To make this subject a bit simpler, we will stick with the God as portrayed by Christianity (although one could argue that the God in Judaism and Islam closely resemble the Christian God).
I am kind of familiar with the Bible, but do not remember specific details such as whether or not it mentions why God created mankind. Can anyone cite the reason? Or if there is no specific mention in the Bible, any ideas why God created mankind?
Thank you.
Because God exists beyond logic and beyond reason, I'll bet that you aren't going to find a really suitable answer to this question. Basically, my theory, is that if man is created in God's image, than it is safe to say that God has emotions and experiences. God was simply bored one day, and thus created the world. Simple, yet effective.
| Soulfire wrote: |
| Because God exists beyond logic and beyond reason, I'll bet that you aren't going to find a really suitable answer to this question. Basically, my theory, is that if man is created in God's image, than it is safe to say that God has emotions and experiences. God was simply bored one day, and thus created the world. Simple, yet effective. |
You're going to have to clarify your usage of the word "effective".
Let's assume that God was bored and/or lonely, and so decided to create humans to amuse himself or so that he could have friends. Billions of humans have lived lives of suffering and misery, and a very substantial percentage of them are apparently doomed to possibly eternal suffering and misery in hell...
...
...
because God was bored.
That rather makes the "God is love" and "God is good" theories ring a little hollow to me.
| roxys_art wrote: |
| I am kind of familiar with the Bible, but do not remember specific details such as whether or not it mentions why God created mankind. Can anyone cite the reason? Or if there is no specific mention in the Bible, any ideas why God created mankind? |
No reason is given. Needless to say that hasn't stopped people from attempting to "interpret" and "deduce" reasons using the text. Some are actually quite clever. None work. Every single one of them contradicts the Bible in one way or another (see above for an example). This is just another of those things you have to shrug off and ignore if you want to subscribe to Christianity. | Indi wrote: |
| roxys_art wrote: | | I am kind of familiar with the Bible, but do not remember specific details such as whether or not it mentions why God created mankind. Can anyone cite the reason? Or if there is no specific mention in the Bible, any ideas why God created mankind? |
No reason is given. Needless to say that hasn't stopped people from attempting to "interpret" and "deduce" reasons using the text. Some are actually quite clever. None work. Every single one of them contradicts the Bible in one way or another (see above for an example). This is just another of those things you have to shrug off and ignore if you want to subscribe to Christianity. |
But that really does raise the question, "Why are we here at all?" There are millions of theories meant to answer the question, but only a handful are "accepted" as possibilities. Now when I say, "why are we here," I don't mean "what's the purpose for us to live." I literally mean "why are we here." What caused us to be here?
First theory. The universe is eternal. I've been reading up on it recently, and come to find out, most scientists no longer accept the "universe is eternal" as a theory, and that's for several reasons. For starters, scientists have discovered that the universe is expanding. For something to expand, means that it has to be bigger than it was before. Therefore, the universe has to have an "end". This throws the theory that the universe is "infinite" out the window as well. Anyway, if something is bigger than it was in the past, that means in the past it was smaller. If we go even further back in time, it was even smaller. The futher back in time we go, the smaller the universe gets, until we get to the point where the universe is no longer the universe, but extremely dense (and hot) material smaller than an atom.
This is also the beginning of the "Big Bang" theory, which is accepted by most scientists today. The Big Bang theory goes on to say that from that tiny pin point of material, there was some kind of reaction, and the universe "exploded". Cool, huh? But what started the Big Bang, and essientally, the universe?
As a side note, the Bible contradicts itself, and really doesn't need any help from anyone else... | laurenrox wrote: |
| But that really does raise the question, "Why are we here at all?" There are millions of theories meant to answer the question, but only a handful are "accepted" as possibilities. Now when I say, "why are we here," I don't mean "what's the purpose for us to live." I literally mean "why are we here." What caused us to be here? |
Well, that might be starting to stray from the topic, unless you have something in mind. The original post was asking for a reason (ie, purpose), not a cause, and specifically what the Christian God's reason might have been. i suppose it's possible to come back to that eventually by exploring a different question - thinking laterally - but i can't see how at the moment.
| laurenrox wrote: |
| First theory. The universe is eternal. I've been reading up on it recently, and come to find out, most scientists no longer accept the "universe is eternal" as a theory, and that's for several reasons. For starters, scientists have discovered that the universe is expanding. For something to expand, means that it has to be bigger than it was before. Therefore, the universe has to have an "end". This throws the theory that the universe is "infinite" out the window as well. |
i don't follow that logic at all. Just because something gets smaller and smaller in the past does not necessarily mean that at some point it must have had a minimum size from which it began expanding. Or to put it another way, if something can expand forever forwards in time, why can it not contract forever backwards in time?
Perhaps i could make it clearer if i gave some numbers. Assume that 0 is the smallest size possible - no negative size is allowed, so if something shrinks to size 0, it cannot shrink any further. Now imagine we have an object that increases in size tenfold every second. Now wind the clock backwards, which means that every second back in time we go, the size is divided by ten. So if the object has a size of 1 now, it had a size of 0.1 a second ago and 0.01 two seconds ago. If you go back x seconds, it will have a size of 10^-x. So now, how far back in time do you have to go before the size is 0? As you can see, you will never get a size of zero (10^-x will not equal zero for any real x), which means it can shrink backwards in time eternally... which means that even though it is expanding now, it can still have been expanding for an infinite time.
| laurenrox wrote: |
| Anyway, if something is bigger than it was in the past, that means in the past it was smaller. If we go even further back in time, it was even smaller. The futher back in time we go, the smaller the universe gets, until we get to the point where the universe is no longer the universe, but extremely dense (and hot) material smaller than an atom. |
i don't follow that logic either. Even if i accept that just because the universe is expanding now, it was also expanding in the past - it could have started expanding five minutes before Hubble took his measurements (from a conceptual point of view - not in practice of course) - i don't see how you can argue from the facts that you have presented that it has always been expanding. Perhaps if you go back a couple trillion years, the expansion started there, and before that it was contracting. Perhaps it expands and contracts in a regular cycle, and has been for an infinite amount of time.
That the universe began at a point and has been expanding ever since then is the best scientific conclusion given our current scientific knowledge. It does not follow from that that it is the only rational conclusion, or even the only scientific conclusion. No one has completely ruled out the possibility of an eternal universe.
| laurenrox wrote: |
| This is also the beginning of the "Big Bang" theory, which is accepted by most scientists today. The Big Bang theory goes on to say that from that tiny pin point of material, there was some kind of reaction, and the universe "exploded". Cool, huh? But what started the Big Bang, and essientally, the universe? |
That's... not actually the big bang theory.
But ignoring the technical details, the only point of interest is the fact that time was also created by the big bang. That means that your question - what "started" the big bang - is irrelevant and nonsensical. Once you toss out causality, any talk of "cause" is irrelevant and nonsensical - you're in a whole new universe with a whole new set of rules. It's like asking "How do you get to the other side of a Möbius strip?", or "How do you get inside of a Klein bottle?" | Indi wrote: |
Well, that might be starting to stray from the topic, unless you have something in mind. The original post was asking for a reason (ie, purpose), not a cause, and specifically what the Christian God's reason might have been. i suppose it's possible to come back to that eventually by exploring a different question - thinking laterally - but i can't see how at the moment.
|
Don't worry, I plan to retrace my steps back to the original point.
| Indi wrote: |
i don't follow that logic at all. Just because something gets smaller and smaller in the past does not necessarily mean that at some point it must have had a minimum size from which it began expanding. Or to put it another way, if something can expand forever forwards in time, why can it not contract forever backwards in time?
|
That reminds me of the Greeks' theory for "essence"... The Greeks theorized that if you stood say 20 feet from a wall, you could walk half way. You'd then be 10 feet. Half way again. 5 feet. Again. 2.5 feet. And so on. They thought that you could just keep going half way, so technically, you'd never reach your point, which would be 0 feet. And by this theory, someone could shoot at you and you'd be completely safe, seeing as how the bullet would always have to travel half way. However, we both know that's not the case.
