Is God a tyrant? (If he exists)

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by hns64, Feb 9, 2004.

  1. heart Registered Senior Member

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    If I remember correctly you believe hell is nothing but a grave where one will cease to exist? If you think that greek and roman mythology was the influence of how hell is described in the bible ie torture, pain, etc
    what makes you think it wasn't for heaven?
     
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  3. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "The "do as I say not as I do routine"? Pathetic."

    You mean like how we do as the government does and not as they say?

    "So what happens if a person "hears" god speaking to them and tells them to kill someone- are they to do as god tells them?"

    There are no what ifs. Point me to a case where it was really God that told someone to kill somebody. And then explain to me why it was undeniably or couldn't possibly be God. Just because some blind man is convinced he's petting a duck isn't going to save him from being eaten by the lion he's messing around with. And just because you don't believe it doesn't make it not true.

    "Does "rejecting his love" also include not being and doing as he commands?:

    Yes.

    "You know all of those "heavy drinkers, homosexuals, adulterers, etc"? Reason I ask because it seems to me even if they did love him, regardless of their lifestyle- they are doomed."

    Um, I don't see heavy drinkers comdemned to hell anywhere in the Bible. In fact the mentions giving stong drink to people so they can forget their worries.

    Proverbs 31
    6 Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.
    7 Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

    And yes to the other two if they're not repentant. Anyone who lives in sin and is unrepentant is in danger of Hell. If they loved God they would keep (or at least try) to keep his commandments. Getting up on a pulpit and denying God's stand on those two sins and being proud of your actions yes, will get you to hell because by that point it's a long road to admit you're wrong. Everyone is a sinner. Homosexuals et al have the same chance for salvation as anyone else who recognizes their sin and repents.

    "The whole concept sucks! Do as I say or you will rot in hell- manipulative bully of a god if you ask me."

    Yes, that would be a threat. But in this case you got what you wanted: seperation from God. You choose hell.

    And frankly God's law is a very good thing. So doing as he says isn't much of a chore.

    "The alternative is pretty f'd up."

    If you choose to reject him, that's your fault. God's not forcing you to believe in him, accept him or anything. If you reject him he simply gives you what you wanted.

    You want to be able to reject God, hate him and then expect him to shower you with fluffy goodness. Not going to happen.

    Ben
     
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  5. JustARide America: 51% fucking idiots Registered Senior Member

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    And when the stakes are as big as eternal reward or eternal suffering, why are we merely given vague "ideas" about what is required?

    Using the same analogy (our legal system), let us ask this: does our law strive to be vague or specific? I believe the answer would be "specific." Ours is a system in constant revision, as we strive to make the law increasingly clear and applicable in a fair manner to all parties involved. Most of our punishments are small ones, relatively speaking; hell, on the other hand, is the most severe punishment possible, yet God only gives us a vague guide as to how we might avoid such a fate.

    Mercy, in your book, seems to refer to any instance in which someone/something with great power opts to not inflict the worst punishment possible for any conceivable crime, no matter how large or small. Odd.


    Then we're right back where we started. Our sin leads to judgment, and judgment by whom? Presumably, God.

    If God is merely judging by the law, then the law is somehow outside of God. If, however, God invents the law as he sees fit, then the law is merely another form of judgment.


    Then God has no control over death? Who decided death would be the end of our earthly lives if not God? And don't say Adam and Eve, unless you are prepared to admit that God's judgment is not up to him, but to some source outside of him.


    Look, you can talk about covenants and divine abstractions all you want. You cannot say God is infinite and all-powerful, but some of his decisions must be made based upon abstract "contracts" and the like. God created us and God controls our fate in the afterlife, correct? God can make any decision he wants. You can add all the earthly legalese you want to our situation - it still boils down to this: we are here now, we can do nothing to change the fact that we were brought into existence under this God, and the Bible says this God will judge us, and currently, we have no sure way of knowing what his decision will be based upon.


    It's not a matter of postponing any judgment. Punishment can take an inifinite number of forms - even as we see on Earth with jail, fines, community service, etc. - but, assuming eternal life exists and we are capable of changing in the afterlife, then final judgment is not needed and, in fact, anathema to justice.

