Well, I'm a Christian and I happen to agree with you. Condemnation is not our business, love is. To (gleefully) anticipate horrible things for nonbelievers runs counter to everything we (supposedly) believe in. I think that's hypocritical, and it certainly isn't morally superior. Like another poster said (MLBaba?), I believe my path is to try to repair some of the damage done by the zealots.
Why would God send someone to hell over suicide?
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Well, I'm a Christian and I happen to agree with you. Condemnation is not our business, love is. To (gleefully) anticipate horrible things for nonbelievers runs counter to everything we (supposedly) believe in. I think that's hypocritical, and it certainly isn't morally superior. Like another poster said (MLBaba?), I believe my path is to try to repair some of the damage done by the zealots.
Silvercrest: even if there was no hell, even if it was merely separation from God as you say, I would still disapprove of it somewhat strongly. The reason is that from a certain point of view, people are being rewarded (with Heaven) for credulity while the skeptical people are being excluded just for being... skeptical. The fact that it is not hell doesn't matter, it is still punishment just the same, so the "ultimatum" holds. I wish you could see that. People should not rewarded infiinitely for finite deeds nor punished for eternity for finite crimes. That is also immoral. That's what I believe. Even exclusion from heaven, "not being part of the club" is immoral. Kinda like excluding a kid from his birthday party just because he bad-mouths you.
Noel thanks again for your response, and it is more worthy of a deeper responce than the small amount of time I have at the moment. I respect your beliefs and ddo agree that if a God was all knowing and all powerful, he would have something of us in him. There is a lot of me in the characters I create for my novels. Still, I just think the universe is so broad, so vast, and any God that created it would have to be vastly more complex than even that, so I can't help but think that people have worked very hard to creat one that is easy to relate to. Sure, he may possess much of us in him (if he exists, which, without offending you or other believers, needs to be demonstrated to a point, - at least insomuch as a believer's hopes that other would believve along with them) but he also contains much much more, as the universe is so much broader. But when I read about God, he seems far too human, far too limited, far too emotional, far too human-like, and this is going by almost any passage I've ever read in which he is featured. lus, there are logical problems as well (and I do think the laws of logic are absolute regardless of whether there are nay minds to concoct them .. see the TAG argument if you want someone to use logic to rove God) and the idea of being all-knowing, all powerful, and omni-benevolent leads to contradictiory statemetns that are apparent on the most basic levels of logic. Why can't god create a rock that even he can't move? If he knows everything that will happen, is he powerless to stop these events? Can God make A not A? IF he can't then he too is bound by the laws of logic and cannot be the author of them (thereby dictatiing that he is not quite all powerful), so these logical problems might sound trivial, but it has always been asserted that he his Omni-everything, and I wouldn't critisize anyone for being skeptical (a little) about such a grandiose claim.
Noel thanks again for your response, and it is more worthy of a deeper responce than the small amount of time I have at the moment. I respect your beliefs and ddo agree that if a God was all knowing and all powerful, he would have something of us in him. There is a lot of me in the characters I create for my novels. Still, I just think the universe is so broad, so vast, and any God that created it would have to be vastly more complex than even that, so I can't help but think that people have worked very hard to creat one that is easy to relate to. Sure, he may possess much of us in him (if he exists, which, without offending you or other believers, needs to be demonstrated to a point, - at least insomuch as a believer's hopes that other would believve along with them) but he also contains much much more, as the universe is so much broader. But when I read about God, he seems far too human, far too limited, far too emotional, far too human-like, and this is going by almost any passage I've ever read in which he is featured. lus, there are logical problems as well (and I do think the laws of logic are absolute regardless of whether there are nay minds to concoct them .. see the TAG argument if you want someone to use logic to rove God) and the idea of being all-knowing, all powerful, and omni-benevolent leads to contradictiory statemetns that are apparent on the most basic levels of logic. Why can't god create a rock that even he can't move? If he knows everything that will happen, is he powerless to stop these events? Can God make A not A? IF he can't then he too is bound by the laws of logic and cannot be the author of them (thereby dictatiing that he is not quite all powerful), so these logical problems might sound trivial, but it has always been asserted that he his Omni-everything, and I wouldn't critisize anyone for being skeptical (a little) about such a grandiose claim.
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Amaris
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I think you misunderstand me. I'm not referring to all of Christian theology, only the theology espoused by TLS and Peacemaker, both who speak of eternal damnation and the very strict requirements set forth, which would leave about 5+ billion people hellbound.