Not to mention, that as far back as scientists have been able to trace, this pin point of material was smaller than the smallest part of an atom. In other words, it DID have size, mass, whatever.
| Indi wrote: |
i don't follow that logic either. Even if i accept that just because the universe is expanding now, it was also expanding in the past - it could have started expanding five minutes before Hubble took his measurements (from a conceptual point of view - not in practice of course) - i don't see how you can argue from the facts that you have presented that it has always been expanding. Perhaps if you go back a couple trillion years, the expansion started there, and before that it was contracting. Perhaps it expands and contracts in a regular cycle, and has been for an infinite amount of time.
|
That was something else I had meant to address (and completely forgot about). Yeah, that's a valid theory.
| Indi wrote: |
That the universe began at a point and has been expanding ever since then is the best scientific conclusion given our current scientific knowledge. It does not follow from that that it is the only rational conclusion, or even the only scientific conclusion. No one has completely ruled out the possibility of an eternal universe.
|
Uh-huh. Note that I mentioned that the "expanding universe theory" was the most widely accepted theory. I didn't say that it was the ONLY theory out there that could work. And you're right, the fact that the universe is constantly expanding and contracting is a widely known idea as well (although I do wonder what it would be that would cause the universe to contract again). Perhaps I need to re-word myself. That the universe is static and infinite has pretty much been disproven (as seen in my last post, and yours as well, Indi). As I recall, you could only come up with theories that says the universe isn't static. In other words, you acknowledged that the universe is indeed expanding, and therefore changing.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, a universe that had to "start" would be the only theory that would support a creational god, so that's the one I was going with. I was hoping I would be humored for the time being.
| Indi wrote: |
That's... not actually the big bang theory.
But ignoring the technical details, the only point of interest is the fact that time was also created by the big bang. That means that your question - what "started" the big bang - is irrelevant and nonsensical. Once you toss out causality, any talk of "cause" is irrelevant and nonsensical - you're in a whole new universe with a whole new set of rules. It's like asking "How do you get to the other side of a Möbius strip?", or "How do you get inside of a Klein bottle?" |
Uh... forgive my ignorance, but wtf is a Klein bottle? Lol, anyway. What technical details did I miss as far as the big bang theory goes?
And as far as the question of "what started the big bang" being irrelevant, perhaps it would be to you, however, there are tons of scientists coming up with theories trying to figure it out. It's natural human curosity. | Indi wrote: |
...
...
because God was bored.
That rather makes the "God is love" and "God is good" theories ring a little hollow to me. |
Agreed. He created us not because he wanted to love his creation and take care of it. He was just bored and wanted something to do. Is this why we have so many births in America right now? We get bored and...well, you know.
| Indi wrote: |
| No reason is given. Needless to say that hasn't stopped people from attempting to "interpret" and "deduce" reasons using the text. Some are actually quite clever. None work. |
Do you have any of these "interpretations?" I guess I never really have heard any of these "interpretations." Please feel free to share if you have time.
| Indi wrote: |
| Every single one of them contradicts the Bible in one way or another (see above for an example). This is just another of those things you have to shrug off and ignore if you want to subscribe to Christianity. |
In general, I find the Bible highly contradictory. But maybe it is just me... | roxys_art wrote: |
To make this subject a bit simpler, we will stick with the God as portrayed by Christianity (although one could argue that the God in Judaism and Islam closely resemble the Christian God).
I am kind of familiar with the Bible, but do not remember specific details such as whether or not it mentions why God created mankind. Can anyone cite the reason? Or if there is no specific mention in the Bible, any ideas why God created mankind?
Thank you. |
Revelation 4:11 ....Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Sure it all depends on which version of the bible you readI think the best answer would be is “for His pleasure.” Revelation 4:11 says, “Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” Colossians 1:16 reiterates the point: “All things were created by Him and for Him.”
Also, God did not create “peers” or beings equal to Himself. Logically, He could not do so. If God were to create another being of equal power, intelligence, and perfection, then He would cease to be the One True God for the simple reason that there would be two gods—and that would be an impossibility. “The Lord He is God; there is none else beside Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35). Anything that God creates must of necessity be lesser than He. The thing made can never be greater than the One who made it.
I suppose to the stupidest thing would to go for the answer in the 'lousy bible'... It's like looking for the ansver in a bad soup.
I suppose the quote 'God was boring' is the natural explanation.
And now to the great question if something that god creates has to be lessen than itself; Or you can do the analogue of asking 'how big stone can god do?' - God could mathematically create an infinite large stone - since God is everywhere also the stone is everywhere... Just as simple as that... (mathematically...)
| roxys_art wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | No reason is given. Needless to say that hasn't stopped people from attempting to "interpret" and "deduce" reasons using the text. Some are actually quite clever. None work. |
Do you have any of these "interpretations?" I guess I never really have heard any of these "interpretations." Please feel free to share if you have time. |
Well, this one is my personal favourite. Now, remember, i'm just retelling someone else's story here - i did not make this up myself. i am well aware of all the bizarre logical difficulties with it - it only barely makes any sense - but don't expect me to offer any explanations for them.
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It also essentially starts with the idea that God was bored, or, perhaps, that he had self-esteem issues and needed beings to worship and love him.
But he did not create humans for that purpose, he created a race of "perfect" beings - which, logically, you would expect God to do. These beings did not age or die, or get sick or suffer in any way. They were the angels.
It was the angels that created sin - not God - and for this, some of them were punished by being "cast out" from the presence of the omnipresent God (i know, i should keep my comments to myself and just tell the story). But the damage was done, sin had entered God's perfect universe and was corrupting it and some of the angels, and there was nothing the omnipotent God could do about it (sorry, again >_<). Because the angels did not die (and obviously God cannot die), no one was available to die, and someone had to die in order to eliminate the sin.
So God created a race of beings that could die - humans.
Using these humans to play out roles in his master plan, he manipulated us and our universe until it was finally ready for the grand move - creating an aspect of himself in human (and thus, mortal) form, and having it die while bearing the burden of all sin - this removing the stain of sin from both us and the angels. As the story goes, that plan was a resounding success.
And God's master plan continues - and every single one of us plays a role in it, because God doesn't waste resources. At its fruition, God will have eliminated sin and all sinners - angel and human - and will be left with a perfect universe full of the "good" angels, and "good" humans - now also in angel form.
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The biblical support for this is, of course, very, very shaky. The bible does state that angels do not die, and that humans do become (like) angels when they die (assuming they've pleased God sufficiently). It does allude to some kind of plan that God has, but in my opinion, the references all refer to the Jesus incident, not some larger plan. But, there it is. It's a good yarn, and i like the imagination... but let's face it, logically it's very shaky, and morally it's downright reprehensible.
| Tumbleweed wrote: |
Revelation 4:11 ....Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Sure it all depends on which version of the bible you read |
Heh. ^_^ Right.
(For those who don't get it, that phrase "for thy pleasure" actually means "because you ordered it", not "because it pleases you". You'll see this in virtually every other translation out there (and that's actually how it was worded in the original).)
| vinx_18 wrote: |
| Colossians 1:16 reiterates the point: “All things were created by Him and for Him.” |
i'm afraid i'm not seeing what you see there. All it says is that everything was created for him. That could mean anything. For him because he wanted them, for him to use, for him to destroy, etc. To me, that verse just says that everything was created to be his (as in, his personal property), and the surrounding context supports that because it is really just a section listing off how awesome Jesus is. | Quote: |
| The biblical support for this is, of course, very, very shaky. The bible does state that angels do not die, and that humans do become (like) angels when they die (assuming they've pleased God sufficiently). It does allude to some kind of plan that God has, but in my opinion, the references all refer to the Jesus incident, not some larger plan. But, there it is. It's a good yarn, and i like the imagination... but let's face it, logically it's very shaky, and morally it's downright reprehensible. |
This kinda thing is what I was trying to get to, and I guess I should've mentioned it early instead of waiting until later. Reguardless...
There is little to nothing in the Bible to explain why God would put us here. And I thought that perhaps you might want to look else where to explain it. If someone can come up with theories of how the universe started, then who's to say we can't take it another step and go from asking "how" to "why"? Personally, it doesn't matter to me if it correspondes to the Bible or not. However, if you're a believer in the Bible and think that it should, then good luck (you'll need it).I'm not sure why I needed to be quoted with Revelation 4:11 but thank you 
| Indi wrote: |
| For those who don't get it, that phrase "for thy pleasure" actually means "because you ordered it", not "because it pleases you". You'll see this in virtually every other translation out there (and that's actually how it was worded in the original. |
Is it order as in instruction or order as in harmony ?
I like the story by the way, the only value I see in the bible is subtle God created man to love him. That's why there is choice between good and evil, love God and sin. Eat of the tree and not (Adam/Eve in the garden story).
This idea is pretty consistant throughout the bible.
The real question is why would anyone who doesn't love God be cast into Hell? Why not throw them somewhere else where they can chill without God? Definatly on my "questions for God" list that I will hopefully remember when I die.
Please post any contridictions to this theory of mine, I am not one of those nazi Christian types. If I am wrong, I will accept it, I am after truths, not what I want.
| Tumbleweed wrote: |
| Is it order as in instruction or order as in harmony ? |
Instruction. You could rewrite Rev 4:11 in plain English as:
"Lord, because you created everything, you deserve to be given glory (praised), honour (worship) and power (obeyed) - by your command everything was created and by your command it continues to exist."
| coeus wrote: |
God created man to love him. That's why there is choice between good and evil, love God and sin. Eat of the tree and not (Adam/Eve in the garden story).
This idea is pretty consistant throughout the bible.
