[quote]Sloth wrote:
What objective-absolute-atheistic-morality commandments are being used to judge God, again?
“We don’t believe in objective/absolute morality, since it can’t be measured.” Then your judgements of God are useless.
Or
“I can’t show them to you, but morality does exists with which we get to judge God.” Faith![/quote]
Was it christianity that gave us morality and ethics? What discussions on morality and ethics happened prior to the christian faith?
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
What objective-absolute-atheistic-morality commandments are being used to judge God, again?
“We don’t believe in objective/absolute morality, since it can’t be measured.” Then your judgements of God are useless.
Or
“I can’t show them to you, but morality does exists with which we get to judge God.” Faith![/quote]
Was it christianity that gave us morality and ethics? What discussions on morality and ethics happened prior to the christian faith?
[/quote]
Faith-based ones.
If you’re claiming an objective/absolute standard to measure God’s morality by, produce it. If you can’t, it’s faith-based.
If you’re not claiming such…Well, if even you ultimately don’t believe in the reality of whatever moral “good” and “evils” you measure God’s morality by…I’m certainly not going to put any stock in 'em.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Could god create a rock so heavy that even he couldn’t lift it?[/quote]
If you take all the omni- predicates as is, then the answer should be that he can make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it and then lift it anyway.
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Let’s say you have a child. You love said child with all your heart, but he gets in to the mafia, starts killing people, practices extortion, and runs a prostitution ring, but want’s to live in your house, but will not obey your rules. Do you kick him out, or let him sit there and run roughshod over you? If you kick him out, does that mean you love him less?[/quote]
When I have a kid I can let them know the rules.
No one agrees on what God’s rules are or how many he has or how many are worth following or not. Or what his rules mean?
[/quote]
I disagree. We’re talking about a relationship, so it’s not so cut and dry as say a government/ citizen relationship. There are basically 2 rules: 1) Love God with all your heart. 2) Love your neighbor as yourself. If you act out of love, by default you follow God’s rules.
Whether you wash your dishes with Palmolive or Dial is of little consequence. Legalism is a bad thing to get into with regards to faith.
The rules are really a guideline. It allows you to behave without having to put much thought into it.
That may not work for you or me, or others, but there are those who don’t care to think much about it. They just want to know what to do. For those who don’t want to delve into it, spend time thinking, reading, talking philosophy and theology the rules give them what they need.
That would suck if it were true.
Fred Phelps is a despicable creature. There are those who think they are following the rules while managing to miss the entire point. A hateful small little man, seeking his own glory, not God’s. If he were really in it for God, you would have probably never heard of him. He got his jollies off of shitting on peoples weakest moments, he was not doing the work of God, he was doing the work of Fred Phelps.
Simply being religious, or tagging yourself as such doesn’t mean you are or that you are in the ballpark of right.
How do you know? Well scripturally we are give a tool, judge a tree by its fruit. What fruit did Fred Phelps produce? Rotten.
As for whether he is in heaven or hell I don’t know. I do not know his true heart, I know he was flawed, but we all are.
I will not answer questions about people’s eternal fate. I know you didn’t ask, but I am heading it off at the pass. I know where I would have put him, but I ain’t God.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]AceRock wrote:
Why should I fear the Lord? This is directly from SexMachine’s quote in the believer thread.
How can you base an entire religion and faith upon fear? That’s diametrically opposed to everything I believe in.[/quote]
Fear is the most primal emotion. G-d has the power to utterly destroy us.[/quote]
So God is a terrorist forcing people to think the way he wants to think and if you don’t do it he may kill you/punish you for all eternity.
I guess if you buy that line then that is a good reason to believe! I’ve said this before, if God exists and is all loving then hell probably does not exist. [/quote]
This barely deserves a response. No, G-d is not a terrorist an he gives every chance for repentance. He made a covenant with all mankind never to destroy man again. There are two versions emphasising the obscure nature of the deluge story. G-d has infinite patience but to begin to gain wisdom one must understand his power , our flaws and fear him. If you had read the OT you would understand how many times he has forgiven the most heinous sins of Judah and Israel and accepted their repentance over and over again.
