If TigerTime is ever interested in an actually biblical exposition on this matter, take it to Hijack Haven and I will correct Pat’s woeful misrepresentation of the mind of God. For the… (pick a big number)th time.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
The problem is that I don’t want to kill anybody ever, but everybody has a threshold, you threaten my family, you can kiss your ass good-bye.
The time of, and the people for whom these original books were intended lived in an entirely different world and hence the books made sense. These people were uneducated nomads who didn’t even know not to fuck goats or eat vultures. If you know the history or salvation and the way God works it makes a lot more sense. These are lowly, pretty stupid people whom God chose to use establish himself on earth. To do that initially, there had to be some ass whippin’.
I can explain this in more detail, but I don’t know that the axe you have to grind and the chip on your shoulder will allow you to be as objective as you need to, to understand. [/quote]
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’ve been more than willing to hear you, or any other theist, out. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to question what you say, but then again, converting would be a waste of time if I can’t even convince myself I’m right.
Next question; Since god is all knowing, he must have known ahead of time the amount of suffering that would occur should things go on the path he laid out. This question is a two-parter.
- Why did God not change the circumstances of the garden of Eden to avoid what he knew would happen should he not make any changes.
[/quote]
Why he chose to do things the way he did it, I don’t know. It sure would be easier on everybody if he just popped down here and made it all very, very clear, or made us different, incapable of evil. But he didn’t, God doesn’t do easy and never has…
I am going to assume you meant omniscience? There are a few ways to reconcile it. One is the obvious paradox treatment. It’s a possibility of course, in that an omni-everything being should be able to trump even the seemingly logically impossible.
Another possibility is simply a matter of choice. In this scenario, God can choose simply not to know the decisions we are going to make. This would be omnipotence acting on omniscience. While for humans it would simply be impossible to pretend we didn’t know something, an omnipotent being should be able to do this.
Then there is the understand that the issue of freewill and choice actually are metaphysical constructs and technically do not occur in time, but we interact with them in time. So that all matters of choice happen outside the a time based continuum.
God’s not a big fat meanie, sometimes he had to be. How much would we all like it if God just once and for all got rid of all the evil people who rape kids, murder families, do child sexual slavery, who annihilate towns, shoot into a school yard just to make sure one person dies, etc. The world has no shortage of evil. I have heard the atheist criticism of why God doesn’t just get rid of all the evil in the world. Sounds good to me, until…
It sounds good until you realize how many people that really is. It could number in to the billions. So then it begs the question, do you really want God to deliver justice?
But then your stuck with these horrific things people inflict on one another. Just look at Somalia.
Well that’s what happened in the past and it will happen again. What most people miss about the OT, is that while the texts has these events happening in quick succession, that’s not really the case. These events were often spaced by hundreds if not thousands of years between them. Then in the end, there were only a handful.
Last point here, I was just discussing with someone else, this current modern world is no better or less brutal than the old world. There is wide spread evil. People are horrible each other through out the world. We are no more civilized than we have ever been, we just hide it better, we distract ourselves more, we hide it behind walls or use pretty words to make things not look as they first appear.[/quote]
I see most of these points heading in the same direction so I’m going to save us both some time by just assuming we already got there.
Do you agree with the use of Hell (infinite torture) as punishment for finite sins? Also, do you think all humans deserve to go to Hell by birth right and must atone for the sin of… being born in order to go to Heaven? [/quote]
That’s not the way it works. You’re not damned by default. There are some sects that believe that, but they primarily pulled it out of their ass because it’s damn sure not biblical. The components of salvation are faith and behavior. Culpability is the key, you are held accountable for what you do. If you are not culpable, you are not guilty of anything.
Do I think some people deserve to got to hell, based on my finite judgement? absolutely. For some, there is no hell hot enough, no torture sufficient for the evil they propagate. But save for the obvious, I cannot pass judgement because I flat don’t know most people in any detail. [/quote]
Well, that’s refreshing.
Then, one does not necessarily have to be Christian in order to get into heaven?
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
If TigerTime is ever interested in an actually biblical exposition on this matter, take it to Hijack Haven and I will correct Pat’s woeful misrepresentation of the mind of God. For the… (pick a big number)th time.[/quote]
Am I to understand that you contend human’s ARE worthy of Hell-fire by birthright?
