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@DavidAZ
Again, appreciate the honesty brother! As always happy to continue the discussion and have my own views pressed, I really do enjoy thinking about why I think things, which sounds weird. For context, I might have mentioned I grew up Catholic, went to Catholic elementary school, and I'm not a bible scholar or anything, but the more I started to ask questions (which eventually got me kicked out of confirmation class! My parent were mortified), the less things I was taught made sense.
PS the "plan" stuff is also why I never understood why Judas Iscariot was so reviled and synonymous with treachery. Without him, Easter doesn't happen.
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@YouFound_Lxam
See, reasoning.
You're really going to say "reasoning" AND say they were shapeshifters??? 1 Samuel doesn't mention shapeshifters, where is that citation? I presume it's in the bible since if it's not in the bible, it's apparently invalid.
Do you believe they were shapeshifters?
Come on dude, this is a thought experiment. Please just answer the question. Is what I described a MORAL action? God told you to do it.
Also, please explain how you know what god would or wouldn't ask you to do.
"Equivalate"? Look, if you don't want to participate in the thread, don't waste the time typing and reading. I thought you wanted to talk about it.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Again...............God would not ask anyone to do this, or do this himself.
God did ask people to do this in the scripture. It's what happened to the Amalekites. Well, except they weren't gay, they were just committing the sin of not being Hebrews. I ask again, then: If god asked you to do what I laid out, the question is not WOULD YOU DO IT. It's "is that a moral act"? Please answer.
Please explain how you know what god would or would not ask anyone to do.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Sure thing, see below. Can you please tell me how you know those examples are not valid? Is it because they're not in the bible? That makes it sound like you don't think god is still answering prayers, but I leave that as an open question.
"Liam. Thank you for being such a wonderful warrior for me, I really appreciate it. I'm coming to you because I know you have true faith and love for me. I need you to do something for me. Your neighbors, next door, that family: their five year old child is gay. They don't know it yet, nor do his parents. He will grow up and decide he's transgender, and he'll become a school teacher who presents as a woman. I need you to go over there, first thing tomorrow, and kill that child to prevent any transmission of his agenda. Also, to be thorough, kill the parents, their union produced this monster. I know he doesn't LOOK like a monster, but that's how the devil works, right? Kill the kid. Kill the parents. In fact, kill his parents, and his dog. Then burn his house down. Your reward is his older sister, you can take her as a...wife, let's call it."
Is THIS now a moral act?
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@YouFound_Lxam
Your using an example that would never happen therfore is not a valid example.
Please explain why. Or just say "That question makes me uncomfortable and I won't answer it," at least that's more honest. Here, I will offer another one.
You and your family just bought a puppy. Oh, isn't it so cute! It's a perfect little puppy, silly, fun, loving, smart. It's just exactly what everyone hopes they get in a pet. Your family is so into it! Your little sister (if you don't have one, pretend) and the dog sleep together at night, the dog cuddles with your mom during the day. You go to bed, say yor prayers as I imagine you do, and what do you know, you get an answer. And you're sure it's god. "Liam," the voice answers clearly after your prayers, "I have decided that all dogs are evil, and need to be killed immediately. Go kill your dog."
Is killing your dog now a moral act?
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@DavidAZ
Well, I suppose that's what it looks like but if you have kids, I know you would understand the relationship and circumstance.Children are warned (Do not eat)Children mess up (eat fruit)Children are punished (expelled from garden)Parent cleans up the mess (coats of skin for man and woman)
Me again! So this is another issue that only applies to a god with full foreknowledge and a plan for everything from the start, right? Like the Abraham thing, only even more direct.
Let's look at the parent analogy, yes, it works as you point out (I have a 15 and a 16 year old). I bet if you have children, when they were little, you took some care to make sure that stuff that was hazardous and dangerous or forbidden to them was out of reach. I know I did. Cabinet locks, no access to anything chemical, no matchbooks lying around, no open alcohol, all that, right? What if something was literally DEADLY to a toddler? Like an electrical socket. I covered them, right? A pool. You put a gate around it, no? Curious little two year olds have electrical sockets basically at eye level, they look like a face, seems like something to jam stuff into. Pools are fun, and I didn't want my toddler, who was exponentially less experienced and knowledgeable about these things, to interact with something, there was only one sure way to do it. Don't leave it around. Take preventative steps that limit access. You can say well, God told them not to eat it! Yeah, well first off, if you tell a child not to do something, then leave that child unsupervised, what's the first thing that child wants to do? This is why the parenting comparison breaks down for me. The kids in this case, Adam and Eve, are never unsupervised, are they? If they are, then what's god up to that he doesn't know what's happening with the literal ONLY two people in creation? Why is he leaving the tree that will cause all of their suffering, all of mankind's suffering for thousands of generations, just lying around without some angel or other having to keep an eye on it? It's literally the most deadly and dangerous thing in the garden. Way more dangerous than the pool I have to have a gate around. That he doesn't then demonstrates his own naivety about the nature of his own creation, which would seem weird given that these aren't 500th generation Humans, the kind where maybe if he didn't have all the knowledge, he could say "wow, something in their coding is messed up, but it came about after copy and copy and copy error, alas!" THey're first generations. He wrote everything into these two personally.