[/quote]
So, point of clarification; would you say that it’s your god’s position that you must love him, or he will utterly destroy you? If you had a loved ne in a similar relationship, would you counsel them to leave, or to just obey?
Does that sound like a loving relationship between creator an creation? [/quote]
Let’s say you have a child. You love said child with all your heart, but he gets in to the mafia, starts killing people, practices extortion, and runs a prostitution ring, but want’s to live in your house, but will not obey your rules. Do you kick him out, or let him sit there and run roughshod over you? If you kick him out, does that mean you love him less?[/quote]
I don’t think the above scenario speaks to my question. However, in that scenario, would you burn your child for an eternity? Would you burn your child for an eternity for simply not returning your love?
[/quote]
Theologically speaking, God doesn’t decide our fate, we do. If my child wanted to go against me, not love me, act in ways that are damaging to me and my family I would have no choice but to banish him from my life. If those were his decisions, then there’s nothing I could do.
If what he chose led him to torment because that’s what was left there is nothing I could do.
Something actually very similar to this scenario happened to me in my life, so I am kind of speaking from experience. I know what it’s like to have to renounce someone I love dearly. I had no choice. For me it’s still very painful, I cannot speak for the other party, I simply do not know. They made their choices and no matter how much I love them or how much I tried to reach them, I simply could not. In the end there’s nothing I can do, they are out permanently and nothing they can do at this point can change that.
Now this has nothing to do with love or forgiveness. I cannot allow them to harm my family anymore and the damage is so deep, it would take merely their presence to do irreversible damage at this point.
I perceive it somewhat similar with God. There’s a point where you cannot help somebody anymore. Certainly, with the power and all aforementioned omni- predicates that God posses he can overcome much more than a person can.
I would reckon the line is where God would have to go against a person’s will to save them. Sure he can do it, but he’s not going to. He promised he would not go against our will. After all if that’s what it takes, dude does not want to be there.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
What objective-absolute-atheistic-morality commandments are being used to judge God, again?
“We don’t believe in objective/absolute morality, since it can’t be measured.” Then your judgements of God are useless.
Or
“I can’t show them to you, but morality does exists with which we get to judge God.” Faith![/quote]
Was it christianity that gave us morality and ethics? What discussions on morality and ethics happened prior to the christian faith?
[/quote]
Christianity didn’t create morality and ethics, that already existed and exists. It merely suggests we adhere to morality and ethics.
It didn’t create good or evil, it didn’t decide what is moral and evil, it tells us that we should adhere to that which is moral and ethical.
Indeed, one need not be a Christian or religious at all to have a sense of morality or ethics. Most people, save for perhaps the mentally ill, have a pretty good sense of it.
Yes, Christianity explains a lot of morality and ethics, but no, it did not invent it.
Indeed, reading the scriptures you will never find language where a moral or ethical principle is ‘invented’.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
Of course, to the god of abraham, nothing says “love” quite like the willingness to carve out your own son’s heart.[/quote]
In a sense, that’s true. If you are going to build a nation through which you are going to bring forth your covenant with man, the line in which you are going to sacrifice your own son for the good of mankind, you need to make sure the person you are going to use is on board with you fully. As the story goes, God in the end, did what he couldn’t ask Abraham to do. It’s one of those reciprocal nuances of scripture that takes some study to really make sense of.
But also, for the faithful, death isn’t the end either and that makes a huge difference. It makes all the difference. It’s probably difficult for somebody who does see death as the absolute end to understand that.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Let’s say you have a child. You love said child with all your heart, but he gets in to the mafia, starts killing people, practices extortion, and runs a prostitution ring, but want’s to live in your house, but will not obey your rules. Do you kick him out, or let him sit there and run roughshod over you? If you kick him out, does that mean you love him less?[/quote]
When I have a kid I can let them know the rules.
No one agrees on what God’s rules are or how many he has or how many are worth following or not. Or what his rules mean?
[/quote]
I disagree. We’re talking about a relationship, so it’s not so cut and dry as say a government/ citizen relationship. There are basically 2 rules: 1) Love God with all your heart. 2) Love your neighbor as yourself. If you act out of love, by default you follow God’s rules.
Whether you wash your dishes with Palmolive or Dial is of little consequence. Legalism is a bad thing to get into with regards to faith.
