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re: What do people get out of going to church on Easter once a year?
Posted on 4/21/14 at 12:58 pm to Hogwall Jackson
Posted on 4/21/14 at 12:58 pm to Hogwall Jackson
So you'd rather there be no existence whatsoever? And god can't allow sinful people into heaven because sin cannot dwell there. If it did then heaven would be just like the earth. If he removed our ability to sin we wouldn't be free at all. And no he didn't give us wings but he gave us brains to build planes.
Back to the hell arguement. When we die there are two destinations. Heaven or hell. There is no limbo. If you haven't been cleansed by jesus he can't put you in Lala land. You have to go somewhere. Sin can't inhabit heaven so you go where sin goes. Hell.
Back to the hell arguement. When we die there are two destinations. Heaven or hell. There is no limbo. If you haven't been cleansed by jesus he can't put you in Lala land. You have to go somewhere. Sin can't inhabit heaven so you go where sin goes. Hell.
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Posted on 4/21/14 at 12:59 pm to Mattwells90
quote:
You do realize a world free of sin is heaven which is exactly the place you claim to not want to go to?
If I was created without the ability to sin I wouldnt know any better. I only know of "sin" because I have the ability to see it perpetrated.
If all we knew was sinless, it would be fine with us
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:01 pm to Mattwells90
quote:
So you'd rather there be no existence whatsoever? And god can't allow sinful people into heaven because sin cannot dwell there. If it did then heaven would be just like the earth. If he removed our ability to sin we wouldn't be free at all. And no he didn't give us wings but he gave us brains to build planes.
If the only two choices are existence and many going to hell or no existence, then yes I would prefer no existence at all.
Sin cant dwell in heaven because God says it cant and God makes the rules. God is either bound by outside forces or he isnt.
quote:
Back to the hell arguement. When we die there are two destinations. Heaven or hell. There is no limbo. If you haven't been cleansed by jesus he can't put you in Lala land. You have to go somewhere. Sin can't inhabit heaven so you go where sin goes. Hell.
Youre just posting rhetoric without addressing the issue. There are two destinations because God made it so, not because there has to be.
This post was edited on 4/21/14 at 1:03 pm
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:02 pm to Roger Klarvin
Well this thread went down the predictable path.
I tried to keep it about fashion.
I tried to keep it about fashion.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:06 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
Not all of us believe in the freedom of the will. Some of us believe in the enslavement of the will (to sin) and the freedom of volition to act according to that enslaved will.
Who allowed us to have such a will?
Moreover, who knew before creation which choices we would make?
No matter much dancing one does, it always comes back to the fact that God by his defined nature in christianity takes on all responsibility for his creation. All of it.
This is the problem with making god infinitely powerful and why wiser men in wiser cultures in ancient history made their god's out to be less than omnipotent.
Admit that God is limited in power and we can talk about feee will and choice.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:06 pm to wmr
Haven't read any of this thread, but...
Passover finishes tomorrow night
Passover finishes tomorrow night
This post was edited on 4/21/14 at 1:07 pm
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:06 pm to wmr
If god were saturated with sin then he wouldn't holy and righteous. It's not a difficult concept.
And yes the penalty for sin is death and that debt has to be paid. Jesus paid it but people choose not to accept that gift. God gives us an out. It's not fair to say I will ignore god then complain when I don't reap his benefits.
And yes the penalty for sin is death and that debt has to be paid. Jesus paid it but people choose not to accept that gift. God gives us an out. It's not fair to say I will ignore god then complain when I don't reap his benefits.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:08 pm to mrnegative
Passover is about genocide. Right? Like mass slaughter of innocents, based only on their race or religion.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:09 pm to Roger Klarvin
quote:Perhaps you don't, but if Heaven is a place free from sin, death, and pain, and Hell is the opposite, then where do you think people deserve to go? Sounds like you think Hitler did his time (or is getting close) and should be free of that torment at some point. OK, where is he going to go? Heaven? Maybe you don't think most people don't deserve one or the other but should go to one or the other.