The real question is why would anyone who doesn't love God be cast into Hell? Why not throw them somewhere else where they can chill without God? Definatly on my "questions for God" list that I will hopefully remember when I die.
Please post any contridictions to this theory of mine, I am not one of those nazi Christian types. If I am wrong, I will accept it, I am after truths, not what I want. |
The problem with most answers to this question (and to most of the questions the Bible leaves unanswered) is that while it's not hard to create perfectly consistent explanations to serve as answers, it's hella hard to create perfectly consistent explanations that do not contradict the Bible.
Your answer is perfectly logical, and entirely consistent, but it doesn't work - it contradicts the Bible on a number of issues.
The simplest contradiction is virtually identical to the one i pointed out for Soulfire: that the Bible states categorically and undeniably that God is supposed to be essentially good. But what you have done is turn God into an emotional blackmailer... and every Christian into a victim of Stockholm syndrome. You claim that God gives us a choice to love him or not... and i suppose he did. The choice he gives us is: "LOVE ME OR DIE!".... And then he tortures us anyway (because we do suffer - even those who love him)! How can that possibly be reconciled with the Biblical claim that God is good?I read a fictional story once in which God created the universe and humanity as a sort of filtration system to separate out the good soul-stuff form the bad soul-stuff. It makes about as much sense as other theories I've heard of.
| Indi wrote: |
| It's hella hard to create perfectly consistent explanations that do not contradict the Bible. |
I don't think so. I think by defination, an explanation that contradicts the very work it is citing is not a valid explanation.
| Indi wrote: |
Your answer is perfectly logical, and entirely consistent, but it doesn't work - it contradicts the Bible on a number of issues.
The simplest contradiction is virtually identical to the one i pointed out for Soulfire: that the Bible states categorically and undeniably that God is supposed to be essentially good. But what you have done is turn God into an emotional blackmailer... and every Christian into a victim of Stockholm syndrome. You claim that God gives us a choice to love him or not... and i suppose he did. The choice he gives us is: "LOVE ME OR DIE!".... And then he tortures us anyway (because we do suffer - even those who love him)! How can that possibly be reconciled with the Biblical claim that God is good? |
Let's assume there is a God, He is the father of everything, and He wants a personal relationship with you. Knowing and feeling his love, how could you ever turn it down? Not being in that predictament I could see you shaking you head saying "uhh, easy, I don't want to be forced to love you" As I am sure is the case. However, everyone I know who was in that situation, felt the father like love, would never want to turn that down. God isn't throwing people into a lake of fire, he is bringing his children home and the rest choose to not jump in the mini-van and instead jump in the lake. Until you feel that amazing love I don't expect you to understand this scenario of seemingly "spiritual rape". Why is this the way that it is? Why is the alternative Hell? ask Satan, it's his playground. Also God why the universe is the way that it is.
As far as the suffering of those who love him. Some of that suffering is from non-believers wishing to keep the Christian man down. The rest would, like Job(Jobe), would be Satan trying to keep the Christian man down. The story is quite simple. Satan hates God, hates how powerful He is, hates His children and would do anything to turn them away from God. Why does God not stop all that and just put an end to Satan. I believe to have love you must have hate. To have good you must have evil. Since good is by defination a relation to evil they have to co-exist. So, God is good. But in order for Him to be good, there has to be evil somewhere to make the good, good.
The relationship between God and us is exactly like that of a human father and son. Sometimes the son has to learn the hard way for them to get it, sometimes there has to be some tough love, but that love between the two is always there and overall the father is a good man (at least in my example).I love this quote:
if God created humans, he should be so ashamed that he never look at his creation again.
Of course god can get upset... thinking this is stupid BUT
in a relative world nothing is wrong...
| fx-trading-education wrote: |
| if God created humans, he should be so ashamed that he never look at his creation again. |
Is a father ashamed of his troubled teen? Maybe...but enough that he will disown him/her? I surely would hope not! He created us with freewill to choose both good and evil thus I think he saw this coming. At worst I think he would hang his head, shake it and say "dang it son...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" ... *sigh* | Indi wrote: |
| Tumbleweed wrote: | | Is it order as in instruction or order as in harmony ? |
Instruction. You could rewrite Rev 4:11 in plain English as:
"Lord, because you created everything, you deserve to be given glory (praised), honour (worship) and power (obeyed) - by your command everything was created and by your command it continues to exist."
|
Instructed whom, by implication does this mean God only told someone/thing else to create mankind ? | coeus wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | It's hella hard to create perfectly consistent explanations that do not contradict the Bible. |
I don't think so. I think by defination, an explanation that contradicts the very work it is citing is not a valid explanation. |
Under normal circumstances, sure, but the Bible is so vague, circuitous and contradictory that it's not that simple. For example, suppose i came up with an explanation for why creation happened that fits the creation story in Genesis. The first question to ask is: which creation story in Genesis, because there are at least two. It's like that all through the Bible: "i wrote a biography for Jesus that matches his life story." "Which life story, because there are at least four."
Your definition might be just fine for most cases, sure... but how do you make an explanation that doesn't contradict the work when the work contradicts itself?
| coeus wrote: |
| Let's assume there is a God, He is the father of everything, and He wants a personal relationship with you. |
Ok, wait, stop there. i want to throw something out there that too few people consider. i accept your assumptions, so i will assume that there is a God, the father of everything, and that he wants a personal relationship with me - or anyone, but let's say specifically me and watch what happens.
Now i throw out this challenge to you: if God wanted to have personal relationship with me... why doesn't he have it?
Seriously, think about that long and hard, and digest it.
The kneejerk response is: because you (as in, me) don't want it. But think about what that's actually saying. You are saying that God... GOD... GOD... father of everything, creator of the universe... wants something... and i am stopping him from getting it. You are, in fact, saying that Indi is more powerful than God!!! Because God wants something, and Indi is denying God what he wants.
Wow.
But, you say, God could make me have a loving relationship with him except that he doesn't want to force me, he wants me to choose it freely.
To which i reply... it's not that hard to get me to like you - i'm not that much of an ******. Most people i like by default. Many, many people i love a lot, and very deeply - friends i know and trust and would do anything for, and they're not gods. My ex-fiancée was able to make me love her madly - and she's not a god(dess). None of them forced me. i choose freely (insofar as it is possible) to love them all.
But God can't do it?
| coeus wrote: |
| Knowing and feeling his love, how could you ever turn it down? Not being in that predictament I could see you shaking you head saying "uhh, easy, I don't want to be forced to love you" As I am sure is the case. However, everyone I know who was in that situation, felt the father like love, would never want to turn that down. God isn't throwing people into a lake of fire, he is bringing his children home and the rest choose to not jump in the mini-van and instead jump in the lake. Until you feel that amazing love I don't expect you to understand this scenario of seemingly "spiritual rape". Why is this the way that it is? Why is the alternative Hell? ask Satan, it's his playground. Also God why the universe is the way that it is. |
i have to object to several things here.
First, i have not "turned down" anything. i don't know or feel anything about God's love. i don't see any examples of it anywhere. And yes, i have looked.
Second, you're answer to "LOVE ME OR DIE" is that it's not a problem because i should want to love him? That's not an answer, dude. The problem remains. Regardless of how easy, natural, obvious, fun, or whatever it is to choose "love", it is still wrong to say "love me or die". It doesn't matter whether i want to choose love or not, it is still wrong to say "love me or die".
Third, God is throwing us in a lake of fire. Jesus said so himself. In fact, Jesus went into gleeful detail about how much people would suffer as they burn. Remember when you said that any explanation that contradicts the text is no explanation at all? Well...?
Fourth, it is not my choice to go jump in the lake, it is God's. If i had a choice, i'd ask for another minivan to myself... and God being God, he could surely do it (unless he's not really all that powerful). Or, God could make Hell like a paradise. Why not? The people that freely choose to love him will go with him to share one paradise with him, and the people that freely choose not to love him get a paradise all to themselves without him. Why can't it be that way? And don't blame that on Satan. ^_^; That's all on God.
| coeus wrote: |
| As far as the suffering of those who love him. Some of that suffering is from non-believers wishing to keep the Christian man down. The rest would, like Job(Jobe), would be Satan trying to keep the Christian man down. The story is quite simple. Satan hates God, hates how powerful He is, hates His children and would do anything to turn them away from God. Why does God not stop all that and just put an end to Satan. I believe to have love you must have hate. To have good you must have evil. Since good is by defination a relation to evil they have to co-exist. So, God is good. But in order for Him to be good, there has to be evil somewhere to make the good, good. |
There is a rebuttal to this, but it is very long and very complex. i've been meaning to write an essay on the topic for the sticky, but haven't got around to it. If you want to hear the rebuttal, i think it would be better if we made a separate thread, so i won't answer here.
| coeus wrote: |
| The relationship between God and us is exactly like that of a human father and son. Sometimes the son has to learn the hard way for them to get it, sometimes there has to be some tough love, but that love between the two is always there and overall the father is a good man (at least in my example). |
The god-as-parent-human-as-child analogy is a longtime favourite... but it doesn't really work.