The rules are really a guideline. It allows you to behave without having to put much thought into it.
That may not work for you or me, or others, but there are those who don’t care to think much about it. They just want to know what to do. For those who don’t want to delve into it, spend time thinking, reading, talking philosophy and theology the rules give them what they need.
[/quote]
We’ve already seen that people don’t agree with number 2 or what number 2 means. How about what Sloth believes as a Catholic vs. what I was raised to believe as a Methodist? How about a Muslim? A Mormon? What about a Hindu? Buddhist?
We’ve seen from this and other threads believers disagree on what love thy neighbor means. We can tell for some T-Nation people it is one thing and for a few others profane anti-gay rants are explained away. I’m called “judgmental” for thinking that isn’t loving your neighbor. Clearly I would agree with you. I’ve ran into many believers who aren’t putting any thoughts into the words of the Bible ;)*
Pat says there are basically 2 rules. Fred Phelps thought the rules were different. So do Muslims. So do Hindus. Mormons. Etc. You’re telling me a non-believer that it is simple. Here’s the rules. And yet we see how often people OF THE EXACT SAME BELIEF SYSTEM disagree on what God wants. So how do we rationalize the millions of people who think something counter to what you just said?
What about the people who disagree on who God is? On what he wants? You’re telling me the rules are easy and that is fine…as long as you believe the rules you think matter are the ones that matter. It’s like a game where even if everyone agrees you need to play it (believers) none of you agree on how best to keep score. And then we’re telling me…“you gotta at least play man.” It just doesn’t work well in my rational brain. People say you gotta just have faith. I think too much about all the things that don’t fit to have it. It’s not like I haven’t tried.
*Before I’m tarred and feathered, I get it no not all Christians are the same and I never have claimed they are.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:
Problem is, God isn’t all good. [/quote]
Sure he is, since he defines “good.”
[/quote]
If you say so. Like I’ve done before I can bring up and point out quite a few things that show inconsistencies. When we do one thing and say another, we call it hypocracy.
So, maybe when God punished Adam, and all of mankind for his and eve’s sins. All the Jews did to Jesus was show him his same justice. We punished the son for the sins of the father by killing him. Surely, that is just since God took away our Eden and innocence.
By the way. Why would God leave temptations in his garden of perfection along with the deceiver/ snake? If adam and eve were truly innocent, how could they have not trusted the snake even with free will?
Does anyone really understand innocence? I mean these are very old stories, it’s almost unfair to tease the morality out of them. But these are where the biggest holes are.
Before a response, please be aware of how your own church defines innocence. Innocence in part can be described as coming from a lack of knowledge about sin and wrongdoing. In general as a result of that, there is gullibility and susceptibility to deception.
It’s like, offering candy to a kid that only knows he likes sweets, and then sending him to hell for succumbing to the very virtue of innocence.
[quote]H factor wrote:
We’ve already seen that people don’t agree with number 2 or what number 2 means. How about what Sloth believes as a Catholic vs. what I was raised to believe as a Methodist? How about a Muslim? A Mormon? What about a Hindu? Buddhist?
[/quote]
I would think despite our theological differences, most would agree. Of course, it’s one thing to say it and to discuss it as an academic exercise it’s a whole other to live it which is far more difficult. I see people of all faiths, non-faiths, creeds and whatever, treat their neighbors terribly. I certainly also am not exempt for I have mistreated people and regrettably so.
Technically, it doesn’t matter how you were raised or what you believe, I am called to treat you like a brother. It’s an imperfect process.
Well we believers certainly need to be putting our money where our mouths are. We’re not perfect and it’s why we need repentance, humility and faith. Where we fall short, we need to get up, dust ourselves off and go do better. It doesn’t mean it’s not true, it means we are weak selfish creatures who need to strive to do better every day.
Well sure it’s hard to see it on a macro level. I wouldn’t think believers of good faith in other faiths disagree. In speaking with people from those faiths, as I understand it from them, they do agree. How we treat each other is paramount. Those who tread upon ‘love of neighbor’ though they claim some rich belief are in it for themselves.
And are you only looking at the bad people do and not the good? Can you not see the good behavior as well of people of faith? I think you would need to see the good too if you are doing an honest assessment.
