2012

Alan Fraser

Yeah! Gimme that old time religion.

But let's not get started on the contradictions between the OT and the NT.

tim

@unknownuser said:

...you cannot pass over and neglect God’s words/will, endlessly!

Why not?

He's sort of right in a twisted way. I think that technically you can't ignore something that does not exist. It's the old 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Yes or no?' conundrum.

cornel

Tim,
At first, “you cannot pass over and neglect God” because He has everything under control!

Alan wrote:
“But let's not get started on the contradictions between the OT and the NT.”
Practically, who did study entire Bible, realised that in OT is hidden NT and in NT is discovered/explained OT!

Cornel

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

There is only one Living God, who is over all and through all and in all.

There is no ‘place’ for extra 'veritable' gods!

what's the devil then.. that thing(he?) is a part of christianity right? he's a god, no?

-- Hammond 20:39 (est)

cornel

Jeff,
All entities as angel, devil, archangel, cherub, seraphim, they were direct created by God, and they cannot procreate. They aren’t gods, even sometimes they are named as “sons of God”. All of them have different restrictions – they are limited.

Cornel

cornel

Stinkie,
Step up from that “Exodus 21:24”…, for example to Matthew 5:44 (take, please, entire Bible, don’t be tendentious!):

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you!”

Cornel

cornel

Alan,
I like your chosen verse, respective Matthew 7:1:
“Judge not, that you be not judged.”

It goes ‘side by side’ w/ this one:
“For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” (1 Corinthians 11:31)

Cornel
P.S.: “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” (John 7:24)

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

Jeff,
All entities as angel, devil, archangel, cherub, seraphim, they were direct created by God, and they cannot procreate. They aren’t gods, even sometimes they are named as “sons of God”. All of them have different restrictions – they are limited.

Cornel

so god created absolutely everything.
he created evil but then says don't go near it or you will be punished and burn for all eternity.
creates the desire for a man to love a man but it's one of the worst things to christians. etcetc...

for someone that can design something as functional as the human hand, he sure screwed up with some of the simpler things.. ie - evil is a no-no so why create it in the first place? crime, war, greed, homosexuality, racism, all that ish.. why make it in the first place??

i really don't get the logic at all [really]

Stinkie

@alan fraser said:

Yeah! Gimme that old time religion.

lol! Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?

tomasz

@unknownuser said:

so god created absolutely everything.
he created evil ...

i really don't get the logic at all [really]

The logic is in a free will of all creation, including those who suggested that Our Father has something to hide from us. That he doesn't share all knowledge that he has. I am talking here about the 'father of a lie'.

We are free Jeff. We can do whatever we want, good and evil. It is hard to recognise what is good and what is evil only with reasoning. We can discover and learn that our hearts can distinguish it far more easily than our minds. 'Do not judge' relates to a usage of a pure reasoning when looking at someone else. One can harm a person a lot with a false accusation. Heart can reach deeper and see what the reason can not recognise.

It is you and me who decide what we bring to the World.

Alan Fraser

The concept of an omniscient God makes no sense. If you know everything, then paradoxically you can’t know everything.
For instance, if you are ex-temporal and can see the future then you can’t know what surprise or disappointment are…or hope, or fear…or anything else that depends on not knowing what’s going to happen next. So you are not omniscient.

If you think about it, these are pretty much all the qualities that define us as human beings....other than love. Playing devil's advocate, some might argue that it's a bit rich being judged on being human by some entity that has no idea what it's like to be human.

If, on the other hand, you don't exist outside of time and space and don’t know what the future holds…then, again, you’re not omniscient.

tomasz

@alan fraser said:

The concept of an omniscient God makes no sense. If you know everything, then paradoxically you can’t know everything.

I understand your point. What if omniscient God has created us in his image and decided to become one among us. Then he would know fear, hope and other limitations.

Let assume you create a robot with perfect artificial intelligence, being really a copy of you. Your partner in business is very jealous that it was your idea and your workmanship. You told him that you want to be 'transfered' into a robot. He is so jealous that he decides to screw the robot a little, before you manage to become ONE with the machine. He achieves his goal. You know what he has done, but there are thousands of robots already sold and you know, as an author, that the damage done is not that crucial. You know that you, while being a robot, you can teach others how to overcome the limitations.