There is a very, very important distinction between a god and a father. A father has to take what he gets - he has little to no control over what comes out of the mother, and even less over what happens afterwards. He is a slave to genetics, and cannot decide how aggressive (for example) to make the child. He can't decide how many heads it should have, how smart it should be, and he can't make a child that won't get cancer. Whatever nature deals him, he has to accept.
God does not procreate, God creates. A father has to let a child suffer to learn. God could create that child born already with the knowledge, so there is no need to learn or suffer.
God could have created Adam and Eve with the knowledge of good and evil right there in their frontal lobe from day 1 (or 6 or 8 or whatever). They could have known - in advance - what they would learn from the fruit, and what would happen afterwards. Then there would have been no need for them to bite. It wouldn't have been taking away their free will either - as some try to claim. Quite the opposite, it would have given them more freedom. The more you know, the more your choices are really what you want. If you're totally ignorant, you can't really make choices... because you don't understand the consequences.
But God - through no other reason than it's what he felt like doing - created us to be born ignorant... and then turns around and punishes us when we learn the lessons wrong. That's not good parenting. That's sadistic.
| Tumbleweed wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | Tumbleweed wrote: | | Is it order as in instruction or order as in harmony ? |
Instruction. You could rewrite Rev 4:11 in plain English as:
"Lord, because you created everything, you deserve to be given glory (praised), honour (worship) and power (obeyed) - by your command everything was created and by your command it continues to exist."
|
Instructed whom, by implication does this mean God only told someone/thing else to create mankind ? |
Instructed whatever it was he was creating. Remember God is God, he needs no tools or intermediaries. All he has to do is say "let there be light" and there's light. The Muslims put it very nicely, actually: God says "be", and it is.
So God said "humanity: be", and we were.
(Technically, God wouldn't even need to "say" "be"; just decides that he wants something to exist, and it does.)There is onyl 1 creation story, you want to argue for 2, thats fine, but you are going to have to provide some scripture refrences for me if you want to argue it.
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There is only 1 story of Jesus' life and in the bible there are 4 accounts of it, each with their own style of writing and view as to what to mention and what to not. Again, if you view this as different feel free to provide some references.
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Look, I know it all looks sadistic and weird in your eyes, however, just because you don't like it doesn't mean that's not the way it is. Everyone has their own view for what right and wrong is, with some usual overlay. You know, I would like the ability to fly because I think walking about is boring, however, that's just not the way it is. I would like there to be no evil, no rape, no murder, but in order for there to be the idea of good and awesome, there has to be those things. I will agree with you, I want it to be as simple as God lovers go to His heaven, non-God lovers but still decient people go to another heaven and all the evil doers goto Hell, however, that's just not the way it is. I didn't make the rules, I just follow the guy who did. He could reveal it all to everyone, I think he actually does but most people are so stubborn that they don't change anyway. Jesus did miricles in front of people and they still denied his divinity. God more then likely has done the same in front of your eyes but you deny it. "it's not that hard to get me to like you" apparently it is. When you have this view that God is like a hitler I could see how you wouldn't want to be ina relationship with him, heck, I wouldn't want to be friends with that either.
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Most people don't like this idea of "that's just the way it is". People want to know WHY it is that way. I am taking a class on ancient philosophy and people in that time were used to "because the gods want it this or that way" then some people came around and said..."wait a minute, I am sure there is a non-divine reason for this crap" We call those philosophers. Now, 2.5 thousand years later we are still in the same boat. You can sit down and try to think of WHY things are the way that they are, but for 2.5k years no one has been able to come up with anything other then "that's just the way it is" at least not without some sort of evidence. Sure you will find answers to some of your questions in science or logical thinking, but for those big questions it seems that science and logical thinking are unable to come up with a concrete answer, rather they seem to support many sides to the debate, thus we have this problem of what is truth? By your standards truth for you is what is right. For you right is everyone goes to heaven to chill either with God or without him, but in a paradise non-the-less. For me, right is paying homage to that which created you, giving praise, worship and thankfulness where it is due. That object of worship resides in heaven and those who chose not to acknowledge Him go elsewhere, outside of Heaven. For how can you chill in the house of someone you don't respect or even know? Outside of Heaven seems to be Hell. Now biblically you can argue what this hell is. In fact yesterday I heard from a pastor reading a book that there are 4 biblical views of Hell, I am not going to go through them, however the traditional one of burning and suffering for all eternity does in fact seem less-just then you would expect from a just and loving God. Thus there are other views, one which I like but haven't taken as an official stance yet is that there is Heaven, Hell and destruction. For those who praise God, Heaven. Those who spit in Gods face, Hell. Those who do not know God cease to exist, no eternity for them good or bad. This view is backed up scriptually and does make more sense from a just and loving God perspective.
So even scripitually there is some things that we arn't sure what is "the way it is". There is no doubt that there is a heaven and Gods people will reside there. The question is what happends to the others. Those those who deny Christ there is clear scriptual evidence of burning and the such. There is also scripture saying God is Just and Good. Thus...I don't have all the answers but I do know God is just and good, thus whatever reality is, I trust in Gods judgement to make it fair.
In other words, I don't know for fact what happends to the "...or die" people but I do know God is just, so whatever it is that does happen, when I find out I won't feel that it is unfair or unjust.
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I was going to stop there, but I can't let this quote of yours go: "...punishes us when we learn the lessons wrong" What do you mean by "learn the lessons wrong" ? I suspect you mean something along the lines of "learning the hard way" type of thinking where you learn something is wrong by first doing it then realizing that it is wrong. In which case: Sin is defined as dis-obeying God. If you don't know something is a sin, and do it. I don't see how that is actually Sin. You wern't dis-obeying God for you didn't know what God said about that subject. There fore I don't see how the just and loving God would punish you for doing what you don't know is wrong. If there is an example of this in the bible please let me know for I haven't seen this.
Punishment is by defination is "A penalty imposed for wrongdoing". Wrongdoing, as defined(for the sake of argument and consistancy) , is chosing to do something you know is wrong. Therefore, if you don't know something is wrong and do it, how can you be punished? 
Sorry for the length but in reality this is a 2 thousand year old debate, we are going to go no where, and for some reason it always takes a lot of talking to realize that hehe. | coeus wrote: |
| There is onyl 1 creation story, you want to argue for 2, thats fine, but you are going to have to provide some scripture refrences for me if you want to argue it. |
First story: Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 (and possibly the first half of 2:4)
Second story: Genesis 2:4 (second half) - 3:20-something
But that's just off the top of my head, because i don't feel particularly obligated to provide references for things like this. If you are a Christian, you should know your Bible. If you know your Bible, you should know already that there are two creation stories. They're right there in the beginning, one after the other. Some people claim that the two stories are actually just two different perspectives of the same event, but even if you believe that (rather weak) argument, there are still two stories.
| coeus wrote: |
| There is only 1 story of Jesus' life and in the bible there are 4 accounts of it, each with their own style of writing and view as to what to mention and what to not. Again, if you view this as different feel free to provide some references. |
There are four stories, allegedly written by four different authors, each allegedly telling a different perspective of the life of a real person (or incarnate god, whatever you want to believe). Each story is different, and in many cases they directly contradict. There was a thread in here a while back going into great detail about attempting to date the birth of Jesus... with no luck because it turned out that there was no way to resolve the various events into a coherent time line. Or, for a more simplistic case that doesn't require going to the history books, just try and figure out whether Jesus was crucified on the day before or the day after Passover. Once again, i don't really feel obligated to provide references, because 1.) any true Christian should really know their holy book inside out, especially if they intend to defend it, and 2.) these are well-documented, well-known contradictions.
| coeus wrote: |
| Look, I know it all looks sadistic and weird in your eyes, however, just because you don't like it doesn't mean that's not the way it is. |
Er, now hang on here. You follow this train of thought quite a bit in the subsequent paragraphs, basically telling me that that's the way things are, and that there's nothing i can do about it, and there's no point bitching about it.
Have you forgotten we're talking about GOD? You know what? Sure, if the world sucks, i just have to suck it up and deal... but how does that absolve God of the blame for making the world suck?
| coeus wrote: |
| Everyone has their own view for what right and wrong is, with some usual overlay. |
This is not a matter of opinion or of cultural differences in deciding what is "right" or "wrong" (such as they are). There is no one anywhere that believes that making an innocent being suffer for no reason is not wrong, unless they are simply incapable of telling right from wrong at all. Some may not care, and some may even relish being cruel in that way, but no one will say they're doing good when they harm someone for no reason at all. It's a different story when you have a reason for harming an innocent - for example, utilitarianism or the "Spock axiom" - but not when you have no reason at all.