    Taking every person who dies and judging them immediately and forever based on one trial, as it were, would be like an earthly judge sentencing every criminal to either a lifetime guarantee of riches or death, no matter the severity of the crime. Judgment need not be postponed, but it need not be final either.


    You can draw as many comparisons as you like. You can say, "Just as death is the only certain thing in life, so the only certain thing in our eternal lives is God," but that does not erase the original question I posed.

    If eternal life is ahead of us and it is then we come to know the truth about God, then why would God chose to judge us before we even have that knowledge?

    Why are there so many different religions in the world? Why do people believe so many different things? It's not because everyone in the world gets the chance to study the Bible and reject God knowingly, and side with evil necessarily. A child born today is confronted with an overwhelming number of choices about what to believe, and as evidenced by the number of perfectly capable, intelligent, loving men and women who have chosen not to be Christian, this decision (what to believe) is not some simple yes/no proposition. Nor is it necessarily a choice between good and evil, for many good people have chosen Buddhism and many evil people have chosen Christianity.

    So, sure, death is indiscriminate. We know that much. But God, the Bible teaches, is not indiscriminate. He does not send everybody to the same place. Death is the one great equalizer and we have no idea why it exists or where it leads, but the Bible tells us God will judge us after death. But if eternal life has been granted to us, only so that most of us can go to Hell for reasons we were unaware of in our lives, how exactly is that a gift?



    Yes, justice and peace are rewards and I'm not saying they should not exist at the "end of the journey" (though I still wonder why the journey has to end if indeed eternal life is... eternal), but those whose actions are purest are those who do good for the sake of seeing good done, right? If God truly wanted to test people's faith, wouldn't he even refrain from mentioning heaven and instead see who loved him for the sake of loving him?

    I'm sure the 9/11 hijackers were comforted by thoughts of heaven in their final moments before being engulfed in flame. Allah Akbar!


    Exactly. And those who believe so strongly in afterlife rewards often devalue life on earth, for they see it as merely a ticket to a better life later on. A. Whitney Brown described that belief this way:

    "Maybe if I close my eyes during the movie, I'll get my money back at the end."

    Indeed, heaven is a strong incentive for the persecuted... and often the modus operandi for the persecutors as well.



    Well, unlike Jesus, Jenyar, I have no radio to God. I cannot know his will any more than I can know whether or not I will be "resurrected," can I?

    I'm saying sacrifice very much depends on what the giver knows he is sacrificing. If I give $5000 to a charity, I am making a bigger sacrifice than, let's say, Bill Gates would be making if he gave the same amount.

    People who give their lives not knowing what death brings are offering a greater sacrifice than someone who knows exactly what he is risking. Presumably, Jesus - being divine in nature - knew he was not going to cease to exist when he was killed. We, on the other hand, do not know that when we die, therefore our deaths carry a great deal more uncertainty with them and, by extension, sacrifice.



    1. How could he know the extent of the repercussions of breaking that command without knowledge of good and evil?

    2. If God wanted people to simply follow commands, then he did not create us to have free will in the first place. He wanted robots to praise him and follow his commands without thinking or consciously deciding to follow them based on "right" and "wrong." Any computer can follow a command. Is that what God originally wanted?


    You are projecting our current situation onto Adam's, but it is not the same. Genesis implies that Adam and Eve lacked the facilities to distinguish "good" from "evil" - not too mention that Adam and Eve were undoubtedly quite confused, being the first people to exist - and I think that would be a major handicap.

    You use the analogy of a child obeying his father. Well, once again, was God only after subservience without reference to right and wrong? Surely the tree was a test - otherwise, why put it there in the first place? If the tree had not been there, would we have had any way of disobeying? So, for whatever reason, God placed the tree there, knowing this would require a decision on Adam's part. What would have happened had Adam not eaten from it? Would we all be sitting around in a garden right now, obeying commands from God (naive, like children), but never really knowing why? Morality would not exist, for there would be no reference by which to judge it. How would that decision not to eat the fruit carry any meaning, beyond its indication that we, like dogs, would obey a command?



    There is a difference between being "informed" (which, by the way, never means having complete knowledge of anything) and simply being intellectually capable of something.

    I do not blame babies for crying at inappropriate times. Why not? Babies are intellectually capable of not crying whenever they feel like it, but they are uninformed, undeveloped, and uneducated. They are making decisions based on less information than I am, therefore I do not begrudge them for their actions.