The OTHER reading is far less forgiving: this is the only way things were going to go from the start, and that's the intent. If god DOES have a plan, then by definition it includes Adam and Eve eating from the tree. My understanding of the character in question is that he's all powerful and knows all things for all time. Because of that, he would have had to know that this would happen before he even put the tree there! He'd have known they'd disobey. He'd have known it would piss him off so much that he'd curse all of their descendants, and their descendants, and on and on and on, to eternal damnation. TO death and suffering (which again, he'd have designed). Because he planted it, because he knew it would happen, there's no other conclusion than he planned for it to be this way. That leads me to the conclusion this is exactly as he wanted it to be, so what's he all pissed off about? This is exactly what he wanted from the start.
TLDR version: If I left ammonia and bleach on the floor next to a bucket I know would interest my child, then told my child "I'm going upstairs now. Whatever you do, do not pour these two things into the bucket here, okay? It'll be super bad. Just in case, I'm going to leave the caps off, to remind you NOT to do it." THen I go upstairs, the kid exercises his free will to pour the two together in the bucket and creates the noxious gas and gets sick / dies...who is at fault? You'd call this parent incompetent, irresponsible, and seriously consider having any other children removed from my custody. If I told you THAT'S WHAT I KNEW WOULD HAPPEN, THAT DUMB KID, I'M GOING TO PUNISH HIM SO HARD! does it change your view of me?
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@DavidAZ
I really feel my view will be quickly abolished instead, but again, to each his own.
Not if I can help it, dude. I'm in no way supportive of 'abolishing' anyone's view, and to be honest I don't think most people who think like me are, either. I think what everyone worries about is having other beliefs forced on them, but I think there's less chance of it happening my way to yours, than your way to mine, speaking in broad terms. THe problem isn't the view. It's the legislation based on it, in either direction. Just be careful for fearmongers.
I, in no way, meant to diminish God's authority or ability with my ramblings on what God does or does not know.
No trying to get you in trouble with the boss, man :). But if he has a plan and all that knowledge and power, then I'm afraid the case to prove him anything but wicked is much, much harder to work. I promise if you keep trying, I'll be glad to read and offer my counters respectfully but firmly. Also glad to answer any inquiries you might have about how I believe or work, goose and gander as it were.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Even if god decided tomorrow to say "I want you to go to an pre school and beat up as many kids as you can, otherwise eternal separation from me"? It's a thought experiment. Would that action be moral? Not CONFUSING, not "God would never do that!", is that action now moral because God said to do it?
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@DavidAZ
I wouldn't say that God wrote those drives. A lot of circumstance will change a man's view on things. Also some things will drive one man and not the other. I wouldn't blame God if a man would decide, given the chance, to disobey a commandment or not.
This is consistent with a "no plan, less than total foreknowledge" god. As that seems to be the god you're working with, I can't take issue with this. Conversely, if god did have a plan, even if he ONLY made the first two people and just 'retired' to watch mankind sprout from there, then something in the original source code must have programmed the man to disobey (and god would have known this at the start, for all people). If he bears no responsibility for the actions of man, has no foreknowledge of how each of us will act, truly we have free will, and then such a character can be surprised, and even mad, at what happens. But if he's ALL POWERFUL, it's still morally superior to make changes without harming anyone at all. Do you disagree? Some people say "what about justice?!" But that's a human construct, one that has changed ALL the time. Because he makes choices that harm people actively, oftentimes innocent people who aren't even involved (Jephtha's daughter, Job), his choices are wicked, not good.
Are you referring to that God created those people from the dirt like Adam and Eve or are you saying that since they are human, they are part of God's creation?
I'm used to talking to people that say god is the author of all creation. If you're saying that this less than total foreknowledge, no plan god had no direct involvement with the creation of the Amalekites, I can't argue it, but if you think god's the source of all things and all people, we have a disagreement. I don't want to get wrapped around the Amalekite axle, though, we can discuss them specifically at another time if you like.
really feel that the slavery in the bible is little more grey than what we know as slavery today and in America, so I can't really give a good answer on what the Bible says. I will, however, agree that ownership of another human being by force or purchase would be immoral in any circumstance and the consistent "hand me down" of slave families would also be immoral.