When God created humans, he could have made us without the ability to suffer. Why not? It wouldn't even be hard - i'm an engineer, and the devices i make don't have pain receptors and do not know what it means to be sad. If i can do it, God surely can.
Yet suffering exists, which means one of two things. Either 1.) God is sadistic, or 2.) God had a reason for allowing suffering to exist. You see? No opinion, no cultural preference. Just raw facts. Suffering exists. That cannot be denied. If God exists, he presumably had the power to prevent suffering, but he did not (and if he did not have the power... that opens up a whole new set of problems). Either he did not prevent suffering for a reason... or he is just cruel.
So now, the question becomes what might his reason have been? You can't answer - you gave up on even trying and told me to just suck it up. In fact, in all the millenia of talking about all the various gods, from Amun-Ra to Zeus to Yahweh, no one has ever come up with a plausible reason (and they're still trying today).
So, you're left with a choice. Either believe - with the complete absence of any evidence, or based only on the word of a vague ancient text dictated by mystics - that God must have a reason, that will eventually be revealed... and let me state clearly again that this belief must be held on blind faith, because even in the Bible, God never hints at a reason... or come to the conclusion that there is no reason, and that God is sadistic.
As you can see, there is no need for opinion in any of that. Raw evidence and pure logic leads to the conundrum. Then you can either choose to solve the conundrum by subscribing to blind faith, or not.
| coeus wrote: |
| You know, I would like the ability to fly because I think walking about is boring, however, that's just not the way it is. |
Just to hammer the point home, i'm going to stop you here and ask: why not?
Answer: because that's the way God made you.
So, i think it's clear who to direct the blame to. That's the way it goes for everything. As reluctant as you are to lay the blame at God's feet, that's where it will always end up, no matter how hard you try.
| coeus wrote: |
| He could reveal it all to everyone, I think he actually does but most people are so stubborn that they don't change anyway. |
i'm going to stop you here, too, and point out how poor that argument is.
Suppose God really loved us, and didn't want us to suffer at all - let alone suffer for all eternity. Now, imagine you were in God's sandals, and you had a person who was essentially good, but doubted the existence of God (for obvious reasons). All this person would need in order to believe is for God to appear before her in private, and offer her a few very brief answers to the questions that trouble her the most. Hell, even saying, "I'm sorry, I can't answer that now, but trust me," would be enough... because at least it's coming from God.
That's all it would take for many, many atheists, if not the vast majority of them.
But God doesn't do it. Why not? Is it asking so much? I've heard ministers denounce red-faced with indignation that a person would be so arrogant as to demand something like that from God... but really... is it so much to ask? For a god that allegedly loves us - even for one that sorta kinda likes us, just to prevent us from suffering eternally - is this such a big deal?
Of course, God doesn't do it - ever. Which means that millions of people are going to be damned to suffer eternal torment... because they're stubborn!?!?
| coeus wrote: |
| By your standards truth for you is what is right. |
Uh, no.
| coeus wrote: |
| For you right is everyone goes to heaven to chill either with God or without him, but in a paradise non-the-less. |
Uh, no.
If you're going to tell me what i believe, at least try to come up with some more intelligent beliefs than that.
This is not about what i believe is right, it is about what i know is wrong. A being that is capable preventing suffering, especially when it requires absolutely no effort on their part, should probably do so, sure... but any being that causes suffering for absolutely no reason is definitely evil. There's no two ways about it. Try to give me an example of a good being that makes people suffer for the hell of it, if you can.
There is no reason for "Hell" to exist. And even if there were, there is no reason for God to send people there, unless they've done something bad enough to suffer eternally (forget about God's alleged mercy and forgiveness for the moment), and there is no finite crime that warrants an infinite punishment.
Let's go back to that god-as-parent-humanity-as-child metaphor and see what's really going on. A human parent punishes his child justifiably for something like throwing toys at their sibling. Why is this punishment justifiable? Because it is the only practical way the parent has of teaching the child not to do it. And throwing things at people causes harm, so the parent is actually trying to prevent harm by punishing the child.
Now, if that parent was a god, they could simply have implanted the information in the child's head at creation "don't throw things, it causes harm, and you will be punished". Or they could arrange the universe so that even if the child threw something, it would do no harm. Either way, there would be no need for the punishment.
So exactly what harm does "Hell" prevent?
| coeus wrote: |
| Now biblically you can argue what this hell is. In fact yesterday I heard from a pastor reading a book that there are 4 biblical views of Hell, I am not going to go through them, however the traditional one of burning and suffering for all eternity does in fact seem less-just then you would expect from a just and loving God. Thus there are other views, one which I like but haven't taken as an official stance yet is that there is Heaven, Hell and destruction. For those who praise God, Heaven. Those who spit in Gods face, Hell. Those who do not know God cease to exist, no eternity for them good or bad. This view is backed up scriptually and does make more sense from a just and loving God perspective. |
Make more sense than what? It doesn't make any sense to me at all. It still boils down to this: love me or suffer miserably for all eternity... if you never heard of me, you just die. And this is from an allegedly "just and loving" god?
Hell is one of the most problematic parts of the Christian doctrine, which of course means that apologists have been falling over themselves for centuries trying to put a positive spin on it. But there are two facts that you just cannot ignore.
1.) Jesus himself said that Hell was a place of suffering, fire and brimstone, weeping and "gnashing of teeth" and all that. You can't call Hell "not all that bad" without directly contradicting Jesus. It has become fashionable to try to paint Hell as simply being a metaphor for not being in the company of God. So all those who love God get to go be with him, and all those that don't are simply locked out of heaven... and that alone is enough to cause all the alleged suffering and misery. That's not Biblically supported - Jesus and others happily go into great detail about how God has set aside a place for the sole purpose of making non-believers suffer - and even if it were, it changes nothing. An omnipotent god could surely make the outside of heaven just as nice as the inside... whatever that would take.
2.) People are being sent to suffer simply because they have a hard time believing in ludicrous claims - claims of an intelligent being that is watching over all the time yet does nothing about world hunger or cancer... but that has a distinct interest in our sex lives. It's absurd, but if you don't believe it - with no real supporting evidence - you're doomed to suffer infinitely. Some Christians attempt to argue that it's not just those who believe in God that get rewarded with Heaven, that it's also possible to get rewarded for "good works" even if you don't believe, and the Bible is particularly vague on this. But even if that is true, you still have people being made to suffer eternally for crimes that - on the scale of eternity - are really rather silly. What is the purpose of punishment? Is it not to prevent and/or discourage future offenses, both by the offender and others? How does "Hell" accomplish that? Or maybe it's just the old, reprehensible "eye-for-an-eye" theory... but even then... how does "Hell" accomplish that? If my crime is "spitting in God's face"... i can only do it for 80 years or so, right? (Not to mention... how cruel is making anyone suffer the torment and agony allegedly attached to Hell simply because they "spat in your face", anyway?)
| coeus wrote: |
| I was going to stop there, but I can't let this quote of yours go: "...punishes us when we learn the lessons wrong" What do you mean by "learn the lessons wrong" ? I suspect you mean something along the lines of "learning the hard way" type of thinking where you learn something is wrong by first doing it then realizing that it is wrong. |
No, that is not what i mean.
You have said that God gives evidence, but that people are too stubborn to see it. That is not true. There have been many atheists who want to believe in God. Jean-Paul Sartre said: "That God does not exist, I cannot deny. That my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget." These people are looking, and they are hoping to find God, but they do not.
If it is true that God is trying to avoid people suffering for all eternity, then it makes sense that - as you claim - he provides evidence of his existence. But obviously, not everyone is getting the message. You blame this on their stubbornness. i think Sartre's quote, and the example i gave a little further up, show that that's a load of bullocks. People are looking, honestly and earnestly, and finding nothing. Why? Either the signs are too vague (which would be God's fault), or those people looking have simply failed to realize them for what they are... in which case, they will be punished for an eternity for being imperfect (and who's fault is it that we weren't created perfect?), punished simply for failing to learn something on the first try.
| coeus wrote: |
Thus...I don't have all the answers but I do know God is just and good, thus whatever reality is, I trust in Gods judgement to make it fair.
In other words, I don't know for fact what happends to the "...or die" people but I do know God is just, so whatever it is that does happen, when I find out I won't feel that it is unfair or unjust. |
And that it essentially what it all comes down to. You have no reason for believing any of those things, but you choose to anyway. All fine and good, there's nothing wrong with that.
But i will apparently suffer an eternity of torment because i want a reason.
Yay, God.Never heard of the 2 creation story theory before, but if you read it you would see that it's the same story. First is an outline of the week, then a more detailed account of the creation of man. You are making peas and carrots out of a mixed veg dish.
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Source
The above link should explain the Jesus death day issue. Any of the discrepencies in the gospels are small details that come around when you have 4 different people, at 4 different times reaccounting what happened. Nothing which matters and nothing which changes the main story (which they all agree on) So it's not 4 different stories, just 4 different accounts.