    If Adam and Eve were somewhat like children (a comparison you made above), then their decision to eat the fruit, especially considering their lack of moral knowledge, should not have been viewed as some massive affront to God any more than crying at an inappropriate time is viewed as an affront to a baby's parents.

    The point is, if God was not willing to endow human beings with knowledge of good and evil (information God possessed, but withheld from Adam and Eve), then how could he expect them to make valid decisions? For instance, I don't expect my cat to make "moral" decisions, because she is acting based on an entirely different set of standards and assumptions than I am. I can try to train her to obey commands (as it appears God was doing with Adam and Eve in Genesis), but, since she does not operate on the same intellectual or "moral" level, I do not view her disobedience as tantamount to betrayal.

    If I do not want my drapes to be ripped up, I will not buy a cat and place drapes in front of her.

    Likewise, if God did not want his creation to disobey him, he never should have created people and placed a forebidden tree in front of them.

    Josh

    It's just a ride. - Bill Hicks
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2004
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  7. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "And when the stakes are as big as eternal reward or eternal suffering, why are we merely given vague "ideas" about what is required? "

    There's nothing vague about it.

    "He wanted robots to praise him and follow his commands without thinking or consciously deciding to follow them based on "right" and "wrong.""

    So everything you do is based on laws. Funny, there's very little in my life that's dictated by laws. It's quite obvious Adam and Eve thought about what they were doing before they ate the Apple. Even without the knowledge of good and evil. They knew what they're doing was wrong because God told them not to do it. And they did it anyway.

    "I do not blame babies for crying at inappropriate times."

    Ever wonder why the Bible says Jesus didn't cry as a baby?

    "I cannot know his will any more than I can know whether or not I will be "ressurrected," can I?"

    Hmmm.... I know several million people who are going to have to disagree with you on that.

    Ben
     
  8. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "Likewise, if God did not want his creation to disobey him, he never should have created people and placed a forebidden tree in front of them."

    Satan fell because he envied God. Thinking the tree was the issue is retarded. They ate the fruit because they thought God was denying them something good. Turns out he wasn't.

    God would rather allow people the opportunity to reject him in order to see that they really love him. How can you know your friends are loyal if they're never given an opportunity to prove otherwise? It's not like he didn't give Adam ample time to fess up.

    God isn't interested in having a bunch of mindless worshippers. Claiming God tricked his creation is short sighted and rediculous.

    Ben
     
  9. JustARide America: 51% fucking idiots Registered Senior Member

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    Care to elaborate?

    I think the more appropriate statement would be, "There is nothing that isn't vague about it."

    Take a look back at this thread and tell me whether or not slavery, not screaming loud enough when one is raped, or working on the Sabbath are right or wrong. And don't be vague.


    How can you know something is wrong without knowing the difference between good and bad? All Adam and Eve knew was that they were in a garden... a voice from the sky told them not to eat something and another voice coming from a serpent told them the opposite. I fail to see how - lacking any moral compass whatsoever - that this decision could warrant punishing the rest of humanity forever.

    OK, 1. Most babies aren't the Son of God.

    2. Are you saying that, if babies were somehow better people, they wouldn't cry?

    3. You completely misunderstood my analogy.

    They have faith, Kalvin. That's quite a different thing from actually knowing.

    Islamic terrorists "know" they're going to Heaven, but I highly doubt their beliefs have anything to do with reality.

    Josh

    It's just a ride. - Bill Hicks
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2004
  10. JustARide America: 51% fucking idiots Registered Senior Member

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    If I created a race of curious people, I would not be surprised when they turned out to be curious.

    If God wanted to test our loyalty, it might have been a good idea to tell us what the hell "evil" was before allowing us to be tempted by it.

    The baby analogy was meant to show how people who are uninformed cannot make good, well-supported decisions. Babies lack any sort of moral grounding, hence they act in inappropriate ways. So, when baby's break promises, it isn't exactly the same as when adults break promises. Adam and Eve were clearly uninformed people, as evidenced by their lack of moral grounding. They were told to obey merely "because God said so" - and is it any surprise that a race, created with intellect and curiosity, elected to see what's on the other side of Door #1, so to speak?

    I think not.