That's fine and again, appreciate the honesty. My issue, then, with this explanation, is that the word "slave" is used when the bible uses plenty of other words that don't carry the association that this word has and always had. A 'servant' for example invites a different reaction than a 'slave.' My point is if you don't want people to think "slaves," then maybe don't say slaves. If you are going to do some research on biblical slavery, first of all don't put it in your work browser :), second of all note that there are indeed rules on how severely you can beat a slave provided they're foreign. Was it moral back then to beat a foreign prisoner of war you've conscripted into service in your home? I'm sure neither one of us think that's moral either! But it's in the bible, and long a problem for so many. After all, those passages were used to support the slavery institution in American agriculture we both find so abhorrent. Often you get the argument that "Oh yeah?!? Well the bible was ALSO used to abolish slavery!" To which I say great, but why are both messages clearly in the bible, the word of god himself...and if that's something he gave rules to, then in my view, yes, he's wicked as a result.
Again, I do not agree with the gay lifestyle. I think it is wrong and contrary to nature, but to each his own I guess. ...I believe that a gay person will choose to be that way in some form or another.
While I disagree with both of these, I do firmly believe you have the right to think as you will, you're not infringing on anyone else. And as you do not believe in an all-knowing directly involved in every fetus development version of god, I can't really argue against your notion that he wouldn't make something contrary to his law. I will say, however, your version of god, though it makes sense to me, does not seem very much like the all knowing, all powerful, eternally wise version I'm used to working on.
RE: Taliban:
They have a flawed culture of dominance and control.
Do you think some of your Christian brethren (not all, not a majority, but SOME) would prefer America this way? Because they sure can legislate like it. My worry here is being the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water, you know? And again, THANK YOU FOR THE CIVIL DISAGREEMENT.
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@DavidAZ
So to answer your question, can God be surprised, I suppose in some extreme cases like above. But to say that God didn't see something coming or to be blind sighted is not true.
In the interest of brevity I'm going to trim some of these passages and try to respond to most of the content, but if I miss something it's not intentional or trying to take you out of context. What you say above is contradictory: if he didn't see it coming, then he can be surprised, which means an outcome he didn't expect happens. Also, the test of Abraham is not really a test in my view. Explained it here, actually: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/9056/posts/381958
As to the plans and house thing, you're saying that he rather has an end goal and no real 'step by step' of how it gets there, right? I'm afraid this is trying to have it both ways, which is why it's confusing. He either knows everything, or he doesn't. It sounds to me like you think he doesn't, there's some subset of knowledge he doesn't have (and it included Abraham). THat's fine, we can proceed with a less than all knowing god in mind, but it's unusual.
God gave mankind freewill.
This is compatible with a less than all knowing god, so I agree under these parameters that everything makes just a little more sense.
Our drive will help determine our outcome and the same for with God's ways with us. He lets us decide. So if we get too far without him, deny him, and reject him to the extent that our hearts turn fully evil, then a turn of judgement may be in order. This judgement may or may not include death from him. I suppose that's up to God.
Who wrote those drives into the people in this case?
God may have had a certain lenience to the heathen since they did not have the law or the covenant with Abraham and they still blew through the standards, therefore enacting the judgement, but this is all speculation on my part.
If god is truly less than all knowing, and apparently less than powerful enough to convince the Amalekites, whom he also made, maybe, but again, he has ALL THE POWERS. Appreciate the speculation admission, at least you didn't pretend it was in the bible :).
This is a bigger subject that is above my pay grade to really comment on.
David! I'm going to give you more credit than this. My question is very simple. Was it ever moral to OWN another human being? To be able to pass them down to your children like you would furniture? Not to have them work for you, to own them. Was it ever MORAL to own a prisoner of war, or their children? I don't think it's above your paygrade to comment on that. And I do not believe for one second that you think it's okay to own slaves in the American agricultural context, even if they were somehow acquired by moral circumstances. Would inheritance qualify as a moral circumstance?
It's a moral issue that needs to be adjusted in society as a whole since the lack of morality caused these things to become so blatant.
Here we're referring to stuff like gay guys getting killed for being gay, I just would like a little clarification here on what this means before I comment on it. Without clarification though, I would ask what on earth god made gay people for, this is a problem that god could have solved a million ways (not even counting raining sulfur down on gay towns!). Do you think a society like the Taliban, let's say, is morally superior to American culture because they punish their gays according to their faith? I don't think you do, this is why I'm asking for clarification of the above.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Do you follow the divine command theory? This states that whatever god does is good because he does it, that by dictum his actions are all moral. So when he turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for turning around, then had Lot get double teamed by his daughters, that was by definition all moral. What do you think?
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@Melcharaz
yet foolish people who dont walk in that lifestyle and are looking back say. "it was no test."
All that stuff doesn't change the fact that it is NOT in any way a test. A "test" is like an experiment, right? You're doing something, whatever it is, to see what the outcome is, perhaps to confirm something you think but don't know, and the test / experiment is the way to do it. If this is a test, then that would mean God doesn't know if Abraham is faithful. That's from the god perspective: he's setting up the conditions and seeing what happens. So, if he does indeed have all knowledge of men's hearts and all that, HE ALREADY KNOWS if Abraham is faithful, and therefore the test is superfluous to god. This is akin to me saying "I want to do an experiment: I want to cut the legs off of a frog and see if it can still jump." I know very well the frog isn't going to be able to jump without his legs. The experiment would then be nothing more than an excuse to be cruel to some other living thing, for no gain at all.
