…i prefer stoïc if you don’t mind. A quick background check here: J. P. Moreland - Wikipedia makes me very suspicious of his unbiased scientific nature, but i don’t think he’s even pretending to be anything of the sort. I’ll stick with real science for now…
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Oleena wrote:
uh huh . . . thanks[/quote]
It doesn’t bother you that history has proven time and again that our assumptions involving supernatural causes are false?
[quote]ephrem wrote:
That One Guy wrote:Ah, an interesting observation. Is there really such a thing as free will, or are we all slaves to operant and/or classical conditiong? That’s a toughie.
…obviously i’m leaning towards the latter…
[/quote]
The first time I came across an idea like this I read a science fiction book once that likened use to swarms and our consciousness to a hive mind. Since we are mostly empty space and basically a bunch of atoms held together purely by chemical bonds you could think of us as a dense swarm. When enough come together to form a collective mind, they form a consciousness or whatever. When you chose to eat today, did you REALLY choose, or was there really just a series of forces that manifested themselves as hunger that drove you to eat, and with your consciousness you just rationalized that you decided to.
Something like that.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Oleena wrote:
Infact, so far no one has mentioned the role of hormones and chemicals associated with emotion when discussing thought processes.
I don’t mind mentioning it. I think hormones and chemicals have a lot to do with emotion.
There. Did I just dismiss the concept of a soul? Of course not.
[/quote]
And those same hormones have a lot to do with the way we think and the decisions we make. An extreme example would be a panic attack. The fear caused by the chemical reaction leads the person to think extremely irrational thoughts. These thoughts are not caused by a soul, but by a devestating chemical process. Thus, a large part of this persons thoughts, personality, and decisions are caused by chemicals being out of balance.
How would you hold this person responsible for making decisions according to the guidelines that god laid out? How would you hold a bi-polar person responsible for wanting to commit suicide or a person with Reactive Attachment Disorder for trying to kill their parents?
I, for one, think I already answered this.
I said “I don’t know, but due to the history of science disproving supernatural explanations time and again in the past, I would guess there is no soul. But as I can’t know for sure either way, there’s no point in us talking about it.”
[quote]pushharder wrote:
ephrem wrote:
pushharder wrote:Eph, are you as cynical and aloof as Pookie and therefore completely willing to dismiss the work of J.P. Moreland? If not, you might find it interesting.
…i prefer stoÃ??Ã?¯c if you don’t mind. A quick background check here: J. P. Moreland - Wikipedia makes me very suspicious of his unbiased scientific nature, but i don’t think he’s even pretending to be anything of the sort. I’ll stick with real science for now…
OK. Gotcha.
Maybe you could reveal some “real science” about sentience, consciousness, and the soul or lack thereof? Tell us what “real science” says.
Does “real science” admit it knows practically nothing about it? (Nothing wrong with admitting that)
See, here’s the thing. “Real science” can tell us very little. But yet you want folks here on TN to tell you all about it and you want to debate it as well as ask questions. So in effect, you’ve boxed yourself in. You want to know more but aren’t willing to seek. You gonna sit around and twiddle your thumbs for a decade or two waiting on “real science?” If so, move on to Rate My Physique or at least something other than this subject on this thread.
I say this in the spirit of agape love, dude.
[/quote]
[quote]pushharder wrote:
ephrem wrote:
pushharder wrote:Eph, are you as cynical and aloof as Pookie and therefore completely willing to dismiss the work of J.P. Moreland? If not, you might find it interesting.
…i prefer stoÃ??Ã?¯c if you don’t mind. A quick background check here: J. P. Moreland - Wikipedia makes me very suspicious of his unbiased scientific nature, but i don’t think he’s even pretending to be anything of the sort. I’ll stick with real science for now…
OK. Gotcha.
Maybe you could reveal some “real science” about sentience, consciousness, and the soul or lack thereof? Tell us what “real science” says.
Does “real science” admit it knows practically nothing about it? (Nothing wrong with admitting that)[/quote]
…indeed, i don’t know of any active research into the existence of souls by independent scientists. The reason for that, i think, is because technology brings us deep into the brain, and we are able to see how the brain works, and how chemicals and electrical currents governs it…
[quote]See, here’s the thing. “Real science” can tell us very little. But yet you want folks here on TN to tell you all about it and you want to debate it as well as ask questions. So in effect, you’ve boxed yourself in. You want to know more but aren’t willing to seek. You gonna sit around and twiddle your thumbs for a decade or two waiting on “real science?” If so, move on to Rate My Physique or at least something other than this subject on this thread.