    Josh

    It's just a ride. - Bill Hicks
     
  11. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "If God wanted to test our loyalty, it might have been a good idea to tell us what the hell "evil" was before allowing us to be tempted by it."

    He told them what was wrong before they did it. You're also making the faulty assumption that the only thing God told them is what's written in the Bible. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God for who knows how long.

    "They were told to obey merely "because God said so""

    God explained to them what would happen if they ate the fruit. They even repeated the punishment to Satan with the typical twisting of his word.

    What God said:

    "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

    What Eve said God said:

    "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

    God didn't say they couldn't touch it. The fell for the same reason Satan fell. They were given everything and decided that God was holding back on them so they went against him.

    "That's quite a different thing from actually knowing."

    There's no faith about it.

    "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:"

    "Are you saying that, if babies were somehow better people, they wouldn't cry?"

    Yep. Babies cry because they want something. And they want it now. They're selfish and don't trust their parents. Jesus had all the same reasons to cry as sinful babies and yet didn't. He trusted his parents would supply his needs.

    And we never grow out of it.

    Ben
     
  12. heart Registered Senior Member

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    480
    Okay, how about the bible- is that good enough?

    1 Samuel 15:2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember [that] which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid [wait] for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

    welllll in CORINTHIANS 6:9-10 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
    Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards , nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

    LOL perhaps a contradiction? *gasp*

    I never said anything about hating him- I don't think such a god would exist. I disagree with his actions of killing babies and children- barbaric acts, which I think a true loving god would be above.
     
  13. JustARide America: 51% fucking idiots Registered Senior Member

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    Well, it would also be a faulty assumption to presume to know what they talked about as well -- might have been flowers for all we know.

    I realize Adam and Eve were informed of the punishment for eating the fruit. Of course, Satan made quite a convincing argument as well. I'm asking, without a proper moral compass of any kind, how exactly was that a fair scenario? God created Adam and Eve with intellects and curiosity. Then he elected to keep something secret from them. It is no surprise that they decided to discover that secret. After all, how could they have any way of knowing whether it was God or Satan deceiving them?

    Once again, this is a passage from an ancient supernatural book, of which there are quite a few. It proves nothing. Belief is based on faith, not knowledge. Believers may have a great deal of faith and mistake that for knowledge, but rest assured, it is not.

    The fact that you have convinced yourself of something does not connote any special knowledge - only faith.

    Well, first of all, you seem to be taking "Away in a Manger" a tad more literally than it may have been intended -- not to mention that you're also advocating the very "fallacy" you accused me of invoking above. Even if the Bible suggests that, at one time, Jesus did not cry (which I do not recall), that does not mean he did not simply cry at some other time, perhaps later as a toddler or young child. (It's tough to tell since the Bible skips over his formative years.)

    I'm curious. From this, would you also extrapolate that Jesus did not shit his his pants? Did he not burp? As long as we're attributing unnatural good behavior to Jesus, why not say he came out talking like a grown up? Hell, I'm on a roll! Maybe Jesus wasn't covered in blood when he came out. Maybe he smelled like lilacs.

    Disregarding that, as I said, you've taken my analogy in a completely unintended direction, let me say... babies crying may be annoying to us, but I don't find it evil. All babies are selfish, but they are also vulnerable and undeveloped. Being a "better" baby has nothing to do with it.

    I wonder. As a baby, were you conscious that you were making some sinful decision to cry?

    It's typical to interpret everything we find annoying as evil, but take a step back for a moment, take a deep breath, let it out... now, try to realize how stupid this conversation is.

    Josh

    It's just a ride. - Bill Hicks
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2004
  14. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "LOL perhaps a contradiction? *gasp*"

    There's a difference between being a drunkard and getting plastered occasionally. A drunkard loves the drink more than he loves God.

    "Okay, how about the bible- is that good enough?"

    Now you're going to have to explain to me why it couldn't possibly have been God who told him to do that. You could start by assuming that God did in fact tell him to kill everyone and then explain to me why that makes God bad.

    Taking into account God also flooded the world saving only 8 people. Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and will destroy the world again. And I don't recall any mention that no children were concieved for the 18 years leading up to these events.

    And once you're done doing that you could do what JustARide is doing and assume the Bible is false and then pretend you're making some kind of point.