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
If TigerTime is ever interested in an actually biblical exposition on this matter, take it to Hijack Haven and I will correct Pat’s woeful misrepresentation of the mind of God. For the… (pick a big number)th time.[/quote]
Am I to understand that you contend human’s ARE worthy of Hell-fire by birthright? [/quote]
This should be interesting.
Back to the morality topic. What is your opinion of people who are morally against things like eating meat, because its harmful to animals? As far as I know there is nothing in Christianity that says eating meat is wrong. Would you say they are immoral, or have more morals than you?
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Back to the morality topic. What is your opinion of people who are morally against things like eating meat, because its harmful to animals? As far as I know there is nothing in Christianity that says eating meat is wrong. Would you say they are immoral, or have more morals than you?[/quote]
You don’t understand what morals and Moral Law actually is.
It is not possible for any one person to have “more” or “less” morals than another.
Philosophy major here, Ethics and public policy. I took some bio courses as well as an evolutionary bio course. Evolutionary bio are going to probably make sense of morality in terms of altruism, human reciprocity (evolution) and how it evolved, they will equate everything to ones ability to pass their genetic material onto the next generation. So making sense of morality in terms of biology is going to be limited to such, and it will probably make quite a bit of sense in their own terms. If you need, maybe look up reciprocity (biology).
Someone like me is going to look at things like say this article; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all
and I’m going to say that perhaps there are intrinsic goods in humans. Personally I’m not threatened at all about the evolutionary biologists take is as to how babies evolved what I describe as an attempt at intrinsic good. It makes sense to me, I don’t get what the big deal is. I’m more of a virtue theorist and much in line with what Aristotle believed… We are intelligent animals, and it is good to be a thriving intelligent animal rather than a sickly one. In order to thrive as an intelligent animal I need to satisfy both my physical and facultative potential. Humans are by nature political animals, in order to maximize our success politically we need to be virtuous. Not being fool hardy charging into an impossible fight, not being a coward and not fighting at all, but being brave and picking the fight I am actually in/ capable of winning for example. Having friends/ peers, and doing things that humans do in an excellent fashion.
Moral rights are going to vary from person to person. If you as me, certainly I believe morality evolved and is still evolving.
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
If TigerTime is ever interested in an actually biblical exposition on this matter, take it to Hijack Haven and I will correct Pat’s woeful misrepresentation of the mind of God. For the… (pick a big number)th time.[/quote]
Am I to understand that you contend human’s ARE worthy of Hell-fire by birthright? [/quote]You are to understand that in Adam all died (1st Corinthians.15:22), they continue in sin and death (Ephesians 2:1-12) there are no exceptions (Romans 3:9-19), save for Jesus alone (2nd Corinthians.5:21), until they are raised in Christ (Colossians 3:1). In a nutshell.
Systematic theology, wherein the bible alone and in it’s entirety is studied critically using the histroico-exegetical method is all but lost today. The text must be first taken in it’s historical context(what did it mean to them) and then applied to us (what does that mean for us). Cultural form and trans-cultural principle. When that is done for the whole bible under the assumption that God is God and I am not, you end up with 44 of the 55 delegates to the first constitutional convention in remarkable agreement about what they at least said they believed the bible teaches.
It is at once accessible to a child AND beyond the ultimate reach of the most brilliant and learned of godly men. The Word of God in short. Yes, as King David has so eloquently told us in the 5th verse of the 51st Psalm: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”
I’ll be impressed if you actually look those up.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
The God I worship governs and orders absolutely every last sub atomic particle in all the universe to His glory and His alone. The most vociferous of snarling unbelievers. Everything they fart, belch, vomit, think, do, say and ARE, are by His unchangeable almighty decreeing will, foreordained to serve His holy, just, most pure and perfect purpose.[/quote]
“Can omniscient God, who knows the future, find the omnipotence to change his future mind?”
