Why I take paganism seriously.

Jane_the_Bane

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Jane, when did you become the name of God to determine what is absolutely great or the God and what can be possible of Him and what cannot be?
Islam prides itself with having a god accessible by logic and common sense. That's why you reject the trinity and the incarnation, among others.
Which brings us back to my observation: an omniscient, omnipotent god whose creation falls apart at the first stress test and needs several backup plans because so many of them fail makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Or let's put it differently. If a car manufacturer told you that he's the most competent and accomplished, yet their cars are constantly recalled for repairs - are their claims credible, logically?
 
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AskTheFamily

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Islam prides itself with having a god accessible by logic and common sense. That's why you reject the trinity and the incarnation, among others.

Islam can pride itself with whatever it wishes, it's a failed religion as is. The Quran is revealed in a sad tone and God expresses his grief for his servants who took the Messengers as a mockery in Suratal Yaseen.

This is not a plan as intended. It's one of the most bad results possible, but God has plans even with the worse results.

As a Creator - he could of nannied us and even protected Iblis from preferring himself over God and Adam, but whatever the reasons - we are in a fallen world and it's obvious by observation.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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Islam can pride itself with whatever it wishes, it's a failed religion as is. The Quran is revealed in a sad tone and God expresses his grief for his servants who took the Messengers as a mockery in Suratal Yaseen.
In theory, this is not necessarily synonymous with the scenario you painted, i.e. the backup plan of a backup plan and all that. (Please note, we are talking pure hypotheticals here. I believe in neither a demiurgic, bumbling deity nor an all-knowing supreme architect.) An omniscient deity would KNOW of the failures to come on behalf of his fallible creatures - and these would be part of THE plan. Like a playwright knowing that his tragic hero will fail horribly in the final act, and regretting all the terrible choices the character has to make in order to arrive at that tragic juncture - but still knowing that this NEEDS to happen for the play to work as intended.


As a Creator - he could of nannied us and even protected Iblis from preferring himself over God and Adam, but whatever the reasons - we are in a fallen world and it's obvious by observation.
(A short aside: PLEASE don't write "of" instead of "have" or "'ve". As an English teacher, this gives me cramps, even from native speakers.)
No, it is NOT obvious we are in a "fallen" world. That is one of the grand narratives people have come up with in order to make sense of things and to assign purpose to events that are hard to swallow. But at the end of the day, it's not even the most fitting narrative out there, and the truth may be something *beyond* all such narrations.
Personally, I don't need to rationalise earthquakes and forest fires as acts of an angry god or an unleashed satan. There is no purpose to accidental deaths, just uncaring causality. We consider ourselves far too important for our own good, with disastrous consequences for the whole planet.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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The future is impossible to know if free-will is a huge factor to it.
Even if we assume there is such a thing as genuinely free will for the sake of the discussion, most decisions aren't random coin tosses anyway. (And even random coin tosses can be predicted with nearly perfect accuracy if they go on for long enough.)

Eminently non-omniscient chess players can anticipate the moves of their opponent, even without knowing the future or being able to read thoughts.
And if you leave a delicious cake on the table and tell your pre-school kids not to try it before leaving them alone with it, you can BET they will disregard your orders.

In short: even with free will on the table, the future is NOT unknowable. It can be anticipated even without omniscience, but having access to ALL information would make predictions more than just easy.
Also: by most accounts, the deity is NOT supposed to be a part of creation, i.e. spacetime. For God, the future is already part of the vast panorama of the created universe, stretching out from start to finish. He is not bound to the present moment like we are. (Again, just following the traits religions assign to omnimax creator deities.)
 
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AskTheFamily

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You confuse yourself for no reason. Stick to what is clear, and let the ambiguities and unclearness be clarified through them.

What is for certain for me, is that without God's vision of who we are, we would be an illusion, but he doesn't a future knowledge of who we are. He doesn't know who will be patient and who will not be.

As for Adam, the calculations were all bet on him to not eat from the tree. It was not expected. And the events that transpired they were irrational after with regards to the generations leading to Noah.

And humans - whether they will mostly destroyed or even replaced, no one knows. God destroyed many nations in the past, but sent Messengers to stop their oppressive and corrupt ways.

And what occurred to Imam Hussain was written if the nation would rebel and remain disobedient, but it wasn't ever written in the sense it had to happen.

And among the sad prophecies of Quran but are contingent and written contingently, is no city or village will remain but God destroys it or punishes it severely before the day of judgment.

And among it's dark prophecies that are meant to be prevented, is that if we turn on our backs, which we surely have, the earth would be full of corruption and oppression in a very great amount.

And a point - Mohammad's people were threaten to be destroyed, but that was avoided, so let's hope the world accepts God and his appointees.

Everyone makes up reality to their desires if left to err. You confuse yourself Jane, but the truth is very simple.

Free-will is unpredictable.

In that lies the curse of humanity but will also lie the salvation and freedom and blessings of humanity if they make the right choice, and we help one another to justice and enjoin each other to hold on to God's rope.
 
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AskTheFamily

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By the way, calculation wise, Jinns are also predicting future.... but the future that is to come may or may not be according to their predictions.

You yourself can be a game changer, that destroys much of their plans. But yes, the misguiding jinn, all their plans will come about, if we continue the track we are on right now.
 
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Robban

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You confuse yourself for no reason. Stick to what is clear, and let the ambiguities and unclearness be clarified through them.