    As I've posted before, Satan doesn't go around telling people God doesn't exist. He goes around telling people God is an asshole. The only way you can debate "God" is to argue his character. And you can't argue his character if you assume the Bible is false since you have nothing to tell you what his character is. It's called a strawman. You make up crap, make a label with God's name on it, attach it to your pile of poo and then act like we owe you some kind of explaination. I'll tell you what it is. It's a pile of poo with a sticker on it.

    "It proves nothing"

    If the Bible isn't true then Jesus could just as well have been a cockroach so why are you even bothing to argue? Christians have knowledge of God and of their salvation. Deal with it. Claiming it's not true is like claiming the sun isn't hot. Get over this rediculous notion that you can just deny what people are telling you they believe is true as though you're accomplishing something.

    Oh look, JustARide has discovered that if you try to force one paradigm onto another you end up with problems. This is a 100% meaningless discussion if you don't even have the sense to argue within the paradigm of the belief system you don't believe in.

    You could just as well claim that since Jesus didn't rise from the dead and the Bible says he did that the Bible is false. It's meaningless.

    Here's a clue for you: when debating religion you must learn the paradigm of the religion you're debating and go from there. Otherwise you're just wasting time. And judging from how much you type, you're wasting a lot of it.

    Here's your first lesson when debating with Christians: the Bible is true.

    If you can't prove your point without accepting that assumption you lose.

    Ben
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2004
  15. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "From this, would you also extrapolate that Jesus did not shit his his pants? Did he not burp?"

    I didn't realize pooping and burping were sinful.

    "It's typical to interpret everything we find annoying as evil,"

    Who's assuming that which is annoying is evil? You're calling that which is sinful annoying as though it makes it not sinful. Lots of new agers like to refer to sin as "mistakes" to try to play it down as not important.

    "All babies are selfish"

    Selfishness is a sin. The Bible says, we were sinful from the time of conception. Since babies are selfish and selfishness is a sin, babies are sinful. The Bible is just stating the obvious.

    "now, try to realize how stupid this conversation is."

    It is completely retarded as regards to my previous post. You need to learn how to intelligently debate with people who don't believe the same things you do. You fail.

    Ben
     
  16. JustARide America: 51% fucking idiots Registered Senior Member

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    And you're assuming the Bible is true is somehow a superior position?

    Niether I or heart have assumed anything; we're searching for the truth, not blindly accepting anything that says it's the truth. I've read the Bible and found it highly disturbing, contradictory, and not likely true. I could be wrong. I make no claims to know the ultimate truth, as I am a fallible being. May I suggest you admit this to yourself as well.

    I could say the same thing to you, Kalvin.

    By the way, claiming that a book where donkeys and snakes talked, a man's strength depended on the length of his hair, and a loving god indiscriminately drowned entire populations is as self-evidently true as the sun being hot is a stretch.

    You're a believer in one of many religions based on ancient supernatural books. The burden of proof is on you, not me.

    It's called circular logic, Kalvin. And I'm not the one engaging in it. I'm taking the Bible as whole, finding it inconsistent and unlikely the infallible word of any god. I'm not merely picking out passages and saying, "That never happened, so..." I'm asking multiple questions: "Is that likely?" "What could that possibly mean?" and so forth.

    As a Bible believer, it is you who must say, "It is true because the Bible says so." By not wanting to examine the Bible in any realm other than unquestioning faith, you are exempting the Bible from any rational discussion.


    Wow. So I just accept the Bible is true and move on from there, huh? Well, with all due respect, may I ask then: what is the fucking point of talking about religion at all? Why are you even here? Why join a messageboard where the entire purpose is debate and discussion only to say that discusson is pointless?

    The idea here is to examine the Bible's claims. If we started with, "Everything in the Bible is true," it wouldn't exactly warrant a great deal of debate, would it?

    Also - on the charge that the length of my posts is somehow related to the relevancy of my arguemnt, let me say, by that standard, Jenyar is also wasting a great deal of time. In the real world, it's called "supporting your claims." You might want to look into it. For instance, when making claims such as "Baby Jesus never cried," you may want to do more than paraphrase a Christmas hymn.

    Here's your first lesson in debating freethinkers: think.

    Josh

    It's just a ride. - Bill Hicks
     
  17. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "And you're assuming the Bible is true is somehow a superior position?"