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
The God I worship governs and orders absolutely every last sub atomic particle in all the universe to His glory and His alone. The most vociferous of snarling unbelievers. Everything they fart, belch, vomit, think, do, say and ARE, are by His unchangeable almighty decreeing will, foreordained to serve His holy, just, most pure and perfect purpose.[/quote]
“Can omniscient God, who knows the future, find the omnipotence to change his future mind?”
[/quote]No. He also CANNOT sin, lie, be deceived, defeated or make a rock so big that He can’t move it. Biblical omnipotence is not the ability to do anything. That’s a chintzy atheistic strawman. Never has been. God CANNOT think, say or do anything contrary to His almighty holy perfect nature. EVER. That includes allowing anything, even your insolent rebellious protestations to fail to bring Him glory. I say again. He ALWAYS gets His way.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
The God I worship governs and orders absolutely every last sub atomic particle in all the universe to His glory and His alone. The most vociferous of snarling unbelievers. Everything they fart, belch, vomit, think, do, say and ARE, are by His unchangeable almighty decreeing will, foreordained to serve His holy, just, most pure and perfect purpose.[/quote]
“Can omniscient God, who knows the future, find the omnipotence to change his future mind?”
[/quote]No. He also CANNOT sin, lie, be deceived, defeated or make a rock so big that He can’t move it. Biblical omnipotence is not the ability to do anything. That’s a chintzy atheistic strawman. Never has been. God CANNOT think, say or do anything contrary to His almighty holy perfect nature. EVER. That includes allowing anything, even your insolent rebellious protestations to fail to bring Him glory. I say again. He ALWAYS gets His way.
[/quote]
Huh,…I was under the impression that omnipotence had only one meaning. Please further explain for me how that word had two separate meanings.
And if he knows all, controls all, and ALWAYS gets his way, then he has created souls simply for the purpose of damnation? He must’ve WANTED Jeffrey Dahmer to be who he was and kill who he killed.
Your above comments are contradictory to the concept of sin, I’m afraid. If you truly believed the above, then you must also believe that Dahmer was simply doing “gods will”. Think about that.
Yeah, so this god created me as I am, knowing full well I´d deny his supposed existence but by granting me free will he´s also given me the chance to choose him.
But if I do not choose him because he made me as I am, I´m sent to hell to suffer for all enternity.
Yet he still loves me.
And somehow this makes perfect sense?
[quote]bigflamer wrote:<<< Huh,…I was under the impression that omnipotence had only one meaning. Please further explain for me how that word had two separate meanings. >>>[/quote]You were as usual under a false impression as relates to your God Sparky. There has been one and only one biblical definition of divine omnipotence since the beginning of time.[quote]bigflamer wrote:<<< And if he knows all, controls all, and ALWAYS gets his way, then he has created souls simply for the purpose of damnation? He must’ve WANTED Jeffrey Dahmer to be who he was and kill who he killed. >>>[/quote]I have said this a hundred times. “The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil.” Proverbs 16:4 among dozens of others. [quote]bigflamer wrote:<<< Your above comments are contradictory to the concept of sin, I’m afraid. If you truly believed the above, then you must also believe that Dahmer was simply doing “gods will”. Think about that.[/quote]You haven’t been paying attention Sparky. Romans 9:14-24 [quote]14-What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15-For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16-So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17-For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18-So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
19-You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will” 20-But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this” 21-Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22-What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23-in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory" 24-even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?[/quote]
This should cover Ephrem too… For now.
EDIT:BTW, Yes, man is still free and responsible and like I’ve said a thousand times. I have no idea how that works. Just like y’all have no idea how ANYTHING works if I could get you to stick around a discussion of epistemology long enough.
[quote]ephrem wrote:<<< Yet he still loves me. >>>[/quote]I have never said this to you Ephrem. “Jesus loves you” is a modern Americanism. Jesus Himself did not go about telling everybody He loved them. He emerged into His ministry proclaiming “REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND”. Pretty much like I’ve been telling you all along. I was under His wrath until He saved me as well. I also have no idea who are His elect and who are not. Nunna my bizniss. I treat everybody as if they were. We’ve been through all this man.
It is a sin to do all sorts of things, and these things could put you in hell… Organized religions generally set rules upon people, but the problem with rules is that they aren’t by themselves always a reflection of the person following them. People follow rules a lot for the sake of following rules, rather than following because they are the right thing to do for the right reasons.