I say this in the spirit of agape love, dude.[/quote]
…and yet, if you ever fall ill and need medical assistance, it’s science that saves your ass…
religions so popular because any book that offers you all the answers to those that are scared shitless of life and especially death is going to be a hit. They’ll agree to drink your blood every sunday and argue to the point of mild retardation that a giant invisible guy can see everything you do.
and yet, they think people that believe in Santa Claus are nuts.
I got a 44, neener, neener, neener.
a few thoughts…
it’s 1 Corinthians 13
1 John 4:16
& I don’t think Son is supposed to be capatalized in Ps2:12
I think IrishSteel made a good point about the 1 Cor passage’s jealousy’s rightful translation as meaning a boiling or zealous passion, as opposed to American-English petulant jealousy.
With the Ex 20:5 passage, iirc, you are a social worker? You have already illustrated a very good example of Yahweh’s “punishment” of the innocent for the sins of the father - in your raped babies example.
As a personal example, without trying to prooftext meaning into 3000 year old Hebrew text, my great-grandfather was an abusive-alcoholic wife-beater, my grandfather was an abusive- alcoholic wife-beater; any guesses about my dad? So - I’ve ‘inheireted’ the emotional & physical consequences of the actions of a man who died before I was born. However, God isn’t about to stick my -soul- (apologies to Pookie) with punishment for what they’ve done. (Ezek 18:20)
As far as your question 1 goes, I really, really wish I had a better answer than recommending reading the book of Job (ESV or NASB are pretty good translations) - Job asks why God made all the undeserved crap happen to him, and God’s answer is “Where were YOU when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (<–drastically paraphrased - He’s got His own reasons for how He’s done things, who are we to question Him?)
Leaping and flailing wildly to the question of free will, two New Testament quotes could sum up my mindset:
1 …THY will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (in essence, cleanse this sin-tarnished world) Matt 6:something
2 - My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will’" (Matthew 26:39) Jesus - the night before his crucifixion, asking to be spared, but placing his trust in The Father as an example of even a divine being subverting (subsuming?) his God-Given autonomy.
One reason I continue striving to be an ‘Authentic’ Christian (really trying to understand & do what ‘The MAN’ taught) is because, even if - to play Devil’s Advocate for a few moments - Even if Jesus was a totally fictitious, made up centuries later, cobbled together from dozens of other myths; His character cries out as the one worth emulating, more than any other, real or fictional. (It sucks that I seem to fail on a daily basis)
Anyway, I apologize for the horrendous punctuation, I’ve been up with my child.
[quote]Oleena wrote:
I thought I already stated that this point of not being able to hold yourself to the same standards as God has already been argued, and I asked that you not bother answering it if you were just going to restate that. Instead, try looking back at my previous posts to get a better idea of what I was talking about.
I do like your point about Jesus holding himself to the same standards as his follows are supposed to hold themselves to. That’s interesting. It still doesn’t answer my big question, though.
pat wrote:
Oleena wrote:
Just got caught up reading what everyone had to say.
I would like to request that the Christians on this forum restrain from throwing out accusations such as “you are just angry” or “you don’t want to hear my beliefs”. Someone being angry or not has nothing to do with the truth. Since we are talking about the truth, I see these accusations as nothing more than drop down from the reasoning, cognitive level to the feeling level. I would hate to think that all there is to believing or not believing in god-fearing religions is feelings, because that would imply that truth according to measurable reality does not matter.
Also, no one even tried to answer two questions:
- What would you think of God if you held him to the same standards he holds you (so far the only answer has been “I can’t do that because I’m a mortal”. Don’t bother responding to this question if that is your answer because it’s been said and is not an answer, but a reason NOT TO ANSWER)
Fine, I’ll answer. God cannot be “held” to the same standard as us, because he is not us. We can hold a dog to the same standard as us, because a dog is not use. We can only hold ourselves to our own standard. It like trying to hold an orange to the standard of an apple, it’s gonna fail.
Second, God can do things we cannot because he created it and it all belongs to him. He can do what he wants. It’s good to be the king. For my experience, He been very kind to me, but when I have a gripe, I take it up with him. The problem of evil bothers me too at times, but we cannot be at the most finite levels of those interactions and we cannot know that what we perceive to be Ã?¢??evil’ is always so, it may be unpleasant, but it may not be evil. To answer that, you first have to go through the agonizing exercise of defining Ã?¢??good’ and Ã?¢??evil’, then you can assign what event fit in to what categories. The problem here is you cannot define those words, we can have some sense of what they mean, but a concrete definition is not possible, or hasn’t been discovered as of yet.
