Is God a just judge?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Greatest I am, Jun 20, 2014.

  1. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    3,740
    Exactly why those who have a social conscience will fight the evils of religion.

    It is called duty to your fellow man.

    Christianity is not big on that and Jesus would tell them that to their faces.

    Regards
    DL
     
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  3. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    If you have not based your thinking from myths with messages like what the bible has, and all the other stories, anecdotal or not that you have heard and read, then you would be spiritually blind and you are not. You are just wrong in as to where you get your morals.

    Of course, with such psychobabble, I am likely wrong.

    Regards
    DL
     
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  5. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. Despite theists trying to rule over people's private lives, morals are for what significantly affects others. A being alone has no need for morals. And 1 being or group cannot set morals that they cannot follow themselves.
     
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  7. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting and far reaching comments.

    On Adam and Eve and the Orthodox Jewish view of the fall, I offer this link that shows how they see Eden as man’s elevation and not the fall that Christianity foolishly put to it. Jews do not have an original sin.

    http://www.mrrena.com/misc/judaism2.php

    -------------------------

    On the divine payment issue. You mean sacrifices, bribes and ransoms to alter good judicial practices.

    I offer God as saying he prefers obedience over sacrifice. Seems we can pay our own way.

    Regards
    DL
     
  8. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    I agree.

    Regards
    DL
     
  9. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    Governments would kill him. Remember what Rome did. They chose those they could control easily and killed off those that were a cut above.

    What you describe is the Gnostic Christian form of worship where God is a Universalist and can do no wrong, because he is represented by a Universalist free-thinking Jesus. Rome had to get rid of the freedom lover and we are stuck with the boot licker.

    Social manipulation and control at it's best. Or worse depending on your view.

    Regards
    DL
     
  10. Arne Saknussemm trying to figure it all out Valued Senior Member

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    1,353
    That's just the trouble. You refuse to see. All this has been shown to you and those like you time and again in these pages and others. You just roll right over it and refuse to listen. You are just enamored with your own supposed wit and sophistication. You are blinded by the very self-righteousness you say you object to in others. You have no interest in truth is you're just intent on being annoying. Another craver of negative attention. Good bye (which is to say, 'God be with you')
     
  11. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    7 lies. Is that your lucky number? IF there is a god with me, it is a damn sneaky bugger & as long as it stubbornly refuses to show itself, I would consider it a sick sadistic stalker.
     
  12. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,902
    Stranger's use of 'ImaginaryFiend' and 'Holybabbles' was obviously intended to convey his own personal contempt for theism and for Christianity in particular.

    I'm unsure whether his reason for doing that was simply an attempt to anger those he perceives as 'the other side' (that would be textbook trolling) or because he feels threatened by Christianity and this was a defense mechanism of some kind. I can't imagine how calling a threat names can possibly make somebody more secure, but people often behave as if it does.

    I don't have any problem with skepticism and with skeptical remarks. I make plenty of them myself. But they need to be interesting. They need to raise issues for further discussion.

    Stranger did that in my opinion, when he suggested that any cosmic superbeing that we encounter out there, a being who is clearly, indisputably and incomprehensibly superior to humans in the same way that humans are superior to cockroaches, might not be good or benevolent in our terms at all. It might perceive our species as a vermin infestation and humans might be reduced to hiding in the cosmos' walls so to speak, and forever running from the light.

    In other words, people seek God, but there's no guarantee that they'll like whatever they eventually find.

    But the emotions that accompany Stranger's ideas, his personal contempt for Christianity in this case, don't really interest me. That's just more noise on a channel where the signal-to-noise ratio is already low.
     
  13. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,902
    But what truth does calling the Bible the "Holybabble" convey, apart from the fact that you are personally contemptuous of it? Why should other people find your emotions even remotely interesting?

    Ok, try this: Millions of people report religious experiences. They are rather common. Obviously there are plenty of epistemological questions swirling around the whole subject of religious experience and the evidenciary value that these experiences may or may not have.

    The thing is, you can't effectively engage with serious issues merely by displaying attitude.
     
  14. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,902
    That's certainly plausible, but I'm still not totally convinced.

    For example, in Buddhism ethical behavior is the outer world expression of individual psychology, of one's own inner-process so to speak.

    What drives our social behavior with other people are precisely the same inner needs, goals, purposes, feelings and assessments that drive us internally. (That define who and what we are, in a sense.) The perceived need to build up and protect one's own vision of one's self is typically most prominent among them.

    And Buddhists believe that a great deal of what's happening inside most people's heads all the time is ultimately disfunctional. Disfunctional in an individual psychology sense in that it causes the individuals concerned to suffer, and disfunctional in a social sense, since one person's disfunctionality often causes those around them to suffer as well.
     
  15. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    3,740
    I do not agree with this.

    I am the only one I know who has claimed apotheosis. I would say it is rather rare.

    Or are you speaking of some like the latest guy who had an out of body experience and said that while in heaven, he was a spot on the wing of a butterfly?