People mess up all the time. But that doesn’t mean their hearts are in the wrong place or that they do not recognize the error.
[quote]
What about the people who disagree on who God is? On what he wants? You’re telling me the rules are easy and that is fine…as long as you believe the rules you think matter are the ones that matter. It’s like a game where even if everyone agrees you need to play it (believers) none of you agree on how best to keep score. And then we’re telling me…“you gotta at least play man.” It just doesn’t work well in my rational brain. People say you gotta just have faith. I think too much about all the things that don’t fit to have it. It’s not like I haven’t tried.
*Before I’m tarred and feathered, I get it no not all Christians are the same and I never have claimed they are. [/quote]
Perhaps looking at where people fail all the time isn’t the best place to start. Maybe look at those, who driven by their faith have done amazing things for their fellow man.
If you are looking for man’s perfection, you will never find it. You need to look at the theology behind the faith and what we are called to do, not just where we have failed to do it. If you look at people, you will never be able to reconcile it, we fail more than we succeed. We are imperfect as can be. Doesn’t mean the teaching is bad, just means the execution is difficult. But when we do succeed, we do great things.
[quote]Severiano wrote:
When we do one thing and say another, we call it hypocracy. [/quote]
Not necessarily. Hopefully parents demand their children refrain from a number of things they, as adults, do.
My God isn’t my peer in the sky. The authority and obedience is a one way street. It is infinitely more pronounced than seen in a child/parents relationship. It is infinitely more lop-sided. For all the distance between the parasites in a termite’s gut compared to a man, I am far, far more removed from the awesomeness that is an omnipresent/omniscient Creator. A gnat is infinitely closer to me, than I am to God, and I wouldn’t think twice about swatting it. I am shocked that mercy is extended to me/us at all.
If we do get those superior AI’s by 2050, pray they’re even remotely as merciful to us gnats.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:
When we do one thing and say another, we call it hypocracy. [/quote]
Not necessarily. Hopefully parents demand their children refrain from a number of things they, as adults, do.
My God isn’t my peer in the sky. The authority and obedience is a one way street. It is infinitely more pronounced than seen in a child/parents relationship. It is infinitely more lop-sided. For all the distance between the parasites in a termite’s gut compared to a man, I am far, far more removed from the awesomeness that is an omnipresent/omniscient Creator. A gnat is infinitely closer to me, than I am to God, and I wouldn’t think twice about swatting it. I am shocked that mercy is extended to me/us at all.
If we do get those superior AI’s by 2050, pray they’re even remotely as merciful to us gnats.
[/quote]
Haha, nice except if you are Christian, you are supposed believe we were made in Gods image, not a gnats. Richard Dawkins believes we are more like gnats than God.
Funnier thing to me is, if you believe in the Garden of Eden story, you must also believe that it was Satan, not God that gave us real sentience.
Another thing, if Satan was Gods perfect angel. God really fucked up, and that would mean God isn’t perfect.
Some other things. If God isn’t the standard of goodness then he is no different than say Satan doing a bunch of evil shit but asking you do act in accordance with arbitrary rules. Which you should follow out of fear, or love, it really doesn’t matter just as long as you follow the rules… Sound all good to you? God is defined as ALL GOOD, Omniscient, and omnipotent. The most important part of that trifecta is the ALL GOOD part.
Satan was supposed to be endowed with all of the greatest virtues as well as free will. So there is an explanation for why God’s perfect angel turned out that way… Free will and jealousy of the one thing better than himself. This is what the coveting sin is about imo.
This is another reason why I preach doing good for the sake of good. It’s a better sort of good than doing good out of fear, or doing good in hopes of a reward. Goodness is the reward in itself.
[quote]Severiano wrote:
Haha, nice except if you are Christian, you are supposed believe we were made in Gods image, not a gnats. Richard Dawkins believes we are more like gnats than God.[/quote]
In his image. Not like him.
[quote]pat wrote:
Perhaps looking at where people fail all the time isn’t the best place to start. Maybe look at those, who driven by their faith have done amazing things for their fellow man.