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The rest of the issues all seem to stem around the problem with evil. The fact that suffering exists and why a loving God would allow that to exist.
Let me ask you this....what happends to a human who cannot feel pain? Ever hear of Leprosy? Think about that for a sec. Ok, what do you see happening to them? Missing limbs? Scars? Random injuries? Of course...why? Because pain is what let's us know when we are doing something harmful. Without pain we would all be a wreck. Sin and Pain share a lot in common. WIthout the concept of Sin we would be unable to know what is Good. After all, how can you even think of the concept of Good and Love without Evil and Hate. By defination Love and Good wouldn't exist without their counterparts. Just as pain let's us know when we are harming ourselves physically. Sin let's us know when we are hurting ourselves spiritually.
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| Quote: |
And that it essentially what it all comes down to. You have no reason for believing any of those things, but you choose to anyway. All fine and good, there's nothing wrong with that.
But i will apparently suffer an eternity of torment because i want a reason.
Yay, God. |
I do have a reason...the bible and God tells me so.
I have no clue what the afterlife has in store for you. The bible paints a picture of a loving and just God, which means whatever happends to you will be just. Does that mean you will be tortured? God I hope not, that wouldn't be very just, then again I don't know you're situation. God didn't create humans. I think we evolved from thousands of other organisms throughout the life of the Earth.
| coeus wrote: |
| Never heard of the 2 creation story theory before, but if you read it you would see that it's the same story. First is an outline of the week, then a more detailed account of the creation of man. You are making peas and carrots out of a mixed veg dish. |
It's interesting how quickly you went from never having heard of the two creation stories to being such an expert on it that you can so casually dismiss the conclusions of Biblical scholars. ^_^;
| coeus wrote: |
Source
The above link should explain the Jesus death day issue. Any of the discrepencies in the gospels are small details that come around when you have 4 different people, at 4 different times reaccounting what happened. Nothing which matters and nothing which changes the main story (which they all agree on) So it's not 4 different stories, just 4 different accounts. |
Does it explain the day of Jesus' death? i don't know, but i seriously doubt it. After all, people have been trying to figure this contradiction out for centuries.
Do i care? No, not really. Rather than trusting the word of some random Internet preacher, if i ever wanted to know whether the contradiction was really resolved, i would trust the word of Biblical scholarship.
Why am i so dismissive of this evidence? Because it has nothing to do with what i was talking about. ^_^;
What i said was "... try and figure out whether Jesus was crucified on the day before or the day after Passover". i didn't say anything about Friday or Saturday or Thursday. i said Passover. It doesn't matter what day you choose to stick Passover on. All that matters is whether the crucifixion was before or after it. And the reason why this is a problem is because one book has them celebrating Passover the day before... and another has them doing it the day after... whatever those days may be. Juggle the days all you like, but unless they had two Passovers that year, you still have a contradiction.
| coeus wrote: |
| Let me ask you this....what happends to a human who cannot feel pain? Ever hear of Leprosy? Think about that for a sec. |
Do you seriously think no one's thought about that before? ^_^;
Before i give my answer, let's see yours: | coeus wrote: |
| Ok, what do you see happening to them? Missing limbs? Scars? Random injuries? Of course...why? Because pain is what let's us know when we are doing something harmful. Without pain we would all be a wreck. |
To which i am obligated to ask...
...
... why should there be anything harmful?
Seriously, taking leprosy as an analogy - leprosy is bad because it takes away pain (simplistic, but it will suffice), and since pain acts as a warning system to let us know when we are damaging ourselves, taking it away means that we can do serious damage to ourselves that we would otherwise avoid. Thus, pain protects us from greater damage.
But why must there be any damage at all? Why couldn't we have been made invulnerable? God could have done it without too much effort. Hell, with enough technology - and really, the technology needed isn't that far away - i could do it, so why couldn't God?
If there's no way we can be damaged, then we don't need pain to act as a warning system to prevent it. Which makes the whole leprosy example moot.
| coeus wrote: |
| Sin and Pain share a lot in common. WIthout the concept of Sin we would be unable to know what is Good. After all, how can you even think of the concept of Good and Love without Evil and Hate. By defination Love and Good wouldn't exist without their counterparts. Just as pain let's us know when we are harming ourselves physically. Sin let's us know when we are hurting ourselves spiritually. |
There are dozens of problems with this argument. Let me give you just a couple briefly.
First: does God know what sin is? Answer: he must. He can't punish us for sin if he can't even identify it. Does God suffer? Does God have to sin just because he knows what it is? Does God get punished? Is God going to Hell? No to all. So why must we? Clearly God possesses an understanding of sin, but that doesn't make him a sinner. It also doesn't require that he suffer. And it certainly doesn't require punishment. So we could know all about sin and evil, without being sinners or require punishment. Yet somehow the Christian doctrine concludes that because we were granted the knowledge of sin, that was enough to damn us unconditionally... to the point where we're all born sinners and require spiritual cleansing.
Second: We have intelligence. We are capable of abstract thinking and of imagination - and we are even capable of imagining things that are impossible. We can imagine a perfect vacuum, although it is impossible for it to exist in the universe (so obviously we haven't observed it). We can imagine what would happen at absolute zero temperature... even though it is physically impossible. Hell, surely you don't think that a doctor has to have cancer to understand it, treat it and potentially cure it, do you? So why must we experience evil in order to understand it? Why is it impossible for an omnipotent God to simply grant us the knowledge of what evil is in order to understand why it is wrong?
| coeus wrote: |
| Quote: | And that it essentially what it all comes down to. You have no reason for believing any of those things, but you choose to anyway. All fine and good, there's nothing wrong with that.
But i will apparently suffer an eternity of torment because i want a reason.
Yay, God. |
I do have a reason...the bible and God tells me so.
I have no clue what the afterlife has in store for you. The bible paints a picture of a loving and just God, which means whatever happends to you will be just. Does that mean you will be tortured? God I hope not, that wouldn't be very just, then again I don't know you're situation. |
So your evidence that God is good is that God says he's good. ^_^; So... O.J. didn't do it either, right?
Let's be honest. When you say you don't know what the afterlife has in store for me, what you're really saying is you don't want to think about it, or you don't want to believe it. Because you do know what the afterlife allegedly has in store for me (or rather, if not me personally, a hypothetical good non-Christian). It's explicitly clear in the Bible (which, presumably, you believe) - Jesus himself was explicit about it.
Further, you're fully aware that it's problematic - you even go so far as to say that it's not even just. However, you dismiss it all saying that you trust God because God tells you God is trustworthy (hell, not even that - you trust God because a person claiming to speak for God tells you that God is trustworthy... and he also tells you that God says that the person currently speaking for him is trustworthy, too). Fair enough - you're free to do that if you want to. But the problem is there, and your wilful denial of it does not make it go away for anyone else that is trying to consider it. You have told me to simply not worry about it because there's nothing i can do about it. You have told me that the only reason i can't/won't see the answer is that i'm too stubborn, yet you failed to provide the answer and even go so far as to admit you don't have it. And you've also told me, more or less, the old Christian saw: don't worry about the details, just trust that it all makes sense in the greater scheme of things and believe whatever the preacher tells you. i hope you can understand why none of those answers is satisfactory to someone who really cares about finding out the truth of the matter here.
If i were to assume that God exists, that's not enough to warrant worshipping him. So he created me, and so he's powerful... so what? i do not bow to my parents unconditionally, and i certainly don't bow to whoever has the most power. And i'm certainly not going trust the barely comprehensible and contradictory ramblings of a group of first century mystics. If i were to assume that God exists, i would have to use the evidence i see around me and my own intelligence to come to a conclusion of whether he's good or not, and whether he deserves my respect or not. Because if God exists, and he's not good, then i cannot bow to him, even if it means my destruction.
And that is why i ask questions like "why did God create us?", and why i pursue the answers with such vigour. There are jackasses on Frihost who seem to have little better to do than go from thread to thread asserting or implying that i have some kind of personal hate on for Christianity (or whatever their pet religion happens to be, or even religion in general). Bullshit. There's my reasoning, right there, in black and white. i want the truth, and i will not compromise until i find it. i have spent my life studying these questions and the answers given on all sides, and not only simply studying debates, but studying how to debate, how to how to reason, and how to study and learn. i've learned as much as i could about cognitive biases and failures of human reasoning processes. i will question everything that people believe about God, the afterlife, human nature, religion and everything else, and i will challenge anyone that claims to know the answers.