- And the one that even Push didn’t answer.
Tell me how these things do not contradict each other. Go ahead and put them into whatever context you feel they were meant. They still contradict each other, even when figuring for context.
in 1 corinthians 14 it outlines that love is not jealous, proud, easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs.
John 4:16 “god is love…”
“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them:
for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me;”
Exodus 20:5, (note that here he apparently is keeping record of wrongs and punshing the children of those who committed them. Even if the children themselves did not commit wrong, they will still be punished)
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret-it leads only to evil (Psalm 37:8).
A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult (Proverbs 12:16).
And yet:
Psalm 2:12 (New International Version)
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry
and you be destroyed in your way,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
It is sad when you cannot hold the omnipotent, omniscient creator to the same standards he apparently hold you to BECAUSE HE WOULD FAIL.
We are finite and limited in knowledge. We are not the same thing as God, see above. When God was here in person form he did hold himself to the same standards, to the point of being tortured and killed.
[/quote]
[quote]pushharder wrote:
spyoptic wrote:
religions so popular because any book that offers you all the answers to those that are scared shitless of life and especially death is going to be a hit. They’ll agree to drink your blood every sunday and argue to the point of mild retardation that a giant invisible guy can see everything you do.
and yet, they think people that believe in Santa Claus are nuts.
Be there or be square.[/quote]
?? well, it does say He works in mysterious ways…
You really need to learn to use the [quote][/quote][[quote][/quote]quote][quote]Quoted text goes here…[/quote][quote][/quote][/[quote][/quote]quote] feature of the forum. Picking out your replies from the original post gets tedious fast.
But if you think about it, it makes no sense for an omniscient/potent being to want/need/hope/etc. Your problem is that you take God’s existence as a given and the Bible as true. You then assume that any conclusion that runs contrary to those two premises is wrong. Consider that most probably the Bible is an entirely human book and God probably doesn’t exist.
You can then contemplate the idea that want/need/hope/etc is incompatible with omniscience in the proper context.
The truth. Also, they are expected to obey God but they don’t know good from evil at that point (the tree gives them that once they eat the fruits); so how can you blame someone for disobeying if they can’t tell right from wrong? If you’re purely innocent, then all action are all morally equivalent. They couldn’t tell either that the snake was evil and God less so.
You haven’t addressed the question of why God walks around looking for Adam when He’s supposedly omniscient.
He doesn’t tell the the truth about the tree. He also doesn’t give them all the mental faculties required to make informed decisions. The whole set-up clearly has only one possible outcome: Someone is going to eat a fruit eventually.
Oh, so let’s not even ask it, right?
I feel so much better being a pot.
Men in prison abide by the rules so well that they’re kept in cages. A large contingent of armed guards is also present to keep them in line. It seems the prison system itself doesn’t expect them to be responsible for their actions.
And while my children obey me very well nearly all of the time, they, like Adam and Eve in the story, have yet to acquire all the required tools to be able to make wise decisions reliably. For now, I consider myself responsible for them.
If God is infinitely loving, why should you fear Him?
Yes, the answer makes no sense, but let’s accept it as such. Let’s file it in the section “things I won’t think about”.
Yes, by all means let’s use the collected fables of old Jewish tribes as the source or all our knowledge.
Did you know bats are birds? Yup, it says so right in the Bible.
Yeah, He’s imaginary and we’re not.
You think that because it’s been hammered into you since you were a wee lad. How do you know it’s true?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Oleeme, there’s some stuff you and I aint a-gonna figure out very soon about God and His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. We jes aint got what it takes. Doesn’t mean we can’t ask the questions. Doesn’t mean we can’t question the answers. But it also doesn’t mean that we have the right to throw the carrots in Mom’s face and then shit all over the kitchen floor (after all, a 19 month old should be shittin in the training potty).[/quote]
Ayuh, 'cauze THE LAWRD God didn’t put thoz big brain-a-ma-gigs thingys in our hedz for us bumpkins to use as 'nything but nice hat racks. Glory be to Jeebus! KNEEL down to the LAWRD and read his gloooorious Babble! All yuor questioonz are answered in 'Crapture! HELLELUUUUUUUIA!
