Where's God?

doubtingmerle said:

Sorta like a mortician?

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doubtingmerle said:

as I said before, you state that "good" and "God" are synonyms.

if God wanted rape you would want rape.

if God wanted a child to be abused, you would want that child to be abused.

good loses its meaning with you. Whatever your book says God wants, you say that is good.

if God told you to give me everything you have, would you do it?

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Of course people are the perpetuators of their own actions.

But the catch is this: Romans 2:6 God "will repay each one according to his deeds."

God existing means of course 'death' of this temporary body is an illusion in the essential way -- those who die are only 'asleep' as Christ words it. And all will awaken to that frightening perfect Justice --

Where all will be repaid for what they've done (both good and bad things, verses 6-16 in the above), and nothing can be hidden from Him.

But, since everyone has at times done some kind of wrongs, such as even just treating some other person(s) as if less valuable for whatever reason, disparaging characterizations (insults) of others, etc., ignoring someone in need, and so on, a thousand possible wrongs -- anti-love actions that could not work well in an eternal life in harmony -- and all should then be consigned to the "second death" instead of eternal life....

So, all being guilty of unacceptable wrongs, all need a way to be washed clean of all of their wrongs and be made a new creature.

That's why Christ was sent -- to break the wrong-doing in us. To call sinners to repentance, and change us. He even went to preach to the dead (the 'spirits in prison', a timeless place from all times it seems) after the cross.

InterestedAtheist said:

ed: What is love? As an atheist you dont have any real definition of what love is. You just have your opinion of what it is.

ia: Again, of course I have a definition of what love is.
Definition of LOVE
: strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties maternal love for a child
(2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers After all these years, they are still very much in love.
(3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests love for his old schoolmates

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Adolf Hitler had a strong affection for the Aryan race out of kinship and personal ties and felt that the jews would destroy them so he tried to destroy the jews before they could destroy his people. So since that fits your definition of love, do you agree that Hitler was engaging in loving behavior when he started the holocaust?
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ed: Well we know Christ taught there are different levels of hell depending on how serious the sins you committed.
Do we? Quotes, please?
I think you might be getting the Bible mixed up with Dante, a common misconception.

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Read Matthew 11:21-24.
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ed: And we also know that God is going to create a new universe and world for those that die as believers, so it is likely that for unbelievers and the fallen angels he will create another parallel universe as an eternal punishment.
Do we know this? Again, references, please?

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2 Peter 3:13.
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ed: And given God's perfect justice some people that were morally very good people on earth will only have a relatively mild punishment and be able to interact with fellow hell sufferers if they are in the same level, as compared to evil dictators and murderers.

ia: I congratulate you on your morality. Yes, it certainly would be just if people were to receive punishment in proportion to their sins. But in that case, punishment could never be eternal, since nobody has committed such a sin that they must be punished for it forever.

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No, it has to be eternal because your sin can affect others negatively for eternity. And you are rebelling against the eternal good.
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ed: I admit the bible does not explicitly teach this and some Christian scholars would disagree, it is a rational assumption given what the bible does teach and our experience of knowing God personally.

ia; It's good of you to admit that. In fact, the Bible says almost nothing about hell, and what little it does say is so poetic and figurative that it would be unwise in the extreme to treat it as some kind of information text.

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True it does not go into a great deal of detail and reference to fire is plainly Hebrew rabbinic hyperbole but it plainly teaches there are different levels of treatment in hell as I demonstrated above.
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ed: Well I think some people would choose the former given the information I provided above, but each to his own.
ia: You think that some people, with full and clear knowledge of the alternatives, would choose eternal punishment? Well, there are people in some very unsound states of mind, of course. But your idea of hell as having certain areas which are just mildly unpleasant, where we can stay with our loved ones sounds quite unBiblical, and I doubt many Christians would agree with you.

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No, it is not unbiblical, maybe a slightly unorthodox interpretation, but nowhere in the bible is the concept disproven.

Ed1wolf said:

Adolf Hitler had a strong affection for the Aryan race out of kinship and personal ties and felt that the jews would destroy them so he tried to destroy the jews before they could destroy his people. So since that fits your definition of love, do you agree that Hitler was engaging in loving behavior when he started the holocaust?

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One need not jump to the first definition of love, as the only possible definition.

In Buddhism, the concept of love, metta or maitri (Pali or Sanskrit, respectively), fits the third definition, benevolence.

One most certainly doesn't need a specific religious ideology to understand what benevolence is. Benevolence means to will what is good, to avoid harm. This is why many Indic religions have the concept of ahimsa (harmlessness) as the cornerstone of ethics. It is akin to the Golden Rule.

doubtingmerle said:

We have no way of knowing what God is like if he exists. How would you know he is good?

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Have you examined though more critically the premise in that question?