No, I dont. I dont believe most people "deserve" Heaven. We do nasty things to each other on the regular. All I said was that nobody deserves eternal hell. Those are wildly different statements.
quote:But that's just not true. I don't believe that every person who is not saved is as bad as they could possibly be. Most people could be a lot worse than they are. The Bible teaches that the law of God is written on the hearts of all men, so we all know a semblance of what is right and wrong, even when we don't act accordingly. With that said, it is more accurate to say that even the "good" nonbelievers are just as guilty of sinning against a holy and eternal God as the most evil of people. In fact, even the "holiest" of Christians are just as guilty. The difference is that a believer will be imputed with the innocence of Christ and will be judged by Christ's obedience rather than according to our disobedience.
I used to go through life viewing the world like this, and Im happy to say life is so much better when you do away with this idea. Christianity forces me to say that good nonbelievers are just as evil as evil as the worst mass murderers in history.
quote:God's omnipotence is not defined by Him being able to do anything we can think of (including logically fallacious things like moving something immovable, or one of the various absurdities people throw out there), but by God doing anything He desires to do. His character and His holiness are actually limits on what God can do, because God cannot sin.
And God is omnipotent, he can do anything he wants including going against his very nature. Anyone who is in hell is in hell because he wants it to be so, not because his hands are tied. Omniscience and infinite power removes this tie on him.
And I agree that God's hands are not tied when it comes to people going to Hell. I disagree on this point with many Arminians who believe that God is pretty much helpless in this regard because of our free will. Instead, I believe that God, wishing to display His attributes (holiness, mercy, justice, forgiveness, wrath, love, etc.) planned all things according to His will, including the fall of mankind, which we are all affected by.
God knew that when man fell, all humans would continue to sin and be guilty and deserving of punishment. Since we are His creation (like a painting or a sculpture), He can do with us as He pleases. We have no problem raising cattle for slaughter, but for some reason God can't create people just to destroy them? The difference here is that those whom God judges are not innocent. They willingly sin against God and they revel in their rebellion against Him. People want to do what they want to do, not what God wants them to do.
quote:But you are setting up a false dichotomy by presenting these two options as the only ones. I don't believe that God can do anything and everything imaginable because God has set limitations on Himself. But even so, God having the power to save/forgive every single person (He does) does not mean He is obligated to do it. What would come of God's justice? A King or a judge who always forgives the offender does not provide justice. God can show mercy because He shows justice. His mercy would be pointless if He didn't condemn anyone for sinning against Him and His holy character. God would be quite pathetic if He just let everyone spit in His face. In fact, because He is God, He has to uphold His righteousness and condemn sinners, otherwise He would be making an idol of His creation and He would not be God.
Christianity desperately wants god to be all powerful, but then when the implications of that power are pointed out you want to place limitations on what he is capable of. You cant have it both ways. Either god is infinitely powerful and can forgive anyone just but choosing to do so, or he isnt infinitely powerful.
quote:Whether greek and roman philosophers denied the true God and His attributes is of no concern to whether or not God is omniscient. God can be (and is) omniscient without necessitating the need to forgive everyone and not necessitating Him being evil.
This is something that the ancient greek and roman philosophers realized and its why their gods did not possess omniscience. Many of them wrote about the terror that omniscience presented and why even the gods couldnt possess such a power. They realized, unlike ignorant and illiterate hebrews in the middle east, the implications of omniscience.
Again, all humanity has sinned against God. Whether God knew about it ahead of time or not is beside the point. God, by wanting to show His love for His creation (which is something we aren't owed) chose to save some of us, though we continue to sin against Him.