    Yep. Quite believable that and no chance of it being a delusion. Not much of a chance that is. Right?

    I would not mind reading a few of those millions of experiences though if you would not mind linking me up.

    Regards
    DL
     
  16. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting. Thanks.

    "That's certainly plausible, but I'm still not totally convinced."

    Good. I get to try another argument.

    I will need you to answer a simple question though.

    In terms or our best moral tenet or behavior, should our morality be focused outwardly towards others, or should our first moral tenet be focused toward ourselves?

    Regards
    DL
     
  17. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    15,396
    It is a fiend as portrayed in the book they claim as their primary source & it is imaginary. It is also a little wordplay on imaginary friend. I don't want to call it the Holy Frigging Bible. Should I be coerced into that. Over 90% of it is silly, stupid, childish yet cruel babbling. Revelations was obviously written by someone(s) high on drugs. There is hardly any difference between Genesis & the average fairy tale. These are very appropriate terms I use for the figment of their imagination & their nonsense book. IF enough people believed Mother Goose is true, would you claim I am being insulting?

    Those seem like power attributes to me.

    Neither do theists. Years ago, there was a thread on what would be proof of a god. Someone said if some being moved planets around. I said we should try to figure out how it was done & if some device was used, I hope I get a chance to figure how to operate it. They asked if I am Indiana Jones. This is 1 of many serious plausibility problems with godfantasy. There could be beings thousands or millions of years more advanced than Earth humans who theists would easily mistake for their gods. IF some of their most outrageous claims did happen, that would be a much more plausible explanation than supernatural gods.
     
  18. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    15,396
    What is obvious to you just might not be so. I don't attempt to anger anyone & I usually don't attempt to pacify anyone. I don't call names & such would have no effect on my feeling secure. I state facts. As much as I think I can here. I know that I cannot state the full truth here. There were no emotions accompanying my ideas & I must wonder why you see what is not there.
     
  19. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    15,396
    That is a gross & grotesque misstatement concerning my posts. If I were insecure, I would call it insulting.
     
  20. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    Yazata

    Care to comment on this quote?

    Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson

    Regards
    DL
     
  21. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    Unintelligible can be a function of the knowledge or the ignorance level of the audience. If the audience are experts and know the subject and all the jargon, a person using the wrong terms, can make his ideas appear unintelligible to this expert audience. On the other hand, if the speaker knows the subject, his jargon and arguments can be right, but it will appear unintelligible to the layman audience who can't follow this due to lack of education.

    Ridicule happens for different reasons in each scenario. The smarter audience may try to figure out the communication problem of the speaker, as a challenge. An expert is not ridiculed, by not understanding a dummy. He may get exasperated and frustrated trying to create a meeting of the minds. A lay audience can get ridiculed easier, by not understanding the smarter speaker. They may use ridicule for self defense to avoid feeling ridiculed.

    That being said, anyone familiar with the bible, is always amazed at the elementary school education that atheists have when it comes to bible discussions. It is hard to get very deep, to prove your point, since the discussion is stuck at what Christians will teach their first graders. If you argue the bible, beyond the first grade level, it appears unintelligible, with ridicule a feature that appears atheists wide. One is not allowed to use bible quotes like high school bible students need to do. This is taboo. It has to remain at the mythology level taught to a child.

    It would be more useful if atheism allowed at least junior high level knowledge of the bible, for member atheists. This would make the layman audience less self conscious of being ridiculed, so they are less likely to attack with ridicule. Bible is not the forte of atheism, so they are the lay audience which cannot grasp things beyond too complicated.
     
  22. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

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    3,740
    You might like to check the stats that show non-believers know more of most religions than those in them.

    Sheep make poor thinkers.

    Regards
    DL
     
  23. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,902
    First off, I'd question whether Thomas Jefferson actually said that. (If he did say it, what was the context?) On its face, it's a stupid thing to say and Jefferson most definitely wasn't a stupid man. I doubt very much whether he would have endorsed ridicule at the University of Virginia (which he founded) as the proper response to propositions that one doesn't understand. Scholars, students and researchers can't behave that way.

    If somebody says something that seems unintelligible, the best thing to do is to start asking questions.

    Is the other person using unfamiliar words or familiar words in unfamiliar and perhaps idiosyncratic ways?

    What assumptions is the other person presupposing in arguing as he/she does?

    Is somebody making a factual error?

    If somebody claims to know something that seems unlikely on its face, or perhaps even unknowable in principle, then how do they explain how they know it?

    And if what the other person says really does seem to be absurd on its face, if it implies a contradiction or appears to have absurd implications, then why not ask the other person what their response is to the seeming difficulties?

    Trying to provoke perceived opponents by calling them or their views insulting names lacks intellectual substance and communicates nothing but disdain. Rhetorically speaking, attempts to move disagreement away from intellectual-inquiry towards emotional-confrontation are almost always counterproductive. That move only succeeds in drawing battle-lines, hardening opponents against each other, and making the possibility of eventual agreement all the less likely.
     

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