(IrishSteel: I’ll get back to your answer later, I haven’t enough time to address it properly now… busy weekend and all that.)
[quote]ephrem wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…if free will exists then all the believers on this board can surely decide not to believe anymore?
yes
…really? You may not want to, but can you really decide to stop believing like you do from one moment to the next? I know i can’t do the opposite, not with any sincerity at least…
[/quote]
Yes, you are decidedly less free. AND less sincere, at once.
[quote]Oleena wrote:
Would you rather a meth addict who was using throughout the entire pregnancy have the child or would you rather that they not get pregnant in the first place? [/quote]
I would rather the meth addict get cured of her addiction. I would rather she not get pregnant until she’s cured.
It seems to me that you keep changing your question. Nothing wrong with that - so long as we all acknowledge this.
[quote]We can predict that the child will have limited capacities for life, and statistics show that they will most likely end up in jail, if they even make it past the first year of life in a hospital. We would prefer that children were born to healthy parents because we do not want to promote suffering of any sort in life.
God knew that much of his children would burn in hell FOREVER (according to the bible) and he still decided to have them. Burning in hell forever is much worse than being born to a drug addicted parent. If you knew that your child was going to burn in hell forever (and you knew this FOR SURE BEFORE YOU HAD IT) I bet that you would choose not to have it.
The view that his creation is a beautiful one is just a perspective. In reality, it is quite common for children to be raped before the age of 5, to turn into sexual offenders as a result and rape other children (this has happened to over 500 kids that I used to work with just in the small outskirt city where I lived). Babies are raped, and grow up with all sort of disorders that they don’t understand because most of the time they can’t remember that an object nearly as big as themselves was crammed into their tiny holes before their though process was complete (yes, this is possible). Many more grow up with parents that prostitute them out for drugs. 1000s upon 1000s are born to parents who used drugs and have personality disorders that cause them to commit horrible offenses to society that are a result of chemical imbalances resulting from the drug use during pregnancy. It would be a serious stretch of interpretive translation, according to everything that is written about how a person can get through the straight and narrow path and into heaven, for these individuals to get into Heaven. Many of them will tell you that they wish they were not born. Life is not a simple “right and wrong” process. These people are shades of grey.[/quote]
Yes, there is a great deal of suffering in this world. Poor, poor mankind. It’s terribly sad. And anyone who isn’t driven to tears by human suffering must be dead in their hearts. Most suffering in the world, however, is due to humanity’s freely choosing to sin. Even so, creation is a bewilderingly beautiful thing - perhaps even more exquisitely so by the existence of suffering, which makes us grow in wisdom, love, and faith; which makes beauty that much more fragile and tenuous; love that much more precious; and one’s yearning for heaven that much more searing.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
mbm693 - Tell you what, little one, let’s start from your side of this issue . . . when you can explain what constitutes human consciousness in the brain and how/when it actually first occurs in the brain of an infant, then we can have this discussion on the soul and free will.
You deny the soul, but cannot explain your own mind. Even the best scientist of this day and age cannot explain consciousness, yet you in your infinite understanding arrogantly conclude that the brain is all there is of your consciousness . . .lmao . . . You cannot even explain your own conscious awareness of and interaction with the world and yet demand that I prove the soul to you . . .
the basis for my belief in the soul comes from reason and from scripture (that’s why it is a belief) . . . .you on the other hand believe there is no soul, but cannot offer an explanation then for your own consciousness except a feeble cry of "da brain . . .da brain . . . " while scientists know that the mind is more than the electrical impulses of the brain.
To make it easy on you - I believe the soul is the spiritual operator of the physical body and interacts with the physical world through the switchboard of the brain (thus impairing the brain interferes with our souls ability to interact with the physical world) . . . We know we can keep the body alive with “life” support, but we cannot return consciousness even to a perfectly healthy brain when there is no soul to operate it . . .
the mind is more than what the brain is doing . . . [/quote]
Did you just tell him what he believes?
Here’s my take, there may be a soul, but science can’t explain it yet. I won’t assign a fairy tale to make myself feel better about not knowing though.
Sorry about the fail on the quote thing, Christianity must be wrong 
[quote]pookie wrote:
jpb wrote:
You really need to learn to use the [quote]Quoted text goes here…[/quote] feature of the forum. Picking out your replies from the original post gets tedious fast.
The Bible does not say He “needed” to do this, but He did so according to His will.
