My case for why there is no conscious, seperate entity such as God (Bible-like God, that is)
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Sunday, March 19, 2006 08:14
VIEWED: 18094
PAGE 3 of 11
God does not 'punish' us for our sins by causing disabled children. Sin is so powerful that it has a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual effect on us.
We are all sinners - even the chiristians who say they aren. The reason this world is the way it is - is due to the filth of sin, and the biggest one of them all is pride. Pride tells us there is not God or need for a God or a Saviour. Pride tells us that when we look at war, there can't be a loving God. That when we look at a handicapped child, why would God allow it. Pride says we can do it on our own, that we are the deciders of our fate. Pride forces us to be arrogant thinking that we are the all.
Its sin that does this, not God. But what I have in my relationship with Jesus is far greater than what the world can offer. I have freedom from my sin, and healing from my hurts, and understandings about the way this world works that I would never have had before.
I walk with Jesus, he came into this world and guess what? It was exactly the same then as it is now. Exactly that same.
Believe and be set free
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by liminalosity:
and doggone it, 'Toon, I've been silently agreeing with you quite a lot recently,
You sure you want to admit that here?
Quote:
Originally posted by liminalosity:
but we all come upon these giant brick walls, don't we? Anyway, I'll continue to agree with you on other things, and an infinite universe should have some wiggle room for different ideas, yes?
Okay. I'm curious, though. You haven't explained exactly which part is your giant, brick wall. If it's the God can do "evil" thing, He can't. The Bible is clear on that.
I think the problem with it is our perspective. As I tried (feebly, I admit) to illustrate previously, it's hard from our limited human, created, imperfect, fallen, sinful perspective to understand. God allowing us to reap what we've sown is not "evil".
R.C. Sproul told a story about his grading one of the university classes he teaches. His class was instructed to have their papers in by such and such a date (let's say Tuesday). If the student's didn't have the completed papers in by Tuesday, they'd fail the course.
When Tuesday came around, Professor Sproul called the roll, at which time the students were expected to turn in their completed papers. A few of the students sheepishly admited that they hadn't completed their papers, and begged for an extension.
Deciding to give the class some wiggle room, Sproul allowed them a few more days (let's say until Friday).
Friday came around. Sproul calls the roll. Several students blurt out (no longer sheepishly, but very matter-of-factly) that they haven't completed their papers. Sproul begins reading the names of the students who haven't completed their papers: "Smith, no paper - F. Summers, no paper - F. Thomas, no paper - F."
At which time, one of the students yells out, "That's not fair!"
Sproul retorts, "You want fair? I'll give you fair. Everyone who didn't have their paper completed on Tuesday - F."
Was Sproul being evil? When some of the students didn't have their papers on Tuesday (the original date they were required), he was gracious and allowed an extension. When Friday comes around, feeling that Sproul was a lenient pushover, the students decided to take advantage of him, and presumed upon his grace.
When they demanded he treat them "fairly", he did -- and went back to the original requirement.
Sproul says we never want to ask God to "be fair" with us. If God is fair, we all lose. What we want to ask God for is "grace".
God actually keeping us from the punishment we do deserve is certainly grace. His giving us the punishment we've earned is not "evil" -- it's not even "justice" (for "justice" would not have allowed us the extension He's allowed all of us throughout our dying day, at which time the offer of grace is closed.)
To us, because God has been gracious and allowed us an extension, we all take it for granted that He's going to overlook our sin indefinitely. He is not. God is gracious, but there's a limit to that grace, and we ignore it at our peril.
Getting anything short of the full justice we deserve, should not be construed as God being "evil" to us, but yet another example of His withholding the full wrath of His fury which we've all rightfully earned through our willful disobedience of His will.
I wish I could explain it better, but I'm only a stupid human with limited understanding, and this is the best I can do. I hope it helps.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:So why would god make an infant suffer horribly and inevitbaly die in order to teach an adult a lesson?
God does not make 'sick' or disabled children. God is not a master puppeteer. Sin causes many of the worlds problems due to mans disobedience to Gods will. And besides, why would God go where he was not asked too? No, hes a gentleman
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:My kind of fair would have been that the one student who yelled out 'that's not fair' would have been the only one for whom the judgement would revert to original demand (papers by Tuesday). In punishing everyone for the outburst of a single student, your allegorical hand of God is pulling another sleight of hand.