The argument that God is either powerless or evil is predicated on the belief that humans don't deserve Hell and that God enjoys torturing innocent people. Neither of those are true.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:09 pm to Mattwells90
I guess it depends on your definition of power. Can god move mountains or create things or do anything he wants? Yes. But no he cannot associate with sin because that would be a contradiction of his purity and holiness making him no higher than us. If he were no higher than us then he would have no ability to judge us so he must be sin free. He also must be consistent otherwise he again would not be a qualified judge. So yes god is limited in that he cannot do wrong.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:12 pm to Mattwells90
quote:
If god were saturated with sin then he wouldn't holy and righteous. It's not a difficult concept.
Who says he has to be saturated with sin? He merely forgive us and make us holy by sheer force of will, he is God. He isnt bound by anything. Its why Jesus' death is meaningless if God truly is all powerful, because nothing that dying did for us couldnt just as easily be done by a swipe of Gods hand.
Christianity claims to be the one divine religion not centered around man, but in fact its entire premise is based on human ideas of pain, suffering, free will, judgement and punishment. It places human qualities upon a supposedly omniscient God and then complains when the problems with this are pointed out.
A truly omniscient God would have no need for sacrifices. A god conceived by men however absolutely would, because we require sacrifice and punishment.
quote:
And yes the penalty for sin is death and that debt has to be paid. Jesus paid it but people choose not to accept that gift. God gives us an out. It's not fair to say I will ignore god then complain when I don't reap his benefits.
If God doesnt want to be ignored, he should show himself more often. He did it all the time in the OT.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:15 pm to Roger Klarvin
If sin had no price then there would be no need to avoid it. If murder wasn't a crime people would kill more. If theft wasn't a crime people would steal more. You're saying that god should simply pardon all crimes (sin) in an effort to appease people who don't deserve that kind of mercy. What would be the point of doing good if there was no penalty for evil?
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:17 pm to Roger Klarvin
quote:I'm speaking from my understanding of the Bible. If you'd like for me to make an argument for the total depravity of mankind, I'd be happy to do so. At present, I'm assuming that is true in responding to your statements.
You keep saying this and yet offer no argument for it.
quote:Yep. No complaints here. God is God and we are not. He can do with His creation as He wills. Pretty sure Paul said the same thing in his letter to the church in Rome.
If humans are totally depraved, its because God allowed it to be so. He is the all powerful creator who sees both the beginning and the end of time simultaneously. He knew how awful this creation plan of his would end and still did it.
quote:The question of "fault" is deeper than what you are making it out to be. There are various causes that exist in the universe. God is the first (initial) cause of all things, but He's not necessarily the material cause of all things. If God wants you to obey Him and He knows you won't, but you still refuse to do so, is that His fault or yours? Perhaps it is both, but then again you and God are not equals. If you know what is right and you refuse to do it, you are still to blame, even if God doesn't force you to do it.
If God is all powerful, completely omniscient and free from any other superior being forcing his hand and people still end up in hell it is his fault. This is a philosophical idea older than christianity itself and one in which only christian philosophers try to get around,
quote:Again we have to define the terms of the argument. I don't believe in what people call "free will". I believe in "freedom of volition", which means that our wills (what ultimately determines what we want or don't want to do) is tainted by sin, and we act according to what our sinful wills want.
Omniscience and free will cannot coexist. If free will doesnt exist, God is at fault for whatever happens to us. This is philosophy 101. Aristotle rolls in his grave every time a christian apologist argues against this.
In this state, we will always choose to sin and disobey God (except when it pleases us in some way, which is still sinful) and we willingly do it. It isn't as if we desperately want to do the right thing but God says "nope, I won't let you". It's just the opposite.
Again we have to talk about causes. While God is the initial cause of all things, there are other causes that determine outcomes, including what we do. That doesn't require a free will, though.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:19 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
The argument that God is either powerless or evil is predicated on the belief that humans don't deserve Hell and that God enjoys torturing innocent people. Neither of those are true.
Given that your entire post hinges on this premise, I'll just address this.