Maybe god knew all along that he'd never let Abraham kill that kid, right? Then god lied to Abraham. So many people say god is the truth, though...except he lied in at least this one place, right?
Hm. Maybe god changed his mind when he was so moved by Abraham's faith! That'd be benevolent of him, sure. Except then he was surprised by Abraham, and thereby does not know all things and all men and all actions for all time.
Maybe Abraham knew god was just fucking with him and he'd never actually have to kill the kid. Abraham then has less than full faith in god because he thinks god's kidding around, AND he makes god look silly by fooling him into thinking he WOULD kill Isaac.
Are there other options that I'm not considering? Which one of the above is it?
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@Double_R
Sorry, I think my tongue in cheek comment has apparently caused exactly what you were trying to avoid. Should've known better.
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@Double_R
Is it a trans child or a real Christian child? ::rolleyes::
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@DavidAZ
Okay, I forgot to ask another key question, so I'll rectify that now: do you think the god of the bible, according to the bible, can be surprised? In other words, does he have a PLAN for everything, or just an IDEA. I can address some of the other stuff that doesn't really bear on that question in the meantime.
I would say he is constantly trying to find a way to preserve mankind so at the point of the flood, he may have seen the hearts of men and known that there was no more hope (hearts of men evil continually) and only through the lineage of Noah was there to be goodness...So when something like a the global flood or the killing of the Amalekites happens, I think it's Gods only solution to this evil....
This is where we start to get into why I think the character is indeed wicked. For god, in the bible, how is it possible that there could be "no hope"? He literally controls everything, number one, and he literally made everyone alive. Could he not "change" or "edit" the populace in such a way that he'd be pleased with them? Is that not possible for god (through whom all things are possible, I've heard)? If the answer is no, why? if the answer is yes, then you can see that he actively chose the path that led to widespread devastation, from all other paths. Again, he's got three options for the trolley problem: kill one, kill many, or kill none. He chose kill many. If you chose to kill any when you could achieve the same end without killing at all, would you not be rightfully called wicked? Does god EVER only have one solution? Does this character, the one many think has knowledge of all things and all times and created everything and everyone, does the author bear no responsibility for the actions of his characters?
There is no ability to repent at this point so the best thing to do would be to destroy the bad.
There's no ability for the people he created, knowing what they'd do and how they'd be, for every second of their lives, to repent, I get that. What I don't get is why his only solution is to destroy "the bad." I mean, didn't he also create the Amalekites? What was so bad about them besides they weren't Hebrews, that not only did they have to die, but their women and children were taken as slaves (the bible calls them "wives" as a euphemism) and their livestock was killed? That sure doesn't sound like our justice system to me. :)
I would liken it to our justice system. We will not let a murderer live. He is too bad of a person to keep him around society (death penalty). I think what God is doing in these situations is the same aspect.
Would we still use the death penalty, or even prisons, if we had the ability to completely mentally reprogram the murderer without him ever knowing, so that he's a good member of society? I'm not talking about prison system rehab we try to say we're doing now. I mean ACTUAL rehabilitation, beyond question, completely effective, like a real reprogramming.
But Hebrew slavery was not like our recent history slavery. They could have been slaves to pay off debts.
Was it ever MORAL to own a human being?
We also will define morality by a different standard in today's society than it was just few generations ago (adultery, drugs, abortion, LGBTQ). So I could really see where God would be seen as wicked when he sends harsh judgement to others. I could also see when we don't live by the same standards as they did back then that we can look back a see it as a bad decision.
This is a great argument for subjective morality, be careful :). I say that somewhat flippantly as I'm not sure where you stand on those issues personally, but I would imagine as a normal human being you do not think that gay men should be put to death here in 2023, and I doubt you have to grit your teeth and resent that they don't. Maybe you're not comfortable with them, that's your right (again, I'm presuming, so apologies if I have you wrong), but I very much doubt you'd vote for legislation demanding they be dragged into the street and killed. That's in Leviticus, I'm sure you know, and again, that to me would be wicked.
Compliments on the rational discussion, it's encouraging that we can disagree so vehemently on something (I'm talking about the existence of god now, I bet we don't disagree so vehemently on these particulars) and get through three posts without calling each other names.
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@DavidAZ
Perfect, thanks for the clarification. Best of luck.
When I think of wickedness, we can start in Genesis, with the flood story. There's also Jephthah. Abraham's story is pretty disturbing, too. Lot's pretty rough too. His stance on slavery, too. His sanctioning of selling children into sexual slavery, that one's pretty wicked too. I'm sure you've gone through these in your past, so feel free to bullet point how, for example, having the hebrews slaughter every Amalekite, including their livestock, is somehow above 'wicked.'