Which is how i got here. i'm sorry, but there is no way i can accept that the only way to find God is to blindly trust a bizarre old story book with wizards and talking animals that is chock full of horrible ethics, bad science and contradictory statements, written by anonymous ancient mystics with a questionable pedigree. So i'm looking elsewhere. What am i missing?Creation story:
I didn't say I was an expert, just that I actually read it. Just because some "biblical scholars" said something doesn't make it true. I could call myself a biblical scholar and say one thing, does it make it true? No, you want truth read the bible, don't trust other peoples words on it. Take them into consideration, maybe, but not as truth until you read for yourself. But for arguments sake, if some biblical scholars are right, and this is some huge debate, I prolly would have heard of it before. I have also done studying, i'm not just some guy.
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*sigh* You trust what biblical scholars say about creation, but not what this guy says? Maybe not trust in what his views are, but at least look at his evidence. I am not going to argue that point, I think the article I linked says it best. (Passover is on a day of the week buddy)
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Why can't we be invulnerable? Not sure how to keep the answer short. Love?
God is love, anything else is hate. Invulnerable would be lack of pain. We couldn't choose between love and hate if we can't feel the pain. Pain and hate go hand and hand. Think about hate for a sec. When you hate something or someone, what do you want to do? Beat the crap out of it, cause it pain. Make it feel the hate you have inside for it.
It's really good that you were questioning, wondering, searching. That's what God has called us to do. He didn't want blind followers, hence why we are here in the first place. There are too many blind Christians out there, just following to follow (there is a parable about this actually, Mark 4:13-20). Not knowing what truth is, or even seeking it. I am also always seeking truth. And you are right, I don't want to think about what the afterlife has in store for you. I don't want to think about you going to hell or any other place of suffering. We shoud love one another, and as such I love you. I don't want you to goto hell. The reason I say I don't know where you are going is that I don't. God has said to follow him, however I don't know what you are doing. You have rejected or at least question what the world says God is, however you are searching for truth. I believe God is truth. So you are in essence searching for God. I believe in your heart you really love and want God.
p.s. I think God's word has a little more validity then OJs
| Indi wrote: |
| So your evidence that God is good is that God says he's good. ^_^; So... O.J. didn't do it either, right? |
Of course O.J. did not do it; the glove didn't fit, remember?
I feel that we have trailed off the original subject of why God created humans.
| coeus wrote: |
| God created man to love him. |
You claim that God created man to love him. However, within the very book of Genesis, God banished his own creations from the Garden of Eden because they ate fruit from the Forbidden Tree which God himself put there in the first place. How does this show love? So Adam and Eve did something wrong; I have done many things wrong in my life but that didn't make my father banish me from the house when I still lived with them. Both of my parent's love is unconditional. No matter what I do, they will always love me. I thought God's love was supposed to be unconditional too. But the Bible (at least to me) is implying that God's love is only unconditional if you do what you are told. Sorry, but by definition, that is NOT unconditional love.
It is possible that I am missing a piece of the story, or that I have made an error in my logic. If I have, please, point it out. I am not closeminded, against religion, the Bible, or even God...I am just trying to find truth, and learn as much as I possibly can.God's love was still there post Eden. He was pissed that they disopeyed them, so he banished them from 'heaven on Earth'. I am sure if you Father put you into an awesome place, and you blatently disobeyed he would put you somewhere else. He still loves you though.
| coeus wrote: |
| God's love was still there post Eden. He was pissed that they disopeyed them, so he banished them from 'heaven on Earth'. I am sure if you Father put you into an awesome place, and you blatently disobeyed he would put you somewhere else. He still loves you though. |
I see a couple things wrong with your response. Please know that I respect you and your beliefs (whatever they may be), and I am not trying to prove you wrong or anyone else wrong. With that in mind...
First, the Bible implies that God is not only all knowing, but is all loving too. To me, this means that God would love everything unconditionally. So, even if God created an awesome place and they disobeyed Him, based upon the definition of unconditional, God should still love them anyway and forgive them. Isn't that one of the foundations of any religion: forgiveness?
Secondly, even if the above was not true, I don't see examples of God's love for them post-Eden. Adam and Eve suffered many hardships trying to survive outside of Eden. If memory serves me correctly, I do not remember God trying to lend a hand to help them out either. How does letting your creations suffer show love?
I guess I am just not seeing it?Gotta remember that God is both Love AND Just. They disobeyed God and deserved to be punished for doing so, else people would just walk all over God and his forgiveness.
Post Eden hardships, those were brought on by their disobeying, not God. God made the rule, they broke it, what's the point of the rule if there is no punishment for breaking it? Also note that their sufferings were caused by them and/or Satan. God does not bring harm upon them for no reason. God's love is shown in his gift of eternal paradise in heaven.
People are special creations, not just different animals. God created people to be his friends and to take care of the world. Unlike animals, human beings can talk to each other and to God. People are the only part of God's marvelous creation that can be friends with God. And he created them perfect - that's why Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their nakedness. But people are also the only ones who can sin.
| Quote: |
| Then God said, "Let us make a man - someone like ourselves. He will be the master of all life upon the earth and in the skies and in the seas." So God made man like his Maker. Like God did God make man. Man and maid did he make them. (Genesis 1:26-27) |
Angels are spiritual beings created by God. They are different from human beings. You are a spiritual being, too. In other words, you have a soul and will live forever and can know God. But you are also a physical being. You live on earth and have a physical body. When you die, you will leave your physical body behind and will be given a glorified or perfect body in heaven. We don't know exactly what our glorified bodies will be like, but we know that people in heaven will be able to recognize us. One thing is for sure, we don't become angels when we die. In fact, angels will serve us in heaven. Wow! | coeus wrote: |
Creation story:
I didn't say I was an expert, just that I actually read it. Just because some "biblical scholars" said something doesn't make it true. I could call myself a biblical scholar and say one thing, does it make it true? |
You could call yourself a nuclear physicist and make a claim about nuclear science. Would it make that claim true or false? Answer: i don't know. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. But the fact that you're not really a nuclear scientist means that i don't really have to put much stock in what you say unless you really back it up.
Now if a real nuclear scientist comes along and makes a claim about nuclear science, should you believe that claim? Of course you should, unless you have reason to believe that he's lying (or unless you're a nuclear scientist, too, and you're smarter than him and realize that he's wrong).
Well, i mean, that would be the rational thing to do. If you wanted to be irrational about it, you could simply dismiss the claims of the established experts in the field who have been studying the field all their life and have been recognized by similarly well-educated peers as being experts... and just read a physics textbook yourself and come to your own conclusions. Kinda like...
| coeus wrote: |
| No, you want truth read the bible, don't trust other peoples words on it. Take them into consideration, maybe, but not as truth until you read for yourself. |
... that. ^_^
| coeus wrote: |
| But for arguments sake, if some biblical scholars are right, and this is some huge debate, I prolly would have heard of it before. I have also done studying, i'm not just some guy. |
Ya?
One quick Google later, and here are the first few results (except i cut out the most blatant anti-Bible results, like from "Skeptics Annotated Bible", but i left the most blatant pro-Bible results in):
Apologetics Press - Are There Two Creation Accounts in Genesis?
Doesn't Genesis One Contradict Genesis Two?
Creation according to Genesis - Single vs. dual account
The History of Genesis and the Creation Stories
Genesis Creation Stories - Form, Structure, and Relationship
When was the beginning - The two Creation events
Which Creation Biblical Story?
Total search results: 2,110,000
Keep studying! ^_^
| coeus wrote: |
| *sigh* You trust what biblical scholars say about creation, but not what this guy says? Maybe not trust in what his views are, but at least look at his evidence. I am not going to argue that point, I think the article I linked says it best. (Passover is on a day of the week buddy) |
1.) No because he's not a biblical scholar. ^_^;
2.) His evidence has nothing to do with my objection, so i don't need to bother checking it out.
3,) Passover is on a day of the week? Wow, i thought it was on a day that wasn't in the week. ^_^; It doesn't matter what day Thanksgiving comes on. If i have two people telling me that event A happened both before and after Thanksgiving dinner, i have a contradiction. One of them must be lying. That wacky little bit of logic works for Passover, too, amazingly enough.
| coeus wrote: |
Why can't we be invulnerable? Not sure how to keep the answer short. Love?
God is love, anything else is hate. Invulnerable would be lack of pain. We couldn't choose between love and hate if we can't feel the pain. |
i'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you've never experienced death. So how can you choose not to kill someone (painlessly)? According to your theory, that's just impossible - if you haven't experienced it, you can't choose to (not) do it, right?
You probably also haven't experienced being instantaneously disintegrated. So you're unable to choose not to disintegrate someone?
Or... maybe you could choose not to cause pain without actually experiencing it, based only on the intellectual knowledge that it would be unpleasant. There is no need to actually experience it.