A premise seems to be that no one would ever encounter God in any way in all of time, or a similar such (that somehow there would never be anything communicated) --
But, if someone did encounter God in some way (such as by vision or other ways), then they could write down their account, and then when we read that account. We have such in the books Moses wrote as an example.

Of course, reading such accounts, then we do learn (of course) some of how God acts and what He says. And knowing some, then we know some about Him.

And having read those accounts, one could learn from them that after warnings, then God tends to destroy peoples when their evils get too extreme, such as routine sacrifice of children in fires, for instance --

"...for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods."
-- Deuteronomy 12:31

So, He doesn't tolerate people burning children in fires of course, but also other great evils also He will destroy, we learn.

But...while we could then fear such implacable Justice, we also learn He is merciful to any who would repent of their wrongs and turn to Him in trust, for forgiveness.

Is that "good" -- to be both Just and Merciful?

Is it "good" to refuse to accept evil, yet to forgive abundantly any who would reform?

What you you think?

Halbhh said:

Have you examined though more critically the premise in that question?

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Have you?

Halbhh said:

Is that "good" -- to be both Just and Merciful?
Is it "good" to refuse to accept evil, yet to forgive abundantly any who would reform?
What you you think?

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I think you're missing the point. This is a discussion about whether or not a Christian who says that God is the source of morality, the justification for their being able to say what right and wrong is, is able to logically justify that statement.

Tell me, Halbhh: do you believe that God says things because they are good, or that they are good because God says them?

A little familiarity with the Euthyphro Dilemma before you answer would be appreciated.

Ed1wolf said:

Divinity is much more unified than humanity. I am not saying the analogy is perfect. Just that it demonstrates that there is nothing contradictory about the Trinity.

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Analogies cannot and need not be perfect, of course. But this one is just simply not applicable, as you have shown yourself. Try again, if you like. Maybe God is like conjoined triplets?

Ed1wolf said:

Those things also violate the teachings of Christianity because the Constitution is based on many Christian principles as I demonstrated earlier. The Treaty of Tripoli was an appeasement measure to stop the Muslims from attacking our ships. Politicians stretched the truth even back then in order prevent international interference and military attack. IOW they lied.

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No, I'm afraid you didn't demonstrate that earlier, nor will you. And while I'm sure politicians are quite capable of lying, in this case they told the simple truth. The Constitution is in no sense based on the Christian religion. It doesn't mention Jesus, God or the Bible at all, whether openly or in any other way.

Ed1wolf said:

No secular state would claim that our rights come from the Creator and based on the laws of Natures God.

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Again, the Declaration of Independence is not the law of the land. It is simply a statement that the Colonies are declaring independence from the English crown. Once they had declared independence and won it, the Founders had decisions to make about what sort of place they wanted their new country to be, and they decided that it should be a secular state.
Think about this: if they had wanted it to be a Christian constituton, they had numerous opportunities to make it so. It's ridiculous to think that they overlooked all of these by accident, leaving the Constitution bare of any reference to God, never mind Christianity, while still intending that Christianity should be the official religion of their new country. Did you miss that? Other Christians didn't. There was plenty of bitter opposition to the new Constitution precisely because it didn't mention God or Christianity in any way, and that opposition continued for centuries.
No, I'm afraid that when we ask the question "is the USA a secular nation" and we find authorities stating that it is, you have little room to dispute.

Ed1wolf said:

Nowhere in the Constitution does it even deal with marriage. The founders believed marriage was a state issue. In addition, even heterosexuals don't have a RIGHT to marriage as I demonstrated earlier.

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In so stating, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. You want to argue that heterosexuals have no right to get married? Be my guest. But you're arguing with a strawman. The question is, do two people who love each other and wish to get married have the right to do so? Of course they do.

Ed1wolf said:

No, good is not what God says, the good is what God is. Good is the nature of God.

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You're still stuck on the dilemma. You claim that God provides a standard against which we can measure goodness? Okay, fine. Prove it logically. So far, you've said nothing but "He just is." You said you weren't going to give us circular reasoning, then you did.
So, good is the nature of God, you say? Fine. So what does it mean when you say God’s nature is good? Is God’s nature good because it measures up to some external standard, or is good itself defined by whatever way God’s nature is? I imagine you'll go for the latter, but all that means is that goodness is now meaningless; whatever God's nature said was good is good. If God's nature said that raping children, stealing from old ladies and kicking puppies was good, it would be. Would you object? On what grounds could you do so? God told you otherwise? So what? Maybe His nature is to change His mind.
Don't you see, saying that goodness is God's nature, with no external standard, renders goodness completely meaningless. By your logic, there is no way that we can say what is good. If you want to dispute this, please try to do so by providing a rational argument.