Originally posted by 'Toon: At which time, one of the students yells out, "That's not fair!"
Sproul retorts, "You want fair? I'll give you fair. Everyone who didn't have their paper completed on Tuesday - F."
Quote:I'd say, yeah. He reneged on his generous and graceful offer of extension for the other students by punishing everyone for the transgression of the one student who didn't appreciate his 'grace'.
Was Sproul being evil?
Quote:I'm just going to mentally exchange your word God for a word that works better for me... how about universe? and say, we all have things to be sorry for, and if we were punished immediately for every transgression against balance or taking another's choice, every - I think you would say 'sin', yeah, we'd be doomed at somewhere around the instant of birth. What I want to do is to try to act with compassion (and find a way to act with more of it every day) - as you say 'ask God for "grace." In my way of looking at this, the moment I make the decision to act with compassion, I start to move things forward for myself. The more I can act with compassion, the more compassion I receive from others. And... since I believe that all is one, the more compassion I find, the more I move things forward for everyone else too. 'Toon.
Sproul says we never want to ask God to "be fair" with us. If God is fair, we all lose. What we want to ask God for is "grace".
Quote:Ok, exchanging God for the word universe again here, because I don't believe there's a personality behind all of this... and since I like the idea that nothing is ever wasted (energy-matter-energy), I think I have until forever to balance the scales. The more obstinate I am about refusing to use compassion 100% of the time, the harder it gets for me (the harder I make it on myself next time around) to bring things into balance. Anytime I choose revenge, rejection, or doing a runner on my obligation to balance the scales, rather than acting with compassion, I make it harder on myself - this time, next time, all the time.
God actually keeping us from the punishment we do deserve is certainly grace. His giving us the punishment we've earned is not "evil" -- it's not even "justice" (for "justice" would not have allowed us the extension He's allowed all of us throughout our dying day, at which time the offer of grace is closed.)
I hope that made sense.
Aztecs used the term firefly metaphorically, meaning a spark of knowledge in a world of ignorance or darkness.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You haven't really skiived off to watch biblical epics on DVD with Finn, have you?
Originally posted by chrisisall: Standing by and letting such events occur without changing them given the ability to easily do so would be evil, right?
There's a book I've been wondering if you've read, because it has some entertaining, interesting and thought provoking things to say about reincarnation and a bunch of Chinese soldiers from long long ago.... The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Oh! I haven't had a chance to use my new favorite line from SG1, so I'll unload it on you, because I haven't actually seen you in weeks and it's always more fun than anything to mess with Chris.
Seek not wickedness amongst your neighbors lest it find purchase in your own house ~Daniel Jackson
And Chris, get your ass back on the line hee heee
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
My basic starting point is this:
Be suspect of anything that people believe which they have reason to desperately want to be true, and have arrived at before accumulating an abundance of evidence before personally deciding to back, and most importantly, that which does not *have* to be true.
Anything which fails all three tests is almost certainly false, and falls under the heading of self-delusion. Take another completely different example: Crossing Over with John Edward.
I'm sure you're all familiar with the show. Just in case you're not, this is a show about a guy who can talk to dead relatives of the shows guests.
1. People desperately want to talk to the dead, and they have things they want to hear: That the dead are in a good place, and that they regret nothing, and often that they don't blame them, the guests, for anything.
2. People who go onto the show, believers, typically do so without doing any research into Edward's methods, similar practicioners, or the idea of seances, and they don't seriously look into any skeptical counter-arguments. I can think of a couple exceptions, but they don't fall under the heading of "believers."
3. There is nothing that forces the assumed fact "John Edwards can talk to dead people." Many other possible conclusions can be drawn other that "the whole thing is staged" such as "John Edward does a lot of research on his guests before they come on" or "John Edward is extremely perceptive of people" or even "John Edwards can read the minds of the living." But nothing that you see forces the conclution "John Edwards talks to dead people."
I remember seeing an interview with someone else on SciFi who said "Nah, he's a fraud. If he could really talk to the dead, sometimes they would say 'you know, it sucks here' or 'God I wish you hadn't left me in the basement.' He always conveniently reports what the guests want to here."
All of which is a totally separate discussion from whether or not talking to dead people is posisble. But the above circumstantial evidence leads me to the conclusion "John Edwards does not talk to dead people."