Believe me when I tell you I know better than you think I do. This particular post was directed at a specific aspect of a specific doctrine of Christianity. Quite honestly, I can name half a dozen Christian members on this board who are just golden. They're good people with good hearts and they truly try to love people. I'm betting I can add you as another one. I have absolutely no issue at all with those folks. I used to be one of those folks. I know where their hearts are, and I love them for it.
I have many reasons why I don't believe in God. I want to make that clear though. I don't reject God, I just don't believe in God. It would be like rejecting the (no offense intended) Invisible Pink Unicorn. I don't reject it, I just don't believe it exists. Believe it or not, there is a difference. I'm not anti-theist, just atheist.
J.
My thoughts exactly! ^^^^^^
Yes it does bother us, and not out of some fear or hatred of Christianity, but because it is so clearly not true both from the majority of the Founding Father's personal writings and from what they explicitly laid down as the law of the land. And yet, no matter how many times you and Christian leaders are proven wrong on the matter, you will continue rolling right along spouting the same historical falsehoods over and over again. I can't even call it historical ignorance, because you and they know perfectly well that it's a lie, you just have no problem lying to support your agenda.
You provide a dozen or so quotes from a couple of Founding Fathers that support your point, while I and others provided well over 100 from a much larger sample of people. Nowhere did we say that none of the Founding Fathers were Christians, just that the majority of the most influential ones were not. Of course some were Christians, because the subject of including some Christian tenets or language in the Constitution was brought up, and was flatly rejected by the Deist core majority of the Founding Fathers.
You frequently ignore the fact that Deists believed in a God, whom they call Nature's God, the Creator, the Great Architect, and so forth, which is nothing like the God of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in his behavior or (his lack of) involvement in man's affairs, and use them saying "God" as a basis for establishing that they were Christians when they were not.
You frequently ignore the fact that they believed in the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, and thought that he was a great teacher worthy of respect, but not in any way the Son of God or divine. They thought he was purely a mortal who died and was buried and not resurrected (read the Jefferson Bible), and thus quoting them mentioning Jesus is not necessarily saying that they were Christian, as simply believing in the existence of Jesus does not make one a Christian as any Jew or Muslim or even an Atheist like myself can tell you.
Would the Founding Fathers even have rebelled if they were devout Christians? Let's see what the Bible has to say on the matter:
"For rebellion as is the sin of witchcraft." 1 Samuel, 15:23
1 Peter 2:13: "For the Lord's sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right."
Paul wrote in Romans 13:1: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resist authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."
The fact is, the America at the time of the Founding Fathers was actually much less Christian than it is today, in both the leadership and the populace at large.
I understand...it takes me a LONG time to write these responses in the first place.
Of course, He is also going out of his way to relate to us. Are we going to misunderstand sometimes? Definitely. The Bible itself is filled with examples of us misunderstanding, and it happens in modern life, too. That said, I do believe He does intentionally present aspects of Himself to which we are going to relate.
You have a problem there with some of your definitions. Your question is actually illogical because a rock, by its definition, is a finite object and therefore is always going to be movable by God, who is by definition infinite. You would be asking God to create another infinity--but you know what happens when you do any kind of mathematical operation on infinity: the answer is infinity. He IS infinite in scope and scale already, so even asking that is nonsensical.
(This also goes a LONG way towards explaining why, when He wished to create outside wills, we were created in miniature, as finite beings with the limitations thereof.)
This one is a question of whether HAVING a power means it SHOULD be used. Could God compel whatever He wanted, and obliterate all free will if He wished to, to make the course of events occur with total disregard of our wills? Absolutely He would have the power to do it, but as I've argued before, just because it is within His power to do it does not make it ethical or right in any sense to do it and therefore He would abstain from using that power.
This one needs a bit more definition before I take it on, so that we're on the same page as to what the question is. Are you talking about altering an object down to its subatomic structure? (So that what you wrote on the paper is not there?) Altering symbology? (So that instead of "A" we associate the symbol "B" with it?) Altering the cosmological constants? Or doing something on the level of "2+2=5"?
I got a lot buzzing around at the moment here, so this particular post will be quick.
Talk about the three laws of logic, which basically state that
there is a law of identitiy "A equals A and A cannot equal not A" where A cna be anything.
The law of non contradictionwhich state something like A cannot equal A and not-A in the same sense at the same time. I might have that wrong.
The third law is the law of excluded middle which states that there is no middle gorund something must be A or not A...
You get the idea. So if I ask "Can god make A not A" that would be a logical contraduction if he could, but if he couldn't then he is subjct to, rather than the author of, the laws of logic. If he is subject to the las of logic then logic has one higher than God. That was my point.. it's an interesting question...