If you are looking for man’s perfection, you will never find it. You need to look at the theology behind the faith and what we are called to do, not just where we have failed to do it. If you look at people, you will never be able to reconcile it, we fail more than we succeed. We are imperfect as can be. Doesn’t mean the teaching is bad, just means the execution is difficult. But when we do succeed, we do great things.[/quote]
I wouldn’t disagree with this. What about all the success that non believers have made. Non-believers have done some amazing things for people. It isn’t as if belief makes you a good or bad person. HUMANS can do horrible things and HUMANS can do great things. I’m focused on doing great things while I’m alive on this earth. I don’t believe I have a second chance or later shot at life.
I have looked at what you are “called” to do and kudos if you can do it. It’s hard not to look at the failures when the failures are so numerous throughout history.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:
Haha, nice except if you are Christian, you are supposed believe we were made in Gods image, not a gnats. Richard Dawkins believes we are more like gnats than God.[/quote]
In his image. Not like him.
[/quote]
Now we are splitting hairs, but if you want to go down this road and say that such a statement only means we look like God. Then that means we disagree with what it means to be made in Gods image. If that’s your position then we have a strong disagreement with what that statement means. I think it means to Christians and Jews that we are higher or highest on the rung of creatures that supposedly God made. We aren’t Gods, but we have things like the ability to discern, to comprehend, to reflect, to play devils advocate, to reason, etc, which are the same abilities God has, except his are perfect.
Also, with parents… At some point we try to become better than our parents, for you that grew up with fathers, there is a popular statement flying around these days about, “trying to kill or best your dads.” When we get older we recognize the humanity of our parents, when we get even older we respect all they went through in raising us, and at that point they become a lot more like friends than our superiors and guardians, in most cases we end up in one way or another taking care of them.
So, if we are like Gods children, then shouldn’t we strive to be better than him? Shouldn’t we strive to be at least as good as God? When there is talk about being made in Gods image, I think it has to do with our capacity and ability to do great things. It’s about being God-like, doing Godly things.
This all wraps back into Gods ethics. If we are to be God-like, then should we bully? Should we get people to do things out of fear? They aren’t my ethics man. I’m just pointing them out to you.
[quote]Severiano wrote:
We aren’t Gods, but we have things like the ability to discern, to comprehend, to reflect, to play devils advocate, to reason, etc, which are the same abilities God has, except his are perfect.
[/quote]
We don’t even come close. Like comparing a grain of sand to a mountain range.
[quote]Severiano wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:
When we do one thing and say another, we call it hypocracy. [/quote]
Not necessarily. Hopefully parents demand their children refrain from a number of things they, as adults, do.
My God isn’t my peer in the sky. The authority and obedience is a one way street. It is infinitely more pronounced than seen in a child/parents relationship. It is infinitely more lop-sided. For all the distance between the parasites in a termite’s gut compared to a man, I am far, far more removed from the awesomeness that is an omnipresent/omniscient Creator. A gnat is infinitely closer to me, than I am to God, and I wouldn’t think twice about swatting it. I am shocked that mercy is extended to me/us at all.
If we do get those superior AI’s by 2050, pray they’re even remotely as merciful to us gnats.
[/quote]
Haha, nice except if you are Christian, you are supposed believe we were made in Gods image, not a gnats. Richard Dawkins believes we are more like gnats than God.
Funnier thing to me is, if you believe in the Garden of Eden story, you must also believe that it was Satan, not God that gave us real sentience.
Another thing, if Satan was Gods perfect angel. God really fucked up, and that would mean God isn’t perfect.
Some other things. If God isn’t the standard of goodness then he is no different than say Satan doing a bunch of evil shit but asking you do act in accordance with arbitrary rules. Which you should follow out of fear, or love, it really doesn’t matter just as long as you follow the rules… Sound all good to you? God is defined as ALL GOOD, Omniscient, and omnipotent. The most important part of that trifecta is the ALL GOOD part.
Satan was supposed to be endowed with all of the greatest virtues as well as free will. So there is an explanation for why God’s perfect angel turned out that way… Free will and jealousy of the one thing better than himself. This is what the coveting sin is about imo.
This is another reason why I preach doing good for the sake of good. It’s a better sort of good than doing good out of fear, or doing good in hopes of a reward. Goodness is the reward in itself. [/quote]
It would be cool if you got your theology right. That’s what you think Christians believe, but it’s not correct.