    If you're going to argue Christianity then you have to argue from the Christian paradigm. Part of that paradigm is that the Bible is true. Don't like it, then you need to educate yourself further before starting debates.

    If we were talking about athiesm then we'd all be assuming the Bible is false and not bother with it.

    "If we started with, "Everything in the Bible is true," it wouldn't exactly warrant a great deal of debate, would it?"

    What did I tell the other person?

    Assume that God did in fact order the slaughter and explain to me why that makes God bad or why God couldn't possibly have made such an order. There is plenty to talk about to question the Bible when you assume it's true.

    "Here's your first lesson in debating freethinkers: think."

    Time to take your own advice.

    "And I'm not the one engaging in it."

    This is your logic: the Bible isn't true so everything I say is wrong.

    Here's my logic: assume the Bible is true, explain why I shouldn't accept it.

    The Sunday newspaper is true but you don't see a Church of the Arizona Republic do you? You're probably too young and immature to understand how to debate. You give yourself a "freethinker" label and pretend that's good enough.

    It's not. You're clueless as to how to go about talking to people about what they believe.

    You're entire argument is "you're wrong, therefore you're wrong."

    Ben
     
  18. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "By not wanting to examine the Bible in any realm other than unquestioning faith"

    What did I say? Let me quote myself:

    "Now you're going to have to explain to me why it couldn't possibly have been God who told him to do that. You could start by assuming that God did in fact tell him to kill everyone and then explain to me why that makes God bad.

    Taking into account God also flooded the world saving only 8 people. Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and will destroy the world again. And I don't recall any mention that no children were concieved for the 18 years leading up to these events.

    And once you're done doing that you could do what JustARide is doing and assume the Bible is false and then pretend you're making some kind of point."

    How is that not allowing for my faith to be questioned?

    Do you even read my posts or are you just going to rely on self given labels?

    THINK.
     
  19. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "Jenyar is also wasting a great deal of time"

    I think she's making things much more complicated then they are which leads to longer posts than necessary.

    You on the other hand, yes, are wasting time.

    Ben
     
  20. JustARide America: 51% fucking idiots Registered Senior Member

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    OK, and crying is?

    Once again, is any baby wanting food or water or to be changed considered selfish? Tell me, Ben. Have you ever asked for anything in your entire life? And I'll ask again since you didn't answer - were you consciously choosing to be a selfish infant when you were a baby?

    Did the fact that God created babies to be helpless creatures in need of care not make them inherently selfish? How is this the fault of the baby?


    My, my. I'm impressed with your debating prowess, Ben. But I'm not going to engage you in a series of pointless ad hominem attacks. I'm offering counterpoints, but you're dismissing them based on lines from Christmas hymns and demanding that I begin the debate by accepting that every word of your argument (and the Bible) is true. That's not exactly how a debate works.

    Your passion is commendable. But please be forewarned, the debate on this thread was not undertaken with any assumptions regarding Bible truthfulness or lack thereof. The fact that you wish to impose this requirement tells me you are merely here to make noise, not discuss.

    I'm hitting the hay for the evening. Have a fun time proving me wrong via loud proclamations of your infallible reasoning.

    Cheers.

    Josh

    It's just a ride. - Bill Hicks
     
  21. KalvinB Publicity Whore Registered Senior Member

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    "But I'm not going to engage you in a series of pointless ad hominem attacks."

    Let me quote you:

    "Here's your first lesson in debating freethinkers: think."

    Don't break your legs as you fall off your high horse.

    "OK, and crying is?"

    Who said crying was sinful? Do you believe that coughing causes you to be sick?

    "Once again, is any baby wanting food or water or to be changed considered selfish? "

    Again, who said it was?

    How many other words do you have to put in my mouth?

    "Did the fact that God created babies to be helpless creatures in need of care not make them inherently selfish?"

    So since we're inherently sinful it's not really our fault? Are you really going to rely on the classic standbye "the devil made me do it?"

    "Have a fun time proving me wrong"

    Proving you wrong would require that you've presented some kind of argument. So far you've only managed to inject words in my mouth. Feel free to start actually addressing my posts at any time.