More soon (I hope)
Talk about the three laws of logic, which basically state that
there is a law of identitiy "A equals A and A cannot equal not A" where A cna be anything.
The law of non contradictionwhich state something like A cannot equal A and not-A in the same sense at the same time. I might have that wrong.
The third law is the law of excluded middle which states that there is no middle gorund something must be A or not A...
You get the idea. So if I ask "Can god make A not A" that would be a logical contraduction if he could, but if he couldn't then he is subjct to, rather than the author of, the laws of logic. If he is subject to the las of logic then logic has one higher than God. That was my point.. it's an interesting question...
More soon (I hope)
Adding: I realize that coming to grips with God is less about logic than anything else. However, the logic thing should be considered, at least to understand the POV of a real skeptic.. I admit that I am one and so are others. If God is said to be allk knowing, all powerful and all benevolent, but should these things prove to be logically incompatible with each other, than that is an important consideration (maybe not the most important, but important nonetheless) and could lead to a conclusion like "God is very very powerful and not "all-powerful" and that he is only all-powerful in the sense that we can relate to (yet still he falls underneath logic itself, for example) but if he is no longer "all-powerful" for whatever the reason may be, than the definitions and attributes that people pin on god must be changed, and if they are, one must ask if he is really still "god" or just a powerful lifeform.
Consider this, if you or someone else saw god after death, how would you tell he was god. How could you tell he was all-powerful and not just "very powerful?" What kind of test would prove it to you. It's important because deception is Lucifer's tool, and he could be decieving the person. Just a thought.
Consider this, if you or someone else saw god after death, how would you tell he was god. How could you tell he was all-powerful and not just "very powerful?" What kind of test would prove it to you. It's important because deception is Lucifer's tool, and he could be decieving the person. Just a thought.
No way. This is God we're talking about. He knows our abilities and limitations. He knows exactly what it will take to get through to us. If He wishes to be understood, He WILL be understood.
I suppose I'd be more willing to believe in God if anyone could make a convincing argument that God was somehow more a real god than the Prophets or the Founders, who both exhibited God-like qualities (at least to their followers) but were not, in my estimation, actual deities.
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Amaris
Guest
All you'll get is the same level of proof, for all of them. Founders, Scientology, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, the whole megillah. They all have the same success rates in terms of Godly manifestation.
J.
My thought on this subject is that while perhaps he COULD have designed a universe where the laws of logic were open and not rigid as they are in this one, He chose not to because the rigid laws we have are the optimal design. Contravention of those laws, therefore, is a suboptimal state and one that He would have no reason to invoke. Furthermore, to create a universe where the laws of logic could not be counted on would be torture considering that Creation was going to be populated by beings who, being of finite mind, would REALLY need said laws in order to make any sense of anything.
(Whereas I can imagine an evil creator, if he had the same creative abilities as God, pulling a stunt exactly like this in order to torture the creations.)
So while in theory other possibilities perhaps could exist, they do not because they are suboptimal in both the physical and ethical senses, and He therefore chose better. Again, as in one of my answers, the difference between cannot, and will not.
A couple interesting things come to mind here. The first one is the difference between God's interactions with us and Lucifer's. Lucifer's path is one of active seduction, and even if it's very brief, there's always a back-and-forth about it within the conscience. God's, however, is more one of reminding us of what we already know on some level--we do indeed have a sense of rightness, and while we can turn our backs on it, there is a sense of dereliction and loss in doing so. This is what I would have told you even had I not had a direct experience with the question.
Now, considering that I have not ever I have never had the experience of dying all the way and not coming back, I can't tell you what the true and final experience of transitioning through death is like. I can tell you, at least, about the partial experience I had, and what I can tell you--at least, as best as I can explain it--is that I experienced a total shift in my soul in that moment. It was not a loss of free will, but remember what I said about the sense of remembering a thing forgotten but known from the very start? That's what it was like: I had a sense of knowing, certainty, and rightness the likes of which I have never experienced at any other time...absolute clarity like nothing else. I had chosen, and this time there was no doubt anymore, not even the slightest, that it was the right choice.
Being snapped back out of a state like that was VERY hard. But it sure did point out the extreme contrast between what I was experiencing then, and what it was like when I woke and experienced this total disorientation, separation, and loss, and the grief that went with that. I worked through this grief and have come out all the stronger for it, but an experience like that is one that never leaves you.
The truth about our nature is that we can make a choice about anything we perceive, short of something that obliterates our free will and ability to choose. As to why He will not go there, I've addressed that earlier upthread. ANY other option, though, leaves us with a choice, no matter how compelling the evidence. And as long as that element remains, there is the possibility of us not getting it.