God can love without feeling pain or hate, right? Angels can't feel pain, but they can love and hate (God, at least - we don't know if they can love and hate each other or other people). So it is obviously possible somehow to love without experiencing pain. You can take another stab at it if you want, because you seem determined not to take my word that there is no solution to this problem - but i'll say it again, there is no need for us to suffer. Which means that whatever reason God created us for, part of his reason is that we must suffer... not because he can't do anything to stop us from suffering, but because he wants us to suffer, for whatever his final goal might be.
| coeus wrote: |
| p.s. I think God's word has a little more validity then OJs |
Based on what? God's word, right? ^_^;
But not even that, hm? Unless God is talking to you personally, you can't really say what God's word is, can you? You're always going through a middle man, aren't you?What is your defination of a biblical scholar? I can find out the credentials for a 'real nuclear scientist' to make sure s/he is one. But what about a biblical scholar?
Your google results are right, as you stated there are people out there that think there are 2 creation stories. Congrats....what's your point? There are tons of things out there believed by tons of people, doesn't make it right. I will say that it is possible for the 2 creation story, I have to say so to be fair, however I don't believe that's the case. I really think it is obviously 1 story. There may be 'biblical scholars' who say otherwise, but doesn't make them right or sane. There are millions of catholics out there getting the bible wrong, but doesn't make them right either.
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Here is the day of his death, all before "preparation day" (prep for passover):
Matt 27:62 - Describes the day of checking for his body as the day after prep. (3 days after he died, which would be the day before prep)
Mark 15:42, Luke 23: 53-54, John 19:42 - Describe the day of his death as "pre-prep"
I shoulda just quoted the bible from the beginning rather then relying on others to covey the truth.
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I think you mis-understood me. I was trying to say that love and hate by defination are comparisons of eachother. Therefore, by defination, you can't have love without hate. If you have one, then it is really just missing the other. Love and hate are experienced by referance, just like hot and cold. Having moved from northern USA to southern, I have found that people have differant definations of hot and cold. People down here in FL don't know what cold is. They freeze up when it hits 50. 50 is still sandels for me because back in MD, below 40 was cold. 50 isn't so bad. So, my point.... How can you TRUELY experience love without hate? How can these people down in FL truely experience cold when they haven't been there? Heck, most haven't even seen snow.
You took my example to the extreme with the example that how can we choose not to kill someone since we haven't experienced it. In actually we have experienced. While I have not killed anyone myself, I have felt the pain of loss, I know that pain and wouldn't wish it on anyone. Thus I choose love and would not purposely kill anyone.
You don't think people have to experience pain before choosing not to do it? Have you ever been around kids? Obeserve kids, you can see it in them. They do things and learn from them, or experience something close to it to compare it to. When my little cousin was 2-3ish she didn't understand the pain of heat. Didn't really understand why you shouldn't touch the oven when mommy is cooking. She was told again and again, heat, hurts, no touchie. Holding her in her arms my aunt was cooking something, turned her face to answer a question from my uncle and my cousin reached down and touched the pan. Didn't burn bad, but enough for her to realize what that was. We couldn't compare the feeling to anything else before, but now she knows what heat is.
Ever heard the saying "it is better to have loved and lost then to have never loved" It's the same principal. We can try to explain what love is, compare it to other feelings, but to truely know it, you have to experience it.
God has felt pain, pain when people disobey and fall. Pain when people hurt other people. Not sure if Angels can or not. Although if lucifer knew what pain was maybe he wouldn't have decided to disobey? And maybe that's the reason for life. Angels were Gods first creation, chilling with them, they didn't know pain, didn't really erperience it, so some decided to try other things and disobey God. So now he created the Earth for us to experience true love and hate.
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Christianity is not about a religion, not about attending church, or doing outreach, it is about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. A personal one. So yes, I do "talk to God personally". So in that respect I do have authority in God's word...the question for you is..is the person I am talking to God or some personality inside feeding off of my desire for God? I'll leave that for you to decide. | coeus wrote: |
| What is your defination of a biblical scholar? |
A person who studies the Bible not in order to justify their faith or to understand God, but to understand the Bible itself, what it says, what it means, where it came from, how it evolved, who wrote it and so on.
Studying the Bible just to affirm your faith is intellectual masturbation. If you already know the Bible is right, then all you have to do is try to fudge over the obvious glaring holes in it. That field is called Apologetics, and it is completely unrelated to Biblical scholarship.
| coeus wrote: |
| I can find out the credentials for a 'real nuclear scientist' to make sure s/he is one. But what about a biblical scholar? |
Same process.
| coeus wrote: |
| Your google results are right, as you stated there are people out there that think there are 2 creation stories. Congrats....what's your point? |
*sigh* Short attention spans these days.
Alright, here's a recap, paraphrased:
Me: It is not easy to answer the thread's question because it is so hard to come up with consistent explanations for the Bible that don't contradict it.
You: I disagree.
Me: Consider trying to explain what happened during creation. There are two contradictory accounts of it in Genesis. Which one do you use? (Either one you pick, if you go into enough detail, you will end up contradicting the other.)
You: There is only one creation story. Provide scriptural evidence that there's two.
Me: *provides scriptural evidence*
You: I still see only one story, and I've never heard of this theory of your before.
Me: *points out that Biblical scholars favour the two story theory*
You: Who cares what the experts say? Anyway, I don't believe that this is a real debate because I would have heard of it because of my studying.
Me: *provides evidence that it's a real debate*
You: Well, I don't believe that there's such thing as a Biblical scholar. Ok, so there is some debate that somehow I missed in my "studying". I still choose to ignore the words of the experts (probably won't even bother to look them up to see if Indi is telling the truth or not). In defiance of all the obvious uncertainty, and the word of the experts, I still choose to go with my own layperson's opinion on the matter. Oh, and Catholics suck.
See my point now? It is not easy to answer the thread's question because it is so hard to come up with consistent explanations for the Bible that don't contradict it. And the main cause of that is the vague and contradictory nature of the text itself.
| coeus wrote: |
| There are tons of things out there believed by tons of people, doesn't make it right. I will say that it is possible for the 2 creation story, I have to say so to be fair, however I don't believe that's the case. I really think it is obviously 1 story. There may be 'biblical scholars' who say otherwise, but doesn't make them right or sane. |
^_^; Oh, yes, obviously these people who have studied the text inside out and backwards all their lives - in the original languages - must have got it wrong... but you, probably using a Bible that's two translations removed from the original source (assuming KJV) and probably without a single iota of training in textual criticism, you must have got it right.
i thought one of the tenets of Christianity was humility. ^_^;
| coeus wrote: |
| There are millions of catholics out there getting the bible wrong, but doesn't make them right either. |
^_^; Ah, religious bigotry within a religion always makes me chuckle.
| coeus wrote: |
Here is the day of his death, all before "preparation day" (prep for passover):
Matt 27:62 - Describes the day of checking for his body as the day after prep. (3 days after he died, which would be the day before prep)
Mark 15:42, Luke 23: 53-54, John 19:42 - Describe the day of his death as "pre-prep"
I shoulda just quoted the bible from the beginning rather then relying on others to covey the truth. |
Shoulda, but you shoulda done it correctly, too.
Here's a hint... check your Mark verse more carefully. The verse you quoted has nothing to do with Passover. You are inserting your own interpretation into the text, rather than simply reading it to see what it says.
| coeus wrote: |
| I think you mis-understood me. I was trying to say that love and hate by defination are comparisons of eachother. Therefore, by defination, you can't have love without hate. If you have one, then it is really just missing the other. Love and hate are experienced by referance, just like hot and cold. Having moved from northern USA to southern, I have found that people have differant definations of hot and cold. People down here in FL don't know what cold is. They freeze up when it hits 50. 50 is still sandels for me because back in MD, below 40 was cold. 50 isn't so bad. So, my point.... How can you TRUELY experience love without hate? How can these people down in FL truely experience cold when they haven't been there? Heck, most haven't even seen snow. |
Alright, let's assume that's true for a moment. Think about what that means for the universe.
If it is true that love and hate are simply different points on the same scale, like cold and hot for temperature, is it possible to have a universe without hate? Or, similarly, is it possible to have a universe without cold?
It is.
Suppose God wanted to create a universe entirely without cold. First let's assume that there is some temperature that is "absolute hot" - a temperature that you can't go any higher (this is only temporary - in a moment we'll assume there's not). Then all God would have to do is create a universe that is at that temperature, as high as it could go, with nothing colder and nowhere for the heat energy to go. Voilà, a universe without cold. By the same method, create a universe that's all love with no evil, and voilà, a universe without evil.
Or, maybe there is no absolute hot, and the scale keeps going on and on ad infinitum. What should God do? All he has to do is find a level of "hot" that is suitably hot, or "hot enough", and set the entire universe to that level. Every single point in the entire universe will be at that temperature, so no one will feel cold. Voilà, another universe without cold. By the same method, God could have created a universe that had all love and good and happiness at the maximum level that is ever seen in this universe... and simply distributed it evenly throughout the whole universe, so there is no where that has less love (and is therefore evil by comparison). Once again, voilà, a universe without any evil.
| coeus wrote: |
| You don't think people have to experience pain before choosing not to do it |