The problem I think you're going to end up with is that when there's a way to solve a problem that doesn't involve harming someone else, that solution is largely viewed as the 'moral' decision. Now, that's a bit of an oversimplification, but for now it'll work. Think of it like if you had the trolley problem, right, but a third option: stop the train before it kills anyone at all. If you have this option, wouldn't you agree that it's the most moral decision to make?
This decision is ALWAYS and ONLY available to the character in the book. He has knowledge of all things, he has all the powers you can think of, so he has every possible option in front of him to solve problems. Any time god doesn't take the 'less suffering' option, in the view of many he's making a wicked choice.
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@hey-yo
How? Fuck I know how. But if God is 3 persons in 1 God, then anything be possible.
Yeah, this is kind of the trick, right? I just can't find a way to hand wave this and say "It's so." It doesn't make sense that 1 thing can also be three completely distinct things, it violates the law of identity at the very least. It literally demands that we ignore logic, and doesn't justify why beyond "Otherwise it doesn't work."
Because Jesus is said to descend into hell/hades (greek) and preach the Word of God.
I'm not sure if this is your quote, but it doesn't address my main quandary here: there is no sacrifice. There was never going to be a sacrifice. The character in question risks absolutely nothing at all, instead takes a three day weekend basically preaching to spirits. I presume about how awesome god is and how much he loves them, after they spent who knows how long burning in hell because of something someone they'd never met did (again, the garden). I'm sure that message went great and that all the converts were true believers :).
Yes because you can choose to go against what God wants for us. No because we still are in Gods plan. Just depends on what is meant by being in gods plan.
Look, I'm not trying to be a smart ass, it's rare to have a civil tone in here about religion (or anything else). I'd love to keep it going. But this doesn't advance the ball on my question at all. Yes and no is not an answer. So what do you think the bold means, maybe that will help? Free will is simply not logically compatible with an immutable plan made by some all powerful being. Either you're part of the plan and doing what you're supposed to, or you're not, and the plan isn't a plan at all. It's a hope.
We do not have what they had because they lost it. So now we have to regain immortality. But something gets in the way.
Well, that's kind of the nicer way to put it, right? Another way to put it is if you DON'T regain it somehow, you're punished literally for the rest of time, with horrors that defy imagination. That, according to the tradition, applies across the board of humanity. It also puts aside the fact that it's immoral to punish someone for something someone else did.
Our own actions just make everything into a circle.
How so? And if so, isn't that the design?
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@DavidAZ
Let me try to help with a productive conversation, because I too find this topic interesting.
Can you perhaps define what you think the word "wicked" means in context, just so that when people are pulling bible passages, they're not wasting their time? The other important question is do you feel the old testament is still valid once you read the new testament? I've seen arguments before that say "Well he was way meaner in the OT because that's how he had to be before Jesus." I just think it helps to understand what footing you're on as a believer, so that people argue relevant stuff with you.
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@TWS1405_2
Pretty disturbing how some libtards were more worried about the misuse of pronouns when describing the shooter than the dead adults and children
More or less disturbing than some outlets saying things like "guns aren't the problem, it's the door locks aren't strong enough"? More or less disturbing than "we don't need to do anything at all to address the number one killer of children in the United States, this will pass just like all the rest do"? More or less disturbing than "guns aren't the problem, what about books on slavery"?
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@hey-yo
Torture porn usually refers to someone that enjoys or seeks pleasure in torture. I do not see that present.What is "long weekend combo" sWhat do you think the whole thing (death, descent, resurrection) is supposed to signify?
I'm not sure how else to explain the character's insistence that the only solution possible, or even the BEST solution of all possible solutions, was to pretend to be a human so that he could be tortured and killed. Given that god had literally every other option available to fix this issue, the choice of option necessarily tells us something about the character, right? The "long weekend" i refer to is this weird period between the crucifixion and resurrection where literally nothing at all is at stake for god. He's not going to succumb to death or whatever it is that is supposed to be going on at this time, right? So it seems like it's a three day trip to someplace, with no real agenda and no stakes or risk to himself.
What do you think the whole thing (death, descent, resurrection) is supposed to signify?
No idea. In spite of so many years of going to church and all that, I have no idea why it signifies anything at all, at least anything like has been taught. Feel free to explain it, but substantiating it or making a compelling case is pretty difficult.
Why or how are things done to "exactly what he planned" for them to do?"
Can people act in ways that are not according to god's plan? I should ask this more often, because every Christian seems to have a different answer and explanation of how it works (see Malcharaz and his problem explaining free will in earlier posts, eventually he just drops it entirely as too vexing). If the answer is no, they cannot act outside of god's plan because that makes god less than all knowing, less than all powerful and imperfect, then it follows necessarily that all of mankind's ills, all the things people do to piss off god so much that all this has to happen in the first place, are because that is exactly how god wanted it to go. If you lack free will this way, then you also lack agency, and that means you lack accountability. You can't get mad at a computer program for doing what you program it to do. Does that help?