    Ben
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2004
  22. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,833
    I've covered this ground before. The law strives to be specific, it's got a clause and a subclause for every possible contingency and yet it's still insufficient. You know why? Because it tries to replace such "vague" concepts as love and tolerance - and in a lot of places, common sense as well. Yes, these things are vague, but that has never stopped anybody from applying them very specifically and deliberately. Another difference between the law on paper and the law in your heart is the standard to which you can hold it. A statute only tries to prevent you from acting out selfishness to the point that it interferes with another's freedom, but it never condemns your selfishness itself. One is external control, the other is internal control, and the Bible teaches nothing if not self-control.

    1 Corinthians 11:31
    But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.
    By my explanation above, our laws are outside of God, true, and that's why they're not really representative. Jesus was representative. The internal law was condemned by our external set of laws - God was condemned by people. The only law that never condemned Jesus - the one that was fulfilled - is love. Unselfish sacrificial love. The external law judges, the internal one saves. It was necessary to point out sin, that's why Moses' laws were called a "teacher". But you can't stay a student forever (unless you're Van Wilder). At some point you have to put into practice what you know, and what you practice will bear fruit, and what you achieve will have consequences. Write that down.

    Sin causes death - just like the absence of nousihment causes death. God does control it - by supplying what we need not to die. You can live a healthy spiritual life even while your body is dying. That should say something.

    How can you still say that? That's exactly what Jesus came to achieve. Before, nobody knew whether their sacrifices or lives were acceptable to God or not. The Jews had some idea, and today they sit with over 600 religious laws (and that's just the basic ones). All they really know is that God is interested in righteous, holy lives, and they tried to define that to perfection. Jesus came to close that book, and open our hearts instead. He makes us acceptable. He is the only reason we can ever presume to be. God showed that it requires a physical sacrifice, but that we don't ever have to worry whether it is worth it.

    You can't buy with what you don't own - and we don't own our lives on earth, it was a gift. We can't ever buy (deserve) the next life, but we can accept it by giving this life to God so that He can renew it. He bought our lives back from the laws that would have condemned us - not by dropping His standards (as you seem to think He should), but by fulfilling them.

    As you see with all our forms of justice is that it fits the crime - or a close aproximation of it. Life incarceration is supposed to "pay" for taking away another person's life completely. The worst punishment a person can ever receive is the death penalty - and it's the one we all receive at the end of our lives on earth anyway. The whole universe is in entropy, everything is running down, yet we continue to survive because we can give birth to new life. When everything has run down, nature will have taken its course, but will we naturally have eternal life? Will people eventualy adapt to become spiritual as Medicince*Women believes?

    God judges sin, and sin takes away our lives from God - our eternal lives. The punishment for sin is eternal incarceration - death. But Jesus conquered death, because He was sinless it had no hold on Him. Yet for our sake God attributed all our sins to Him - He took it on Himself, and suffered the punishment for us. Do you understand the sacrifice God made for us now?

    Justice has only been carried out when it's final. Because if there is still something left to be judged, justice hasn't been served yet! It's more like an earthly judge who freed everybody on death row on the condition that they change their lives. And we were all on death row. The judgment of our lives is complete whenever we die, but the sentence is postponed while we're alive. God couldn't have cut us a better deal. But you can't really be alive while you believe you're still on death row. If you ever wondered why it's called the gospel, it's because it's good news to hear you're free in God's eyes. The only thing that condemns you now is the world itself.

    John said, "I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony." (3:11)

    You already know the truth, you have all but admitted it.

    1 John 3
    14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

    Look, all religions have something to teach, I won't deny that. I have learned a lot about Christianity from Buddhism and even from Islam, but none of them dares to make the claim Christ made. If you are merely interested in an excuse to be a good person, any religion will do. If you have no interest in spirituality you don't even need a religion at all. But in this sense, at least, Christianity is not about you - it's about God and what He did for you. You can rest assured that nobody goes to hell who does not belong there, but like you, not many people are quite sure who does belong there, if anyone. It's been a problem since the dawn of humanity - the fear of the unknown punishment, the unknown God, or of his unknown anger. That's why you could say Christianity preys on fear. It seems to, because it recognizes that those fears are valid. But more importantly, it recognizes that salvation is an initiative of God. It uncovered a benevolence of God that was almost just as unknown before. Actually I should correct myself: not Christianity, but Christ. You can think of Christ as just another Ghandi, or Buddha, or Dalai Lama, but that would be ignoring what He said and did. Christians are people who don't (or are supposed not to) ignore the significance of what God meant with Jesus.

    God tested people faith with Jesus. Before that, it was His laws. The criterium has always been the purity of people's actions. Heaven and hell has been romanticized out of proportion, because they follow naturally out of the knowledge that death is not final, or that there will be judgment.

    For all Jesus said about heaven, he might as well have not mentioned it. It wasn't the focus of his ministry, it was just the result of his work. A result that most people were expecting to come about on earth, and which they thought they would have to fight for like the Israelites did, with their messiah at their side. Jesus instead made a point of it to show that heaven would not come about by victory of people, but by victory over evil - the only glory there would be for anybody is the glory of God himself. The journey ends with Him.

    [/quote]I'm sure the 9/11 hijackers were comforted by thoughts of heaven in their final moments before being engulfed in flame. Allah Akbar![/quote]
    I'm sure they were very disappointed as well...

    Well let me put it this way: your exit from the theatre depends on how well you pay attention to the movie, because it's trying to tell you something.

    How do you know God's will? You read, you pray, you listen, and you act. Believe in Him, and He will give you His Spirit. That's the radio you're missing. Then you won't have just your natural instinct to rely on.

    Not really, the sacrifice depends on how much it means to God, because you're certainly not gaining anything by it. And the Bible is quite clear about what God considers an acceptable sacrifice. That's part of why we still use the Old Testament. It isn't the risk, or the size, or the amount, or the uncertainty, it's the heart. Remember the scripture about the old women who gave her last two cents, vs the rich man who gave his full 10th as the law prescribed?

    What you will need to sacrifice is uncertainty. If you can't, then you should consider that maybe Jesus made a greater sacrifice than you think.

    1. God said "... but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17),
    and Eve repeated it in Gen.3:3, showing they understood the warning.

    2. God gave them all the freedom they could have, except the "freedom" to disobey Him, that's why He warned them of the danger. He equipped them with the knowledge they needed to remain free. And they were more free than you and I, but they gave it up because they desired more than freedom.

    We would have had knowledge of good, which is all the knowledge you need for a free and happy life. There would be no such thing as naivity, because knowledge would be complete and pure. Evil does not complete good, if that's what you think - it opposes it. We would also know why: because it would cause our deaths. If they could understand the concept of death, then they did have a reference by which to judge their existence. And if you measure everything against such a frame of reference, you have morality right there. "Does it cause death? No. Then it is right. Yes? Then it is wrong." Not eating the fruit carried the meaning of a continued existence. It also implied that some desires need to be controlled, or they can lead to death.

    You can see they knew more than you give them credit for, and what we know more than them hardly deserves credit, because it can never justify sin.

    Babies don't cry because they lack any information - it develops their lungs. Some adults, on the other hand, have learn under therapy not to repress their emotions because they were silenced when they were young. The difference is control, and that is something you can learn in a loving environment, without ever being exposed to hate.

    You realize we're once again trying to juggle multiple discussions simultaneously? Anyway...

    I have already demonstrated that they could make moral decisions. They were able to name animals, have intelligent discussions and sophisticated thought, so we shouldn't take the children analogy too far. We shouldn't take the whole scene too far, for that matter. The difference between your cat and Adam is that Adam had the ability not to follow his natural instincts without question. It was this faculty that God appealed to in His warning; selfcontrol and restraint. The Bible itself makes this distinction, like here:

    Jude 1:10 Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals--these are the very things that destroy them.

    Children learn by obedience first, not by knowledge - who knows what they would have learned if they could only just listen at first. But we can be sure it would not have lead to wars, slavery or death.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2004
  23. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,833
    Heaven isn't described except by Jesus in parables. Our classic view of it comes from the Old Testament prophesies of the kingdom God will establish. Just like hell, heaven was also literally just a place on earth. We know a littlebit about the transition that will be involved, but almost nothing about the end result, except that God will rule over it himself, and Jesus' enigmatic statement that "we will be like angels" and won't marry. That's hardly Roman or Greek thought speaking. Whatever words we use to describe either place, however, make it clear that heaven is the place you want to be - the home God intended us to have - and hell is not.

    PS. I don't think anybody "ceases to exist" in the grave, just that their existence is suspended, pending resurrection. The Jews just believed everybody went there, whether they were good or evil, and that's where they were separated.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2004

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