A truly loving God...

Originally posted by cpbrown
wow! a straight answer!! 😀 at long last :p now any offerings as to the implications of the basis for your knowledge about jesus being subjective and unreliable*

*i assume you know about the fact that the events in the bible are probably quite far from the truth, due to practices in the early church

If you wish to get into a debate about the reliability of Scripture, you will be sorely disappointed in looking to me. Having hashed over it privately for years from all angles as well as engaged in several debates herein more recently, I consider the issue so far beyond resolved as to forswear darkening the threshhold of conversation ever again.

I refuse to engage in any apologetics for the body of work framed within the Bible; not from fear of discovery, but from the boredom produced. You may as well start denying the Holocaust.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I also believe that the Bible needs to be "interpreted in light of the time in which it was written." Where we seem to differ, is that I also believe that it needs to be interpreted in light of the words of Jesus rather than "in light of the whole of Scripture" like you do.

I certainly do not "superficially and literally apply each and every word." Wh ...[text shortened]... that the "Christianity" that you've constructed will come down like a house of cards.

I derive no such comfort. I would prefer that everyone saw things the way I do: it'd make me feel that much smarter for doing so myself. However, in viewing some of your posts in various threads, I am convinced of your inflexibility when it comes to the spiritual life. One cannot live by the red letters without understanding all the black ones, too.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
If you wish to get into a debate about the reliability of Scripture, you will be sorely disappointed in looking to me. Having hashed over it privately for years from all angles as well as engaged in several debates herein more recently, I consider the issue so far beyond resolved as to forswear darkening the threshhold of conversation ever again.

I ref ...[text shortened]... fear of discovery, but from the boredom produced. You may as well start denying the Holocaust.

haha...Freaky.

I wonder do you exist on this earth for anything more than comic relief? While your attitude has always been smug, and your tone condescending, this last statement really takes the cake.

If I didn't know better I would think you are in reality an atheist who finds it amusing to create outrageous caricatures of theists on internet forums. Of course, I guess I don't know better...rwillis...is that you?

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
- Bertrand Russell

Originally posted by TheSkipper
haha...Freaky.

I wonder do you exist on this earth for anything more than comic relief? While your attitude has always been smug, and your tone condescending, this last statement really takes the cake.

If I didn't know better I would think you are in reality an atheist who finds it amusing to create outrageous caricatures of theists on internet f ...[text shortened]... e always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
- Bertrand Russell

Flattery will get you somewhere. Thanks for your readership, nonetheless.

Originally posted by cpbrown
I could speculate that you are human ... it's likely enough that by stating the FACT that you are human is fact enough the be stated thus without being called a liar.

I was concentrating on the "overcoming sin" part of the argument, his assertions about your beliefs I have no knowledge of and so can not comment. However you called him a liar which I don't good intellect? I don't think you've made a very good first impression in these posts.

"I was concentrating on the "overcoming sin" part of the argument, his assertions about your beliefs I have no knowledge of and so can not comment. However you called him a liar which I don't believe is true - and seems to be another example of your inability to coherently deal with the issues within this thread, and instead resolve to using petty insults."

So let me see if I understand this. KM made an assertion that he represented as fact. It is a compound statement containing three components that are "logically anded". For him to represent the assertion as fact, he needs to have knowledge of all three components and know them to be true. He doesn't have knowledge of all three components which makes the assertion false. He made this assertion knowing that it was false, which makes him a liar.

You on the other hand, readily admit that you have no knowledge of two of the components and realistically you also have no knowledge of the third. Yet, you state that you don't believe him a liar and give my calling him a liar as an example of MY "inability to coherently deal with the issues." Fascinating.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I derive no such comfort. I would prefer that everyone saw things the way I do: it'd make me feel that much smarter for doing so myself. However, in viewing some of your posts in various threads, I am convinced of your inflexibility when it comes to the spiritual life. One cannot live by the red letters without understanding all the black ones, too.

Still no response to the questions. Interesting.

Originally posted by Jake Ellison
Would anyone here consider it unreasonable to suggest that a truly loving God should never have created life in the first place? By the very act of creating a being that he knows will not worship or believe in him he effectively condems them to an eternity of torture if we are to assume Christianity correct. Any argument about free will is irrelevant. W ...[text shortened]... will spend eternity in hell. If I was to end up in hell I'd much prefer to never have existed.