Ed1wolf said:

I did not make it up, it is a biological fact, look it up.

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That you need a man and a woman to have a baby? Of course that's true. The question is, why should that prevent two homosexual people from marrying? All you're doing is asserting that this inability should disqualify them, without any grounds. You're trying to give yourself grounds by making up some pretext about marriage being a mystical union that can only take place along with insemination, but that's nonsense. The mystical union is simply called love, and homosexuals are just as capable of it as heterosexuals - no matter what your religion claims.

Ed1wolf said:

How do you that?

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Take a look at what you next said:

Ed1wolf said:

The state has a right to protect the health of the people of the society.

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How do you do that?
You do that the same way I did. It makes sense. When I say "All people have the right to act as they see fit, unless there is good reason to prohibit that act in the overriding interests of society" and you say "The state has a right to protect the health of the people of the society" we're both saying much the same thing.
The only thing is, your statement is irrational in this case. You're missing the key part, the part that I said: unless there is a good reason to prohibit that act in the overriding interests of society. You will need a very good reason to ban gay marriage, and you don't have one.
You think that gay sex is harmful? Well, all sex is potentially harmful. Have you never heard of STDs? Following your own logic, the state should ban not just gay sex, but all sex, except under strictly monitored and vetted conditions. That would solve the crises of abortion, diseases, unwanted pregnancies, loose moral conduct and so on, wouldn't it?
Of course, there are very good reasons why the state doesn't do this, not least that it would be a monstrous violation of the rights of the individual. A violation you are only too happy to see happen, but only in the case of people you have a religious objection to - homosexuals.
As we're seen in this whole, long thread - follow your arguments logically, and they wind up refuting themselves, often by showing that what they would lead to is a hell on earth.

Ed1wolf said:

Dealt with earlier.

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In fact, "You say gay people can't have children. Well, so what?" is very much the main theme of this argument, and far from having dealt with it you still have yet to make a reasonable point about it. do you mean to invalidate every marriage that can't produce children? The infertile, the disabled, the marriages of people too old, marriages between people who have firmly stated that they do not wish to ever have children? No? Then, once again, you are guilty of the fallacy of special pleading.

Ed1wolf said:

Because it cannot unite persons, it is a depersonalizing behavior.

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Nonsense. Two homosexual people expressing their love for each other through physical intimacy, a personalizing experience? What on earth are you talking about?

Ed1wolf said:

No, other oppressed peoples have not had these issues.

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Of course they have. Black people suffer from racism, Jewish people suffer from anti-semitism, and it is well-documented how gay people suffer from homophobia.

Ed1wolf said:

Adolf Hitler had a strong affection for the Aryan race out of kinship and personal ties and felt that the jews would destroy them so he tried to destroy the jews before they could destroy his people. So since that fits your definition of love, do you agree that Hitler was engaging in loving behavior when he started the holocaust?

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Of course not. He loved the Aryan people (a thoroughly misleading simplification, but let's go with it for now) and his love led him to do hateful things to people he perceived as his enemies. Simple.

Ed1wolf said:

Read Matthew 11:21-24.

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"You evil people! Boy, you've really got it coming."
Hmmm. Doesn't seem very helpful in proving there are "different levels of hell," especially the ones such as you imagined in your colourful story about families choosing to go to hell forever.

Ed1wolf said:

2 Peter 3:13.

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New heavens and a new earth, it says. You told me you had proof that God was going to create a parallel universe for people to suffer in.
Not that I mind if that's what your religion says, but that's the point: you're just making things up to suit your own arguments.

Ed1wolf said:

No, it has to be eternal because your sin can affect others negatively for eternity. And you are rebelling against the eternal good.

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So, because I stole a pencil when I was five years old, I deserve to be roasted over a barbecue for umpteen trillion years? That's what your logic leads to. It's a good thing we have a superior human sense of justice that sees such punishments as abhorrent. Punishment should fit the crime. Christian punishment doesn't - cannot, by definition. No crime can be so terrible that it must be punished forever. That would be answering wrong with an infinitely greater wrong.

Ed1wolf said:

True it does not go into a great deal of detail and reference to fire is plainly Hebrew rabbinic hyperbole but it plainly teaches there are different levels of treatment in hell as I demonstrated above.

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No, it doesn't go into a great deal of detail, does it? In fact, hardly any at all. All that you're demonstrating is that you're happy to make your own religion up.

Ed1wolf said:

No, it is not unbiblical, maybe a slightly unorthodox interpretation, but nowhere in the bible is the concept disproven.

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You could say that about an awful lot of things.
It's clear that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. On the one hand, you think that hell mustn't be too bad, because you have to defend your idea that people might, of their own free will, choose to go there. On the other hand, you cannot escape your Christian notions that hell is a terrible punishment, made infinitely bad by its infinite nature. This is a problem that has bedevilled, no pun intended, Christians since the concept of hell first came into being, and I'm afraid you're no closer to solving it.