Well, except for the Book of Origin. Those Priors can do some freaky shit.
By the way, I'd like to speak with you about the Ori.
Well, except for the Book of Origin. Those Priors can do some freaky shit.
By the way, I'd like to speak with you about the Ori.
Noel Ghemor, I appreciate your responce.
I'll get to the second point first. I will say that I find your experience of being "snapped back" to be interesting. First, because it was soemthing touched on in Generations, when Soren and Guinan were pulled from the Nexus, which, curiously, had properties that are consistent with a kind of heaven. Secondly, I believe that such a state could exist, but I'm still an atheist or agnostic because I can't demonstrate it or possibly think that others should necessarily agree that it does exist. That said, dreams often hint at the possibilities, and I don't dismiss them out of hand. What I do dismiss is people who claim they know how it all worksx (especially when it matches some ancient text. Again that's my personal feeling and is not inteded to be an attack).
Also, just to clarify, when I mentioned Lucifer, I wasn't thinking of Lucifer per sae, I really meant any being you could meet up with that would seem to be god but isn't (one such motivation would be deception, so I used Lucifer as an example there) but it could just be a very powerful creature. My point was not about Lucifer, but the fact that humans have no way of telling the difference between an all-powerful being and a sufficiently powerful one.
As for your first point. I read it, understand it and appreciate it, but this might sound condescending and I don't intend it to be, but it seems you are working backwards, as if starting with the omelette before the egg. It's hard to express in words, but I think the idea that some sentient being actually creating logic is simply a very big claim. You obviously put a lot of feeling in what you wrote. However, all the knowledge we have shows that what is created follows the laws of logic, so logic itself is the foundation and not just another creation. I'll try to think of a better way to phrase it and post that soon.
However, it does bring light to the fact that these debates must eventually proceed with an agreement by all those involved with definitions of terms. For example, if God is defined as an all powerful being that created the universe and therefore exists outside of it and time and space (in ordder to actually create it) that logically contradicts the way the universe itself is often defined. The definition of the universe (that I am thinking of) is: all that exists. According to that definition, if God exists, then he is, by definition, part of the universe and not outside of it. Where I am going is that logic must be properly defined for the purpose of the debate. Even more important God must be defined as well. Indeed FlyingLemon's god may in fact have a different (and perhaps non-supernatural) connotation to it than someone else's. Indeed, even people of the same faith can disagree as to exactly what God is and isn't. So it's important for someone who might post soon to first define the God, and then make the claim for his existance.
I'll get to the second point first. I will say that I find your experience of being "snapped back" to be interesting. First, because it was soemthing touched on in Generations, when Soren and Guinan were pulled from the Nexus, which, curiously, had properties that are consistent with a kind of heaven. Secondly, I believe that such a state could exist, but I'm still an atheist or agnostic because I can't demonstrate it or possibly think that others should necessarily agree that it does exist. That said, dreams often hint at the possibilities, and I don't dismiss them out of hand. What I do dismiss is people who claim they know how it all worksx (especially when it matches some ancient text. Again that's my personal feeling and is not inteded to be an attack).
Also, just to clarify, when I mentioned Lucifer, I wasn't thinking of Lucifer per sae, I really meant any being you could meet up with that would seem to be god but isn't (one such motivation would be deception, so I used Lucifer as an example there) but it could just be a very powerful creature. My point was not about Lucifer, but the fact that humans have no way of telling the difference between an all-powerful being and a sufficiently powerful one.
As for your first point. I read it, understand it and appreciate it, but this might sound condescending and I don't intend it to be, but it seems you are working backwards, as if starting with the omelette before the egg. It's hard to express in words, but I think the idea that some sentient being actually creating logic is simply a very big claim. You obviously put a lot of feeling in what you wrote. However, all the knowledge we have shows that what is created follows the laws of logic, so logic itself is the foundation and not just another creation. I'll try to think of a better way to phrase it and post that soon.
However, it does bring light to the fact that these debates must eventually proceed with an agreement by all those involved with definitions of terms. For example, if God is defined as an all powerful being that created the universe and therefore exists outside of it and time and space (in ordder to actually create it) that logically contradicts the way the universe itself is often defined. The definition of the universe (that I am thinking of) is: all that exists. According to that definition, if God exists, then he is, by definition, part of the universe and not outside of it. Where I am going is that logic must be properly defined for the purpose of the debate. Even more important God must be defined as well. Indeed FlyingLemon's god may in fact have a different (and perhaps non-supernatural) connotation to it than someone else's. Indeed, even people of the same faith can disagree as to exactly what God is and isn't. So it's important for someone who might post soon to first define the God, and then make the claim for his existance.
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