During creation it was not a matter of someone having to "believe in
Him" as we find ourselves now. God walked with Adam and Eve, it was
a matter of taking God at His Word, and even now that is still an
issue with us. Life could have been different, we made it other wise,
and blaming God for our choices seems a bit, self centered to me.
Kelly

Originally posted by Jake Ellison
Got a link?

I knew the question was asked at some point. Here is a link to one of the threads discussing the attributes of God.
Thread 38989

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I knew the question was asked at some point. Here is a link to one of the threads discussing the attributes of God.
Thread 38989

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Originally posted by KellyJay
During creation it was not a matter of someone having to "believe in
Him" as we find ourselves now. God walked with Adam and Eve, it was
a matter of taking God at His Word, and even now that is still an
issue with us. Life could have been different, we made it other wise,
and blaming God for our choices seems a bit, self centered to me.
Kelly

Indeed, remember, I myself do not blame God for my choises, I do not believe in God. As we do exist in this day and age, and if we assume God exists, then he knew that at that it would become a matter of belief and not knowleage. Adam and Eve are somewhat irrelevant therefore. I'm sure you'll see what I mean if you read through my earlier posts and see the basis of my argument. Adam and Eve are also interesting and I feel there are interesting points to be made about them, but probably not in this thread, as they are irrelevant here. Maybe a new thread at some point would be fun...

Originally posted by Jake Ellison
Indeed, remember, I myself do not blame God for my choises, I do not believe in God. As we do exist in this day and age, and if we assume God exists, then he knew that at that it would become a matter of belief and not knowleage. Adam and Eve are somewhat irrelevant therefore. I'm sure you'll see what I mean if you read through my earlier posts and see ...[text shortened]... in this thread, as they are irrelevant here. Maybe a new thread at some point would be fun...

Believe or not in God, simply taking blame and credit for one's own
actions is an important point in life. Personally, I think one of God's
greatest actions was to give us the will and ability to make our own
choices. The crime was, is, and will be what we do with our will, and the
choices we make. Acknowledging God or not does not take away we
are the ones making this world the way it is.
Kelly

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
If you wish to get into a debate about the reliability of Scripture, you will be sorely disappointed in looking to me. Having hashed over it privately for years from all angles as well as engaged in several debates herein more recently, I consider the issue so far beyond resolved as to forswear darkening the threshhold of conversation ever again.

I ref ...[text shortened]... fear of discovery, but from the boredom produced. You may as well start denying the Holocaust.

Sure, Freaky, but only by outright denial. I mean, you never resolved the issue about the
stone at the tomb, or the order in which people found out about the Resurrection. It was only
by your 'asked and answered' attitude that everyone engaged in that debate gave up.

You can stick your fingers in your ears and sing 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God' all you want; I
know you're too literate and intelligent to maintain this façade of confidence even with the
anonymity of the internet.

Nemesio

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
"I was concentrating on the "overcoming sin" part of the argument, [b]his assertions about your beliefs I have no knowledge of and so can not comment. However you called him a liar which I don't believe is true - and seems to be another example of your inability to coherently deal with the issues within this thread, and instead resolve to using pet liar as an example of MY "inability to coherently deal with the issues." Fascinating.[/b]

Calling him a liar when you constantly beat about the bush is very close to hypocrisy - you could have pointed out to me earlier when I kept on about your inability to overcome sin, that it wasn't that you had an issue with, rather the other statements. However - in line with the majority of your arguments, you were incapable of simply stating the relevant point at hand, and rather continued to condemn rather than correct.

"another example of your inability to coherently deal with the issues"

So to get back to the main point, do you believe a loving god would have created people he knew would spend an eternity in hell?

I certainly don't think so. It seems a more logical explanation to reject god altogether.

Originally posted by cpbrown
Calling him a liar when you constantly beat about the bush is very close to hypocrisy - you could have pointed out to me earlier when I kept on about your inability to overcome sin, that it wasn't that you had an issue with, rather the other statements. However - in line with the majority of your arguments, you were incapable of simply stating the relevant p

I certainly don't think so. It seems a more logical explanation to reject god altogether.