What is for certain for me, is that without God's vision of who we are, we would be an illusion, but he doesn't a future knowledge of who we are. He doesn't know who will be patient and who will not be.

As for Adam, the calculations were all bet on him to not eat from the tree. It was not expected. And the events that transpired they were irrational after with regards to the generations leading to Noah.

And humans - whether they will mostly destroyed or even replaced, no one knows. God destroyed many nations in the past, but sent Messengers to stop their oppressive and corrupt ways.

And what occurred to Imam Hussain was written if the nation would rebel and remain disobedient, but it wasn't ever written in the sense it had to happen.

And among the sad prophecies of Quran but are contingent and written contingently, is no city or village will remain but God destroys it or punishes it severely before the day of judgment.

And among it's dark prophecies that are meant to be prevented, is that if we turn on our backs, which we surely have, the earth would be full of corruption and oppression in a very great amount.

And a point - Mohammad's people were threaten to be destroyed, but that was avoided, so let's hope the world accepts God and his appointees.

Everyone makes up reality to their desires if left to err. You confuse yourself Jane, but the truth is very simple.

Free-will is unpredictable.

In that lies the curse of humanity but will also lie the salvation and freedom and blessings of humanity if they make the right choice, and we help one another to justice and enjoin each other to hold on to God's rope.


Do you really believe that frail man can outwit the Almighty?

That man can surprise Him,

like, after creation there were things He did not know from before?

"Before a word is on my tongue, You know."
 
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Robban

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Man surprising him is not outwitting him.

And after creation, I believe he never expected it get this bad, always knew the risk and possibilities, just not expected.

Surprise as in "Gotcha!"

Outwit as in, "How can He know?"

There is no plan B, I say it again, there is no plan B.


"Sin says to the wicked, there is no God."
 
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DennisTate

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Quote Dennis: "Yes....... but Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus did warn us that the grave........ had levels to it .... some of which one would not want to go to....."

The scriptures you quoted says nothing about different levels of Hell. I did not check on the translations, but, most likely the word is Gehenna.

Yes.... I am pretty sure that the word Gehenna would be used for the scary part of the grave or after death realm.

The Greek word Hades has a much more positive possible meaning.

This exchange implies that it is possible for some saints to end up closer to Messiah Yeshua Jesus after death than others do:
Mark 10:37

They said to Him, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.”
“but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared.”


Luke 23:43 "And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

I believe in different levels in heaven...... and in hell..... partly due to near death experience accounts corresponding so well with String Theory on there being higher and higher and higher invisible dimensions.

Dr. George Ritchie's Near-Death Experience


b. His Guided Tour of the Earthbound Realm with Jesus

The following is the testimony of George Ritchie's tour of the Earthbound Realm: Then Jesus begins to take Ritchie on a journey through various realms of the afterlife. They fly toward a large city on Earth where they notice a group of assembly-line workers at work. They witnesses the spirit of a woman trying desperately to grab a cigarette from the workers who were oblivious to her presence. This woman had died severely addicted to cigarettes and was now cut off from the one thing she desperately desired most.
 
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Rajni

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Man surprising him is not outwitting him.

And after creation, I believe he never expected it get this bad, always knew the risk and possibilities, just not expected.
Then that of whom you speak is not a god. Just a demigod or an angel.
And one who probably shouldn't take up gambling anytime soon.
 
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awitch

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The purpose of this world is a test of our souls. When God creates the world new, then there will be no more testing.

An all knowing, all powerful god would have no need to test anyone's soul. I guess there are some malicious reasons, but I don't recognize any such deities.
 
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AskTheFamily

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Then that of whom you speak is not a god. Just a demigod or an angel.
And one who probably shouldn't take up gambling anytime soon.

Why are people so fixated that everything has to happen as God expects or he is not God? I want to understand rationally.

I was bullied by scholars to believe that before and that all future was known, but I don't see any reason to believe so, but so many reasons to believe if the world was an expected result, this sorry state we are in, then there is no God.

God if he is not saddened and don't reveal tears of sadness to humans so they understand how much he didn't want things to be the way they are, then I wouldn't worship this being.
 
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Rajni

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Why are people so fixated that everything has to happen as God expects or he is not God? I want to understand rationally.

I was bullied by scholars to believe that before and that all future was known, but I don't see any reason to believe so, but so many reasons to believe if the world was an expected result, this sorry state we are in, then there is no God.

God if he is not saddened and don't reveal tears of sadness to humans so they understand how much he didn't want things to be the way they are, then I wouldn't worship this being.
Omniscience doesn't equal lack of empathy or emotion. Not sure how one would think otherwise. Not that I think He gets caught up in our drama the way we do -- every party has to have at least one sober Designated Driver, after all. ;)

Also, God makes decisions as innovative new decisions constantly, he is not some set robot that we just insert key to get results. He is more free then any other being.
A freedom empowered by being omniscient as well as omnipotent. Otherwise it would be quite difficult for Him to be freer than any other being...
 
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AskTheFamily

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Wallah - when I Call God, I neither believe he knows what I'll be nor do I believe he always knew what he would respond to me and that I would make that prayer. And all praise to God, that I don't care what majority think nor let scholars think for me.
 
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dlamberth

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And all praise to God, that I don't care what majority think nor let scholars think for me.
Any relationship with God is always, always a personal thing between the Lover of God and God.
 
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