Things like telling lies are sins in many organized religions as a rule, but what if you tell a lie to someone for a good? What if you were around during WW2 and you knew where some Jews were hiding and a Nazi asked you if you were hiding any Jews or knew where some were hiding? Would you tell the truth, or would you lie?
Stealing, would you steal a friends keys if he were about to try to drive drunk, or what if he was in a fit of rage and wanted to go beat someone/kill someone? Would you steal his keys if that was the best way you knew to stop your friend from hurting himself or others?
What about the sin of Coveting? Coveting is a personal thing, it happens in your mind and isn’t in itself something carried out willfully. I admit, I covet certain women that are married but that doesn’t mean I would act on such desires or yearnings given the opportunity. Funny thing how when you ask a priest or a religious scholar questions about this and how they squirm.
I’m not trying to trash rules of morality, I’m more trying to point out that rules are so absolute that emphasis is taken away from how to be as a person. If you ask me, it’s more about being a good person by doing the right thing for the right reason rather than trying to follow some set of unbending rules.
Yeah, I know we’ve been over this but it’s good to be reminded of the sheer stupidity you believe in.
God doesn’t love me per se, but his love is earned by choosing him as my lord and saviour.
Despite him making me as I am, incapable of religious beliefs, because he’s granted me free will to choose him inspite of that the punishment for not choosing him is to suffer for eternity in hell.
Right, gotcha wink.
[quote]ephrem wrote:<<< Right, gotcha wink.[/quote]sigh… no… ya really don’t. Not even close.
I know sweetheart, I’ll never get it until I believe exactly like you do!
I am not sure which is better to assume that we do have free will or predestination. Either alternative seems unpalatable with the examples of cruelty and inhumanity we have evidence of. And largely this behavior seems to hop out immediately whenever there is conflict or disaster.
Many groups seem perfectly willing to commit atrocities on the “other” whether it be country, culture, religion or color. This seems on its face to be tied in to how we think.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
When I fart is it also a “definitive proclamation of the glory of the God of ancient Christianity”?[/quote]Absolutely. Me too. The God I worship governs and orders absolutely every last sub atomic particle in all the universe to His glory and His alone. The most vociferous of snarling unbelievers. Everything they fart, belch, vomit, think, do, say and ARE, are by His unchangeable almighty decreeing will, foreordained to serve His holy, just, most pure and perfect purpose. He ALWAYS gets His way Ephrem. You are this very moment His servant. Even while you scoff and deny Him. If you only knew how I want you as my brother.[/quote]
How is this different than the Mohammedans’ theology?
[quote]ephrem wrote:<<< God doesn’t love me per se, but his love is earned by choosing him as my lord and saviour. >>>[/quote]He has to love you first Ephrem. 1st John 4:10 (whole chapter actually)[quote]ephrem wrote:<<< Despite him making me as I am, incapable of religious beliefs, >>>[/quote]You’re capable of all kinds of religious beliefs. I see them all the time. But not saving faith in Christ. [quote]ephrem wrote:<<< because he’s granted me free will to choose him>>>[/quote]He’s commanded you to choose Him. Father Adam sold you into bondage to sin. You freely choose it all time.[quote]ephrem wrote:<<< in spite of that the punishment for not choosing him is to suffer for eternity in hell. >>>[/quote]Eternity in hell is for damnable crimes that you commit while every second breathing His air and denying Him your Worship. Father Adam sold you into bondage to sin Ephrem. Consequently you freely choose it all time. No, I don’t understand exactly how that works. I do however know for sure that if “you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) And you will be “sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13), never to be lost again (John 10:28).
You would also tell everybody here with no thought of what they might think. Because you would be a “new creature”(2 Corinthians 5:17)“created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that you would walk in them”(Ephesians 2:10). You would not be ashamed of the gospel, seeing it as the power of God unto salvation for all them that believe(Romans 1:16). You will have passed from the death I’m always telling you about to the life I’m always telling you about(John 5:24, 1 John 3:14).
That’s my hope and prayer for you Ephrem. Always will be. People prayed for that for me. I am happy to give back by doing so for you.