Just a story.

I have had different question. If God knew everything, why did he not bypassed all that mess we have to face? Why not crush evil in the beginning? My answer was he could not, because of the free will. The God will achieve the kingdom of love for all his creation that will learn, that to love is an essence of being good, a foundation of a 'heaven'.

Alan Fraser

This looks like it will be an interesting read for all those tying themselves in knots, trying to reconcile modern science with theology.
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/dice.html

cornel

Tomasz wrote:
"Let assume you create a robot with perfect artificial intelligence, being really a copy of you"

Does that robot have soul and spirit?

Tomasz wrote:
"The God will achieve the kingdom of love for all his creation that will learn, that to love is an essence of being good, a foundation of a 'heaven'."

Only love?! How about justice and fairness, holiness, etc.

Cornel

cornel

Jeff,
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good…” (Genesis 1:31)

Re. your conclusion: “so god created absolutely everything; he created evil…”
Evil wasn’t create. Evil is a resultant of anti-God position.
For example a rebelious angel is a demon. Demons weren’t created.
Actual man is different than initial Adam – human ‘components’ were changed!

At the time of creation, God knew about future alteration and provided (at the beginning) the way of ‘restoration’.
God is omniscient, Alan, not only a concept!
In the Bible, there are explained all those things, but, who is studying seriously?!

I saw in above comments that it’s not clear (for many guys) what does it mean this aspect:
“God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.”
“Our image” has different meaning than “like us”, and “like us” doesn’t mean to be identical w/ God !
Friends, do not confuse materials w/ spirituals (and vice versa) and priorities!

Cornel

cornel

Modelhead wrote:
“I'm no longer influenced by a god and it seems that goodness has surrounded me.”

Are you shure?!
Whithout God, good/goodness is very relative, and cannot be defined, because we have no a true reference, a perfect standard…

Theoreticaly , whithout God, we can just realise that things exist or not …, but not if they are good or bad.
Practically, we can distinguish if they are good or bad, because God created us ‘in His image, to be like Him’, and our conscience directs us, using our remaining ‘memory’ regarding God’s moral precepts.

Modelhead wrote: “Our time on earth runs out”

… and, after that?!?

Cornel

solo

@unknownuser said:

Theoretically , without God, we can just realise that things exist or not …, but not if they are good or bad.

That's it isn't it? Religion polarizes everything into good verses evil, however it uses it's own definition of evil based on...well exactly what does it base it on? I can think of many evil christian empires of the past, some evil christian supremacist's of today, evil profit based christian organisation, in fact I see more hate, evil and destruction in religion than anywhere else.

Stinkie

@unknownuser said:

Whithout God, good/goodness is very relative

Of course it is, as it measured by man-made, society-dependant standards.

@unknownuser said:

and cannot be defined, because we have no a true reference, a perfect standard…

Not so fast, Cornel. 'Relative' and 'undefinable' are not interchangeable concepts.

@unknownuser said:

Practically, we can distinguish if they are good or bad, because God created us ‘in His image, to be like Him’, and our conscience directs us, using our remaining ‘memory’ regarding God’s moral precepts.

If there indeed a God, He is without morals, as He has no peers.

@unknownuser said:

… and, after that?!?

Either fire or worms.

solo

@unknownuser said:

… and, after that?!?

That's the crux of religion right?, the afterlife, eternity of bliss, reward for being a diligent follower.

Just for a second imagine there was no afterlife, we are here until we expire and decompose, the cycle of life.
Would that not help you to make every second count? and life without the fear of eternal damnation? Maybe immortality is based on your contributions to our evolutionary world by your actions, people like Einstein, Newton, Hitler, Jesus, Shakespear, Ghengis Khan, Pythagoras, Plato, etc, etc will live on forever based on their life achievements, good or bad.

solo

Just a side note:

Atheism is the fasted growing belief in the world at the moment, we are becoming immune to the superstitious crap that religion spews out, science and technology are our gods now.