Prove this. Give me some sort of evidence. I refuse to merely grant you the premise that we deserve hell and are inherently evil creatures as a species. This is a silly notion that is only accepted as a necessary part of christianity. It lacks any real world evidence, and more importantly it lacks any rational philosophical support.
And regardless of what you wish to believe about omniscience and its limitations, it doesnt change the reality of the implications of that term.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:20 pm to wmr
quote:
Passover is about genocide. Right? Like mass slaughter of innocents, based only on their race or religion.
No, not at all.
Its about reliving the experience our ancestors went through when they were exiled out of Egypt. To summarize how we were exiled from Egypt, you start with Joseph. In the Torah (your old testament), he was sold to tradesman by most of his brothers. He was later falsely accused of raping the pharaoh's wife (who actually wanted to get laid, but when she was refused she lied to her husband) and thrown into jail.
In jail he interpreted the dreams of a butler and a chef of the pharaoh. He correctly told the butler that he would return to his position and that the chef would be sentenced to death. To return the favor, the butler told the pharaoh of Joseph when he couldn't understand his dreams.
Joseph told the pharaoh that there would be 7 years of bountiful crops and 7 of drought. He was then appointed as gatherer/distributor of rations and made his way up through the ranks. Eventually he brought up his family to live in Egypt and many other Israelites followed.
Ramses was the next pharaoh. He thought the land was becoming overpopulated with Israelites, which he feared may try to take over the throne (no reason why, but anyway...). So he sentenced every newborn Israelite son to death and enslaved all the rest. Moses was born, and to save his life his mother sent him down the Nile in a basket. The pharaoh's daughter (or was it niece? I can't really remember specifics) found him and named him "Moses", or I found him in the reeds.
While there are important events in his upbringing, nothing directly relates or alters the exile of our ancestors, more just the importance of Aaron. So skip ahead to when Moses is an adult. He sees one of his brethren being beat up by an Egyptian master, so he kills him, buries him, and runs away.
He later comes across a bush that is on fire but is never engulfed (my bar mitzvah Torah portion
). He was told to go back to his people and demand to the pharaoh to let them go. So he went back to the pharaoh and told him that for every day he refused, there would be a plague. After the tenth plague, the pharaoh finally agrees to let them go.
With G-d by his side, Moses split the Red Sea and the Israelites went through it.
We don't eat bread and matzoh instead because the israelites were told to leave quickly, not letting their bread properly rise.
This post was edited on 4/21/14 at 2:15 pm
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:24 pm to Roger Klarvin
quote:God not only allowed but was the initial cause of the current state of our will. Adam was the direct cause of all of humanity's fallen nature (enslaved will).
Who allowed us to have such a will?
quote:God did.
Moreover, who knew before creation which choices we would make?
quote:But that's not true. He doesn't take all responsibility just because He knew what would happen. You are completely disregarding the responsibility Adam and all humanity had/have to obey.
No matter much dancing one does, it always comes back to the fact that God by his defined nature in christianity takes on all responsibility for his creation. All of it.
quote:But this assumes that the God of the Bible was "made up" (and doesn't exist). I don't buy that. Whether or not other men in other cultures took the truth about God and perverted it to their own liking is of no relevance to this issue of whether or not the one, true God is omniscient and omnipotent.
This is the problem with making god infinitely powerful and why wiser men in wiser cultures in ancient history made their god's out to be less than omnipotent.
quote:But it depends on what you mean by "limited in power". He has placed limits upon Himself in what He can and cannot do, so I suppose that is a limit on His power. But I'm not interested in talking about free will since I don't believe we have free will. Choice is another matter.
Admit that God is limited in power and we can talk about feee will and choice.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:26 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
God would be quite pathetic if He just let everyone spit in His face.
Actually, thats the kind of love God demands from us in the bible. He requires us to turn the other cheek and pray for those who spit on us (figuratively of course).