What do you refer to as punish generations?
What's the punishment for eating from the tree, the whole punishment? It doesn't stop at being evicted, right?
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@Melcharaz
Got it, thanks all the same.
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@Melcharaz
you know i am right about the evil of cursing God, you see the addictions present in your life.what if i am right about the benefits?
You don't know shit about my life, partner. I don't have addictions, and I'm for the most part pretty content, I feel pretty lucky. You're definitely wrong about the evil of cursing god, people do it all day long and nothing happens that isn't already happening. I'm pretty sure whatever you think the benefits are, I can get them just fine on my own.
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@Melcharaz
I'm good, thanks, as it seems like based on your current arguments there's not a lot for you to present. I don't really want to spend time reading a bunch of some other guy's fantasies.
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@Melcharaz
Noted, I'll take my chances.
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@Melcharaz
what will happen is the same thing that will happen to all. Judgement.
So, nothing on earth, excellent. I'll go on about my business, thanks.
God is very merciful, thats why judgement isnt immediate.
Maybe he's just a pussy? Because that sounds like something a pussy would say / not do, when they're being mocked.
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@Melcharaz
but if you are a person of integrity, do not ever mock God or question his ways again.
I consider myself a person of integrity. What happens if I do mock or question his ways again, exactly?
Like what if I were to say your god can suck a ton of camel dicks because he's a freaky weirdo who is obsessed with all the people he has to watch jerking off all the time. What now?
Here I thought we were going to have a productive conversation. Go fuck yourself, you phony hardass.
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@Melcharaz
one of God's chief complaints in scripture is that people dont know him.
Hm, if only there was some way for god to let people get to know him. He must have a lot of obstacles in his way that he can't figure out how to get around. If I wanted more people to get to know me, maybe my best course of action is leaving scant evidence I ever existed then moving to a mountaintop and never coming down.
and i offer a perspective that is unique. As i have the Spirit of God in me. The Holy Spirit. therefore the insights i can offer are much more... personal and intimately connected than you have by observation.
I'm vaguely creeped out by this.
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@Melcharaz
no, the experiences are for YOUR benefit. in learning the evils of sin, you appreciate and love the lack of it even more.
Why do I need to learn this? It's not to get into heaven, I'm already going. Just create me in heaven and implant all the appreciation you want if it's that important to god, right?
The predestination part of it makes all my suffering meaningless, merely there for someone's entertainment. I'm not sure how this is escaping you, but it's why predestination never took off and became huge. It's not the sort of thing that drives dollars into coffers, if god's already decided, then do what you want, you don't need to go to church anyway since god never changes his mind.
.if you wish to work with the laws, i will try to explain God's nature and why they are, and the axioms of it.
Why should I believe what you say? I'm pretty sure I have a handle on the character's nature in the book, but it's pretty audacious to say you can explain WHY god does things. I thought the bible said it was a sin to think you know the ways of the lord, his works are mysteries. Ballsy!
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@Melcharaz
you are disregarding the experiences as part of the process to get into heaven.
Yes, because that experience is meaningless if I'm pre-destined to get into heaven. If I'm going there anyway, literally everything else, the pain, the suffering, the crying out to god, it's theater, apparently for god's entertainment I guess. That's what theater is. If I'm pre-destined to get into heaven and I never learn about appreciating god and I STILL GET IN, then all that experience isn't for anyone's benefit.
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@hey-yo
Who is to say it is pure theater? I was saying that there could have been other means to supply the same result.
Agree on the last part. The whole torture porn / long weekend combo is senseless, when whatever it's supposed to signify has so many more sensible resolutions, if you believe in that sort of thing. In short, the guy is mad at people he made, who do exactly what he planned for them to do, so he punishes generations and generations of more people for stuff they didn't do, but more stuff that he's mad at because of rules he set up, so he decides the best way to resolve all this is somehow to become a person and get crucified, knowing that as an eternal all powerful something, he's really in no danger at all. So instead of saying "Wow, I fucked this whole thing up, I literally have every option available, including deleting people and literally changing the way their minds work. Could I just, say, remove the whole condition of death? Should I maybe re-examine why I think every person I made is a total piece of shit, like maybe it's something I wrote into the code. Does it say more about ME, that I'm getting so mad at this stuff? Maybe I can get a look at some of these rules they're having such a hard time with, is it possible I'm being too strict? I mean I did write don't think about fucking your neighbor's wife, but then I also gave people this like CRAZY sex drive, what was I thinking? Is the penalty for taking my name in vain, whatever that means really, is that REALLY eternal damnation? Hm. Let's workshop this, I mean I made a whole universe, these little tweaks are nothing to me!"
What God decided was "You know what I'll do? Go get tortured and crucified, pretend to be dead, then maybe appear to a few people, like a dozen, give or take. That will send a vague and highly disputed message to a very small number of people...that's definitely more my style."