But if you think about it, it makes no sense for an omniscient/potent being to want/need/hope/etc. Your problem is that you take God’s existence as a given and the Bible as true. You then assume that any conclusion that runs contrary to those two premises is wrong. Consider that most probably the Bible is an entirely human book and God probably doesn’t exist.[/quote]
Because you say it does not make sense, does not mean it is so. You are right, I do take God’s existence as a given and the Bible as true. You do the same thing, but in the opposite direction.
If I presuppose the Bible as we have already established, then I go to the Bible for issues such as these. There is no contradiction in having an omniscient being who created for his glory. You may not understand it or appreciate it, but it is not contradictory.
[quote]God forbade them from eating of the tree upon the pain of death; what other information did they need?
The truth. Also, they are expected to obey God but they don’t know good from evil at that point (the tree gives them that once they eat the fruits); so how can you blame someone for disobeying if they can’t tell right from wrong? If you’re purely innocent, then all action are all morally equivalent. They couldn’t tell either that the snake was evil and God less so.[/quote]
What truth did God not tell them? In every ethical situation, is every particular implication necessarily given before someone can make a decision?
I do not believe He did not know where they were. I think it was a question posed to Adam to highlight the fact that in His omniscience, He is aware that they are hiding from Him. He asked for Adam’s benefit, not His own.
[quote]I do not believe God “deceived Adam and Eve.” I do believe that the fall was the occasion for the eventual redemption wrought by Christ.
He doesn’t tell the the truth about the tree. He also doesn’t give them all the mental faculties required to make informed decisions. The whole set-up clearly has only one possible outcome: Someone is going to eat a fruit eventually.[/quote]
Again, I do not agree that every piece of information must be given in every scenario for a person to make an ethical choice. I do agree, however, that the fruit was going to be eaten.
[quote]The Bible does not address this particular question.
Oh, so let’s not even ask it, right?[/quote]
You can ask it all you want, but you may not get an answer. And I suspect that you will not get an answer that satisfies you.
[quote]Paul actually uses the analogy of the Potter and pots in Romans 9, not puppets.
I feel so much better being a pot.[/quote]
Just trying to keep it biblical…
[quote]Do you think that a man in a prison is no longer responsible to abide by the rules of the particular institution? Do your children obey you perfectly, all the time? Are they responsible to do so?
Men in prison abide by the rules so well that they’re kept in cages. A large contingent of armed guards is also present to keep them in line. It seems the prison system itself doesn’t expect them to be responsible for their actions.[/quote]
But they are still supposed to be. Failure does not the absence of responsibility.
Your children sound very well behaved; good on you for training them well!
[quote]I do not agree with this. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
If God is infinitely loving, why should you fear Him?[/quote]
There is an underlying assumption in this thread that God is only one thing. The same Bible that says God is love also says He is holy; He is just; He is righteous; He is merciful; etc. The fear of the Lord does not always mean the running and hiding from Him fear, it also means reverential awe. It means understanding who God is and who I am in relation, and giving honor and glory to Him.
[quote]It is odd, but such is the case.
Yes, the answer makes no sense, but let’s accept it as such. Let’s file it in the section “things I won’t think about”.[/quote]
No, I did not mean matters of omniscience and sovereignty are “things I won’t think about.” I meant that it is odd that so many people freak out when these things are brought up.
[quote]Questions are not bad, as long as we seek our answers in the Bible.
Yes, by all means let’s use the collected fables of old Jewish tribes as the source or all our knowledge. Did you know bats are birds? Yup, it says so right in the Bible.[/quote]
That is how you view the Bible; I believe it is God’s word.
[quote]God is comprehensible as He has revealed Himself. However, we cannot know everything there is to know about God as there is a distinction between Him and us.
Yeah, He’s imaginary and we’re not.[/quote]
This is not an argument.
[quote]I disagree. I think that God created the universe and has revealed Himself in the Bible. I think genuine common sense comes from knowing God, through the Lord Jesus Christ.
You think that because it’s been hammered into you since you were a wee lad. How do you know it’s true?[/quote]
It was not hammered into me since I was a wee lad; quite the opposite.
jpb
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
…To make it easy on you - I believe the soul is the spiritual operator of the physical body and interacts with the physical world through the switchboard of the brain (thus impairing the brain interferes with our souls ability to interact with the physical world) . . . We know we can keep the body alive with “life” support, but we cannot return consciousness even to a perfectly healthy brain when there is no soul to operate it . . .
the mind is more than what the brain is doing . . .[/quote]
LOL