To then turn around and punch us in the face for eternity for spiting on him seems a bit hypocritical.
quote:
Since we are His creation (like a painting or a sculpture), He can do with us as He pleases. We have no problem raising cattle for slaughter, but for some reason God can't create people just to destroy them?
You have a very sick and twisted view of the world, so much so that even most christians would reprimand you for saying something like this.
What a complete monster of a being you worship. I honestly couldnt get up every morning if I believed this.
This post was edited on 4/21/14 at 1:27 pm
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:28 pm to mrnegative
quote:
Its about reliving the xperience our ancestors went through when they were exiled out of Egypt. To summarize how we were exiled from Egypt, you start with Joseph. In the torah (your old testament), he was sold to tradesman by most of his brothers. He was later falsly accused of raping the pharoah's wife (who actually wanted to get laid, but when she was refused she lied to her husband) and thrown into jail.
In jail he interpreted the dreams of a butler and a chef of the pharoah. He correctly told the butler that he would return to his position and that the chef would be sentenced to death. To return the favor, the butler told the pharoah of Joseph when he couldn't understand his dreams.
Joaseph told the pharoah that there would be 7 years of bountiful crops and 7 of drought. He was then appointed as gatherer/distributer of rations and made his way up through the ranks. Eventually he brought up his family to live in Egypt and many other Israelites followed.
There is literally zero evidence that anything like this ever happened.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:29 pm to Roger Klarvin
quote:What sort of "proof" are you looking for? I'm basing my argument off of the Biblical view of God and man and our relationship to one another. If you'd like me to give you scripture references to support my view, I can.
Given that your entire post hinges on this premise, I'll just address this.
Prove this. Give me some sort of evidence. I refuse to merely grant you the premise that we deserve hell and are inherently evil creatures as a species. This is a silly notion that is only accepted as a necessary part of christianity. It lacks any real world evidence, and more importantly it lacks any rational philosophical support.
And regardless of what you wish to believe about omniscience and its limitations, it doesnt change the reality of the implications of that term.
I'm not sure what "real world evidence" you are talking about. Everyone sins. Everyone is selfish to some degree. Everyone acts in ways that are contrary to the character of God (as revealed in the Bible). So therefore, everyone is a proof case on the sinfulness of mankind as proclaimed in the Bible. Just because not everyone is as bad as they could be doesn't prove they are not bad (according to God's standard).
I'm also not quite what "rational philosophical support" you are referring to. The Biblical worldview is a philosophy in itself. Are you wanting me to reference Plato to support my view?
And you're right that my belief about omniscience and its limitations doesn't change the reality of the implications of it. I have been expressing my view on the reality of it and its implications during this dialogue.
Posted on 4/21/14 at 1:35 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
But that's not true. He doesn't take all responsibility just because He knew what would happen. You are completely disregarding the responsibility Adam and all humanity had/have to obey.
You're right, I am. Ghepetto has no right to punish Pinocchio for being made of wood.
quote:
But this assumes that the God of the Bible was "made up" (and doesn't exist). I don't buy that.
Yet you reject Thor, Vishnu, Allah, Zeus, Osiris and a thousand other gods for the same reasons I reject the christian god. You believe in your god and not the others for one reason and it has nothing to do with evidence or experience. Its logically inconsistent to reject all the Gods but one, since they all have the exact same amount of evidence for them.
quote:
Whether or not other men in other cultures took the truth about God and perverted it to their own liking is of no relevance to this issue of whether or not the one, true God is omniscient and omnipotent.
The Egyptian Gods predate Yahweh by 2000 years. The very concept of Yahweh didnt even exist until at the earliest 1500 BC. How do you mot understand this? Hundreds of Gods predate judaism and christianity. Yahweh was not even close to the first god to be conceived and thus calling other gods a perversion of him is nonsense. Men lived and died for hundreds of thousands of years before God ever supposedly revealed himself to a small tribe in the levant.
This post was edited on 4/21/14 at 1:37 pm
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