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@Best.Korea
One can be humble even when nothing is at stake.I disagree, but ok. The whole Easter story makes no sense to me in any way, maybe I just was a terrible Catholic.
Sorry, forgot to tag you.
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@Melcharaz
if you were predestined by God to enter heaven, yet you still had to be tempted, mocked, hurt, betrayed and killed. would you say your life is pure theater?
Uh, yes. What's the point of everything after the comma in your sentence, if it doesn't change my outcome? Who does it benefit? If I'm predestined to enter heaven, it makes so much more sense to skip everything after the comma and just create me in heaven, doesn't it?
One can be humble even when nothing is at stake.
I disagree, but ok. The whole Easter story makes no sense to me in any way, maybe I just was a terrible Catholic.
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@hey-yo
God choose to humble Himself to the lowest point a human could experience. To demonstrate His love.
This is pretty confusing too, given that there were literally no stakes for the main character at all. It's not really humbling yourself if it's just pure theater.
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Yes there is a free-will and God can decide to override it to work his plan as I discussed above. I'm not sure why an exception to the rule to too hard to understand.
Well, it isn't hard to understand unless you bring free will into the mix. You don't have free will if some unseen entity can override it if you depart from whatever they had planned for you. You're just a 'programmed asset' serving the plan, not someone with free will.
When I say God's plan, I mean an over-all thing, like the book of revelation stuff. Where you or I would fit in this book is more than likely irrelevant
Then what's he care what we're doing so much for? If we're irrelevant to the plan I mean.
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@DavidAZ
They have freewill to decide what they want to do.
Well, unless what they want to do is depart from God's plan, right? "You can do whatever you want until it's different from something I want" doesn't sound like free will as I understand it.
For any scripture referring to future events AS A WHOLE, God does know this and will alter ideas or mindsets to make sure this happens.
This is not free will either. Kinda sounds like we only have free will in cases where that will is god's will, and on stuff he doesn't give a shit about, like which shoes I wear.
I'm still confused. Is there or isn't there free will, and does god know or not know the entire future? If it's not the entire future, then how does he have an "ON THE WHOLE" plan?
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Kinda sounds like you guys think DeSantis is too much of a pussy to take on Trump in the primary, that he'd lose to Trump's schoolyard bully bullshit, but that Trump's getting less electable in a general election, so you want DeSantis to wait until Trump is no longer eligible / too old to run.
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@DavidAZ
Knowing all things means he knows everything. If an action is not performed, then he doesn't know about it since this thing has not happened yet. He can predict the future but he doesn't know our freewill choices. That is the whole reason why humans were created. Someone to choose to love him or not. If he knew who would be saved, then why bother dealing with those people and just work with the ones who will love him in the end?He also knows the future as a whole since he will have his plan carried out, but as an individual basis, we choose our fate. God will only direct. I do not believe he will jump into our freewill EXCEPT only to make sure his plan will be done. This example is done with Pharoah and the Exodus where God hardens Pharoah's heart after he was willing to let the Israelites go. There was so much to be shown in his plan for Christ and the church through the Exodus that he had to make sure it ran according to plan.
I'm sorry, I'm pretty confused here, let me see if breaking down what you're saying helps.
Knowing all things means he knows everything. If an action is not performed, then he doesn't know about it since this thing has not happened yet.
So is this another way of saying he only knows all things that have already happened, and "everything" excludes the future?
He can predict the future but he doesn't know our freewill choices.
Is it possible for god to predict the future incorrectly then? That would mean he doesn't know anything about the future, but he's guessing. Because later on you say this:
He also knows the future as a whole since he will have his plan carried out, but as an individual basis, we choose our fate.
So he DOES know the future? In that case he's not really predicting, as you said above. Are you saying that he knows the outcome but doesn't know the path people would take to get there?
I do not believe he will jump into our freewill EXCEPT only to make sure his plan will be done.
This is even more confusing. If he'd only interrupt our free will to make sure whatever his plan is is the outcome, then how is that "free will"? If my free will says go left and his plan says go right, and god intervenes to change my mind to go right, then it's not free will at all, you see that right?
This example is done with Pharoah and the Exodus where God hardens Pharoah's heart after he was willing to let the Israelites go.
So in this case, the Pharoah had already exercised his free will to liberate the Israelites, and god was like "hold on, I'm not done torturing everyone yet"? Again this is a problem for free will. That he needed to do so to set up the end game seems odd, as it involved further torment of his chosen people AND if he's all powerful there's objectively every other possible way to do something, and he picked the one that kept people enslaved. Praise be, I guess.
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@DavidAZ
God knows our thoughts and intents, NOT our actions.
Interesting, this means he's sometimes surprised by what we do, which makes sense based on some of the stuff in the old testament (if he's all knowing, then what's the point of the Abraham exercise at all, as you point out), but flies in the face of the version in the new testament. How do you square the difference between what you believe (that god is not all knowing) and the vast majority of Christian orthodoxy that says he indeed IS all knowing? I'm wondering if there's some biblical basis, if you've had such discussions with your fellow christians, etc.
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@TheUnderdog
I think speed limits should be doubled nationwide and then actually enforced with cops on the streets.
How many more cops, exactly? What do you think the right "cop to driver" ratio should be?
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@TheUnderdog
I find your arguments facile and ill conceived, so I guess I won't be voting for you when you run for president. The difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying is that I think health care is a basic human right, and you think it's a luxury like a mansion, a yacht or a fancy dinner. Good luck out on the campaign trail.
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@TheUnderdog
Adopting a child =/= raising a childWhat's the difference?
You can't seriously believe the $10,000 you quoted was what it costs to raise an adopted child, right? You recognized, certainly, that it costs $10K to execute the adoption of a child, and that the fee doesn't cover one diaper, one stitch of clothing, right? Even if you somehow think that's $10K a YEAR, it doesn't make sense. Do you have children? I do. I can promise you it costs way, way more than $180K to raise a child from birth. AND IT STILL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HEALTHCARE COSTS. THe whole point is that while the average American isn't as rich as Jeff Bezos, that doesn't mean by default Jeff BEzos deserves inherently better healthcare and more options than everyone else, while you die because you can't afford another day in a hospital. I don't understand how you can't see this difference, either.
One merely has an obligation to not harm, not to help.
As I said, this is where we disagree fundamentally, there is no crossing this divide. If I knew you were dying and saving your life cost me $1, I'd never think twice about the $1. You disagree because the $1 somehow then obligates you to adopt every baby available or something.
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@TheUnderdog
Can you really see no difference between adopting a child and contributing a very small amount of money to a collective pool of resources dedicated to healthcare?Implementing UHC in the US costs $3 trillion a year. Adopting a kid costs $10,000 per year. Since there are less than 300 million taxpayers in the country, it is more expensive to implement UHC on average for the typical taxpayer than it is to adopt a kid.
Adopting a child =/= raising a child, comparing the two is idiotic. And it has nothing to do with being willing to pay a tiny slice of your healthcare so that I don't have to pay as big a slice of mine when I need it, in the richest country on earth.
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@TheUnderdog
So are you willing to adopt starving children you meet on the streets?
Can you really see no difference between adopting a child and contributing a very small amount of money to a collective pool of resources dedicated to healthcare? Those two things are ABSOLUTELY THE SAME to you? Let me help. Which one represents a commitment and rearrangement of my life, and which one do I forget about every two weeks?
if innocent human life must be saved no matter what,
Not what I said in any way.
that sets the precedent of the government mandating adoption to save lives,
A straw man, graceless one at that, even for you bro.
the main thing preventing people from adopting is the fact that they don't want to spend money on other people's biological kids.
Source.
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@TheUnderdog
One just has an obligation to not harm, not to help.
And this is the source of our fundamental disagreement, I guess. I'd rather you not have to die for want of money.
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@TheUnderdog
If they need a hospital visit and can't afford it, I'm cool with letting them die since I don't want to pay for their healthcare bills; it's too socialist for me.
If you needed a hospital visit and couldn't afford it, would you be cool with dying?
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@hey-yo
We should be able to recognize the emotional and mental impact.
Agree, these are important! Now, what about the financial and emotional and mental impacts on the kid you want this woman to have? What programs or plans do you think should be in place to manage the cost of, and negative impacts on, unwanted children to unwed and disproportionately poor mothers are you thinking about? Start with would you force the mother to raise the baby, or just give birth to it? If the idea is to adopt out all the babies, I'd point out that the supply of children waiting for adoption outpaces demand, otherwise there wouldn't be foster homes.
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@hey-yo
That kind of sounds like a lot of dissembling, but okay, thanks for answering.
I'm not sure how the embryos are safe if the entire building is engulfed in flames, but apparently you know the hypothetical model number and fire rating of the freezers in this fertility clinic. For me the answer is baby because babies are people.
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@hey-yo
Okay, so based on the response above, you would also save the baby, or are you saying "please add these conditions into the hypothetical?"
I get that it's frustrating, and yes it's a hypothetical, but the toddler and the 1000 embryos face the same fate in the hypothetical. You can only save one before the stairs burn down and doom the other. So I'm wondering why you chose to save the toddler. Accordin gto pro life folks, embryos are indeed alive, so leaving 1000 to burn rather than just the 1 seems like it should have some sort of reason behind it. So why save the toddler? Once the fire eats the building, the freezer you're counting on is also burned, so the result is the same, no?
What situation would cause you to save the embryos? Can you come up with one?
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@DavidAZ
This is such a stupid question and the answer is obvious. Save the toddler.
Why?
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@hey-yo
How do you deal with the "Trapped in a burning fertility clinic" problem?
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