FireDragon76 said:

You're trying to frame the issue in Christian terms, and engaging in a false dichotomy. Either you are so selfless that you give your devotion to an allegedly good God, or you are some kind of horrible selfish monster. Well, I am not playing that game.

There are plenty of other reasons not to be selfish, other than what is encapsulated in your religion. There is a world of explanations and ideas beyond the doors of the Christian Church.

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No, I would assume that even most atheists would not approve of very selfish people and people that only live for their own pleasure. Am I wrong?

Ed1wolf said:

So you have no problem with people that only care about themselves and live only for their own pleasure?

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There's nothing inherently wrong with caring about yourself or seeking pleasure. Those are only problems if they come at the expense of others.

InterestedAtheist said:

ed: Huh? The agony in the Garden was His premonition of what it was going to be like to be separated from the other members of the Trinity, it disturbed and worried Him so much He asked the Father to remove the experience. But of course, the Father would not.

ia: That's not what you said. You said that it must have caused Jesus enormous, indescribably agony to be separated from divinity when He incarnated. And you should have been right, because of course being born and living as a human was Jesus' separation from the Trinity.

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Where did I say that? If I did it was a mistake. Being born and living as a human did not separate him from the Trinity. Even normal human Christians have the holy spirit living within them. He only became separated from the Trinity on the cross, why do you think He said "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" on the cross?

ia: But, of course, the Bible contradicts you. Its story shows us that Jesus did not suffer at all from being separated from the Trinity. Instead, His only real episode of pain was - surprise, surprise - his worrying that He was going to be killed the next day. Quite understandable in a human, but perplexing in a divine being who was just about to ascend to Heaven.

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No, see above.

InterestedAtheist said:

Hitler believed that gays were an abomination.
Christians believe that gays are an abomination.
Homosexuality is a Sin an Abomination in the Eyes of God
"Men having sex with each other is an abomination and condemned by God. Women having sex with each other is also an abomination and condemned by God. This isn’t new news, it’s not like all of sudden Christians have come on the scene proclaiming sodomy is a immoral act and a sin in eyes of God."
You say you love gay people. But gay people probably wouldn't call what they feel coming from you "love".

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Love has to involve real subjects, not abstract religious principles. And that's where many Christians go wrong. If your idea of love doesn't match up with other peoples actual lives, you aren't really loving them.

Ed1wolf said:

Where did I say that? If I did it was a mistake. Being born and living as a human did not separate him from the Trinity. Even normal human Christians have the holy spirit living within them. He only became separated from the Trinity on the cross, why do you think He said "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" on the cross?.

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I was never taught this as a Lutheran. God cannot be separated from himself. He experienced desolation, but that's not the same thing as God being ripped into pieces. Rather, it means that God took the experience of desolation, or even "atheism", into himself.

Ed1wolf said:

Where did I say that? If I did it was a mistake. Being born and living as a human did not separate him from the Trinity. Even normal human Christians have the holy spirit living within them. He only became separated from the Trinity on the cross, why do you think He said "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" on the cross?
No, see above.

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Because he was in intense physical pain? Come on, he was being tortured to death. Wouldn't it be strange for him not to cry out in anguish?
You're right, and I'm sorry - you didn't say that it was Jesus incarnating that meant he was separated from the Trinity. I just assumed that it was. It makes sense, doesn't it? God becomes human. That sounds like being separated from the Trinity. As a human, Jesus did not have access to all the powers of God, nor all the knowledge of God. Indeed, from the stories of the Bible, Jesus seems very little different from Elijah or Moses or any other prophet - a man, wise, loved by God, who called on God for aid and worked miracles in his name, but certainly not omniscient or omnipotent. It seems clear that any separation from the Trinity that occurred happened when God the Son descended into the world of humans.

Regardless, the point that I and others were originally making stands: Jesus didn't suffer much. Ever heard the story of Prometheus? Jesus got off pretty lightly. Three days of suffering, then back to heaven.

InterestedAtheist said:

Have you?

I think you're missing the point. This is a discussion about whether or not a Christian who says that God is the source of morality, the justification for their being able to say what right and wrong is, is able to logically justify that statement.

Tell me, Halbhh: do you believe that God says things because they are good, or that they are good because God says them?

A little familiarity with the Euthyphro Dilemma before you answer would be appreciated.

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What use are all your rhetorical tricks and sleights of hand when you are only mortal, and life is short? What use is it if you think you won a battle, even?

Where are you going, and is it better than yesterday?

doubtingmerle said:

Instead of playing Where's Waldo, let's play Where's God. In the picture below, where's God?

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Ok.
Question......

Which one of those people is you?