Listen, you jumped into the middle of a conversation between KM and I with your judgement when you had no understanding whatsoever of the situation. You had no knowledge of whether any of the three components were true. You had no knowledge of whether KM had knowledge of whether any of the three components were true. You STILL have no such knowledge of ANY of the three components. This IS the relevant point at hand and I've been telling you so. Your latest post tells me that you still don't seem to fully understand this. How you can still make statements like "...you could have pointed out to me earlier when I kept on about your inability to overcome sin, that it wasn't that you had an issue with..." and "...you were incapable of simply stating the relevant point at hand..." is beyond me.

The reality is that you seem incapable of comprehending the relevant points at hand. For you to continue to try put this off on me is ludicrous. If "relevant experience is what counts, as well as intellect", then I suggest you get some.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
so what is this "his system" you talk about
In the Garden, the man and the woman had two systems to choose between: the Tree of Lives or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. For an undetermined amount of time, they persisted in their choice of the former and eschewed the latter. Eventually, as we know and experience, the choice was made for t ...[text shortened]... s me, pleased to meet you.[/b]
Emergent consciousness. What does that mean, exactly?[/b]

i'll address the points by number:

1) this raises an interesting point. adam and eve had no concept of good or bad, other than what god told them, in terms of which fruit to eat. however, when satan came to tempt them, if they had no knowledge of good or evil, how could they be expected to know which to choose from, satan or god? when presented with a new set of these primitive morals - namely that eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil would benefit them, then how could they make any meaningful judgement. one can't suggest that they made a decision to be immoral, as they had no knowledge of morality other than what they were told.
if god were around before they ate the fruit, they probably wouldn't - it was the action of temptation by knowledgeable beings (god and satan) which drove their decision makings. if both god and satan were around, talking to adam and eve, eventually it would become impossible to be guided definitely in one way or another, and so random choosing prevails and eventually the fruit gets eaten. in fact, this does seem to be what happened, as initially there is some hesitation before they eat anything, in which time there is clash of primitive morals, followed by the inevitable eating of the fruit, made possible solely by the temptation of satan.
this disrupts your model of "his system" to some extent by rendering it meaningless, in fact it is almost as if the original creation had no free will built in, rather just a simple reasoning capacity with randomness built in. This challenges many of the points you have made.

2) well exactly, it was a "logical", or one may say, "binary" question. imagine a life in which you had to say yes or no to all dilemmas, but were unaware of the consequences of either, apart from the fact that you were still alive and feeling the same as ever - and you always chose yes because someone had told you to say yes every time. well when someone comes along and says, say no - well you get the point. the binary nature and lack of knowledge of morality - means they did not know what they were choosing, and takes away their autonomy. This makes god's ideal state facile.

3) now this is where you missed the point completely. god knows the future does he not? or is he not the beginning and the end / omniscient? in which case he realised that in his creation, he would be sentencing people to hell. does fatalism remove free will? do we even have free will, or is it only an illusion - to us it wouldn't matter, but to a god, it makes all the difference does it not? omniscience depends on it, free will and thus the "reason" for suffering in the world - and even the whole of creation, or so it seems, rests on this one concept. the criticism of the "freedom" of adam and eve is a very important one.

4) well this is getting far from the point at hand - but we could never understand god's motivations could we?

5) that phrase represents a poor and illogical argument which plays to our emotional wishes. the imperfection of the natural world is as yet inexplicable, any other suggestions?

6) and so you hint towards the real reason for religion (according to many) - a comfort, as this world happens not to fulfil our desires. as c.s.lewis explained why he believed god exists - he naturally thirsts, and would not if water didn't exist, since his body was made to drink water - in the same way he feels the need to believe in god, thus, god exists. i would argue that the need to believe in god is more akin to the human invention of music - its something that emerges from a few basic neurological pathways - the appreciation of rhythm, harmony and melody; so we create our music to satisfy our needs, as we have done with religion. have you noticed that the distribution of different kinds of music is very similar geographically with divides in religion? maybe "music is god's gift to us"?
some, myself included, have just taken to trying and "come to terms" that there is no truth which is accessible directly to us.

7) thanks, i understand where you're coming from now

8) my mind is physical, my experience of it is not (most of the time :p) - we don't have the skills to talk about consciousness (as mentioned in a previous post - when we can explain yellow to a blind person, then we can talk about consciousness in a meaningful way) and so i resort to a fuzzy umbrella term which encompasses the way my consciousness "emerges" from a vast array of molecules.