Similarly, by the same method, I can arrive at "God, literal from the Christian Bible, does not exist."
Anyone could say "Yes, but are you sure?"
Who cares? I'm never sure of anything. If something's 75% that's good enough for me until more evidence presents itself. At the moment I have a good 90%+ feeling that John Edward does not talk to dead people to waste no more time on it, at least until more evidence presents itself. It's hard to credit the Christian God with much more than that.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:
Death, disease, destruction and all sorts of hurt are a result of sin -- and we deserve far worse. Think about it -- we've willfully disobeyed our Creator. We can't quite grasp the scope of that, because we can create nothing independently. What we can form and fashion, we are able to do using materials already created. We, ourselves, are already created (we did not create ourselves). So, it's hard for us (as created, entirely dependent beings) to imagine ourselves creating a universe out of scratch, then having these tiny, insignificant microbes rebelling against us and attempting to toss us out of their lives.
Problems I find with this view -
Firstly, if the Holy Trinity is in existance, Christ died for our sins. If Christ died for the sins of the world, then why are we being punishied via catastrophes and death? If we are being punished for our sins like that then Christs death was pointless
Secondly, say god is punishing sin by hurt and pain to the world. People doing sins are not neccessarily getting punished and other who may not have sinned are getting punished. That is imperfect justice and if god is perfect how can he deliver imperfect justice?
Anyway just my opinion
"Shake your head boy, your eyes are stuck"
www.fireflyfans.net
http://www.browncoatsriseagain.com/
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
I had an interesting discussion with a Muslim co-work about a similar topic. It's interesting because for the first few hundred years Muslim clerics collected Jewish and early Christian documents including stuff that never made it into Christain Canon. Consequently they have an interesting take on this question.
They believe that God set the world in motion but doesn't macromanage it. If he interviened too much then he negates free will, so the natural world runs itself with only occasional tweaks if things start going terribly wrong.
So if your child dies, that's just an effect of nature or of men's free choice not really God's doing at all. As a consequence they don't blame God for bad stuff happening or think he's asleep on the job if he doesn't stop it. Nature is nature and God is God.
Well put, friend. Well put.
If people got help from God all the time we'd be spoiled. I do think it's cruel and unfair when something happens to a kid such as deformations and death. But the same things happens to every other life-form on Earth. Animals are born deformed or die horrible deaths. Don't tell me there's a difference between animals and humans dying cruel deaths. Nature, evil, and free will reigns. God will step in if things get too f'ed up. If you need God helping you all the time you're a pussy.
Edit: Also, our sins are forgiven so we know we aren't being punished. It's the bitch called Nature.
I'm a Jedi.
I'm a Ringer.
I'm a BROWNCOAT.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I was only being the instrument of the most high. - Herbal on Dark Angel
Originally posted by liminalosity:
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Lim, you remember my reincarnation story, I'm touched. Now I HAVE to check out this book.
I guess it was dumb of me to start a thread like this and ask for 'logical' discussion, 'eh?
I give myself fourty lashes Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I'm gonna have to go with 'vain'.
Originally posted by OmegaDark:
First off, if you are ready to burn in hell, you will...
Will you be open to understanding? Or will this be in vain?
Let's see, if I were God, all lonely in my own existence, and wanting someone to play with...
Maybe I'll make a friend.
No, I can't make my own equal to play with, that would make me all-powerful times two, then I would not be all-powerful...so... I'll make me a world of lesser beings, all stupid and such, and I'll make a Devil to plague them with bad feelings and dis-information...and I'll demand they come to the truth that I'm here...'cept I'll hide, heh heh.
But I'll love them. Yessireee. Even when I flood them, I'll love them.
Tough-love.
Pillar-of-salt love.
*In his best imitation of Cyrus* That's crap, brothers!
Don't mean to dump on anyone's beliefs...*
*Well, a little, I guess.
Anyone truly believes in God, then I am just a worm, and ain't getting them upset in the least.
On the other hand, any I'm makin' angry with this better find a new religion. Just an opinion.
Anyone want to dump on Buddhism? It won't bug me if ya do...
Chrisisall, giving orders to the beloved ants in his ant farm (Ooops! Now they made me angry! Where's that glass of water??)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME