted a a reality where there people who make the right decisions then he could have started off making the world that way. Just think about what you are saying.

You're saying he needs to do an experiment! You're saying he makes the humans and he doesn't know which ones and the good ones so puts in this world and he lets them wander round and do their stuff and then he sees which ones are the goods and he picks those to put in his uber reality. So he's obviously limited because if he wouldn't he wouldn't have to do the experiment, he'd know before who hand who the good ones were and choose.

Quote:
 

No. Being omnipotent does not eliminate necessity. Being omnipotent actually necessiates that one must act in accordance with one's own nature and will. Part of that will in this case is that God wants a creation inhabited by humans who have, of their own will, indicated acknowledgement of God and the faith required to be part of that final step. For God to have simply jumped to that final step would have eliminated our part in the process, which is contrary to God's intent for creation - in fact, to have done so would have been God acting contrary to God's own nature, which is something that even an omnipotent Being is incapable of.


I've already answered this question of will and why it doesn't work but what you're writing here is sophistry. You're saying he 'can't' jump to the end because that's against his intent and hence his nature which is just saying he doesn't want to jump to the end. So really you're saying could infact have jumped to the end but that he wants the beginning part to, he wants the experiment part, he wants the horrible stuff to happen. So again that makes him not omnibenevolent, an all-good God by definition wouldn't want the bad stuff.

Quote:
 


Actually, the character that I describe is only inconsistent with your viewpoint of what is powerful, wise, good, etc. As you are not yourself an infinite being, you aren't standing on a plateau sufficiently high to define those terms in their infinite sense.


I mean those words as humans mean those words because i'm human talking to another human. As the terms are usually defined, a putative designer of this world could not be described as all-good all-powerfull and all-knowing.


Anyway lets just recap your story. A god designs a bunch of conscious agents such that they fail to meet a set of criteria and makes sure that for certain agents horrible horrible things happen, he then sacrifices himself in order to make himself forgive the conscious agents he designed to fail for failing. Following this bizarre act he then chooses a subset of people who pass some criteria and beams them to some other reality where he's been kind enough not to include horrible things happening, the rest either get more horrible things heaped on them for acting the way he designed them to act, possibly for ever.

And why why would anyone in their right mind believe even one word of this Dewey? Why not one of the many many other equally fantastical creation myths? None of them have anything going for them, not one shred of evidence backs these things. They are so easy to understand, they are so so small. You think your god is a big idea but he's pathetic: it's so obviously a man! It's so obviously human beings looking at the world and not understanding how to think in a non-human way about it hence concluding that some kind giant super human must have made everything. That gigantic super human evolved into your god as the stories got passed on. That's what's happening here.

It's so hopelessly inadequate when contrasted with the real world. A world with more detail in a single drop of water than can ever be imagined. We are so much more than the play things of some psychologically challenged uber dictator. We are a branch on the tree of life. We are part of the diversity and complexity of the biological world that evolution has gradually chiselled out over a billion years. We are part of an incomprehensibly immense self-assembling reality with glimpses of that reality conjured up in our superconnected network of neurones. The real world is harsh and indifferent to us, we are alone and most forge our own purpose, but the real world is jaw droppingly beautiful, it's nothing like the mundanity that these myopic myths make it out to be.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Patty, you actually read through all that? I'm not sure I could again... ^_^
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Renauda
Apr 2 2009, 09:17 AM
Aqua Letifer
Apr 2 2009, 09:14 AM
Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 09:11 AM
All I've ever heard is that anyone who doesn't accept Jesus, goes to Hell forever, when they die.
Well, I can't find it now (maybe IT knows what I'm talking about), but the word from the Pope a year or so ago was, "not necessarily."
So does that mean Palageanism is no longer heresy?

To be honest I don't know if the Church changed their stance on that --although I doubt it -- but my gut tells me that the two are independent issues.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Moonbat, I've already addressed every point you've re-raised in your most recent post. You want to argue against the set of beliefs. I have no desire to argue to prove the beliefs to you. My only intent is to try for you to actually understand the beliefs that you wish disagree with. I've given that attempt enough time. I've got to get on with other things now. Best.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 05:22 AM
The Christian God, said to be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, is a real bastard and I don't mind saying so. Read the book of Job, or the account of Lot and his daughters, or the Israelites' being commanded to go into an enemy's land and wipe out every man, woman, child, and every bit of livestock.

But he's the God of LOVE!!! (And if you don't believe that, he'll send you to HELL to PROVE IT!!)

Heh... Riiiiiiiiiiiight..... <_<
The two notions that God is unchangeable and that the perception of God changes are not contradictory.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
I never said they were contradictory. But maybe Jehovah and God are two different entities. ???
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Renauda
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HOLY CARP!!!
Aqua Letifer
Apr 2 2009, 09:24 AM
To be honest I don't know if the Church changed their stance on that --although I doubt it -- but my gut tells me that the two are independent issues.
Well then you tell me how a heathen atheist is going receive grace without faith. I seem to recall reading about a minor historical event called the Reformation which more or less revolved around the very issue of justification by faith.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Frank_W
Apr 2 2009, 06:24 AM
Free will has been supposedly given by the Creator. Yet, with the threat of Hell and damnation hanging overhead, that's not free will. That's coercion.
It's not a threat, although obviously people have used it as a threat. The distortion of a message does not invalidate a message.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
If you say so, IT.

The Christian God's version of love seems to be an iron fist in a velvet glove, though. :tongue:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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