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Your expectation that I just accept your religious presuppositions as true is incongruent with the Forum Statement of Purpose for this forum. Your card is out of play.
Christianity as a whole is a religion. I how ever do not hold to the religiousity, and church doctrines of Christianity. I tend to search for doctrine from Jesus, and form what the bible says about doctrine, as it is revealed by the holy spirit..
I'm glad to hear it. I think I just didn't explain myself to you correctly at first.
Ok. That is fine by me, because I see you are not engaging in accusing Him of being complacent. There is one poster here who wants it both ways, and it is clearly a contradiction that he is determined to not acknowledge.
Different things at different times. Since I don't have a real experience of this to reflect on, I cannot actually give you an example at this time. I saw a report on the news last week about cellphone video where this was happening at a school. I didn't see the footage, but apparently it was quite viscious and there were many people just watching. I think someone stepped in when it looked like it was going to threaten the student's life. But since I don't know those people and didn't see the footage, really my conclusions about those bystanders is not sufficiently informed. I think maybe some of them thought it was entertaining (as people do), maybe some of them didn't want to have the attacker turn on them, maybe they didn't want to dra attention to themselves for being a hero, I really do not know. This is why I trend to insist that we use real examples, then I can be sure of the accuracy of what I am saying. You are welcome to describe the real situation as it involves God, then I will be sure of my response to those questions.
Omnipotent means that anything is possible. But like I said that a square circle is not possible, it is just a phrase that we use to describe an imaginary (unrealistic) concept. So we have a world of dualism, where some things are mutually exclusive (not everything is though, eg love and hate are not mutually exclusive). Because of this, some things are simply not possible. Jesus said for an example, you cannot serve two masters, because yo will end up loving one and hating the other. For this reason, I think that omnipotence is an unrealistic concept. But, absolute power is a real possible concept. It means that nobody can overpower that person. I expect, given the assumption we make about God's position, that it is possible He has absolute power. But that doesn't mean He can do what is not possible. A real example of what is not possible, is forcing someone to love what they don't love. That person might be able to be manipulated into or conditioned into a frame of mind where love will grow, or whatever. But there are some things that just are not possible in a world like this. Likewise, omnibenevolent is not possible in this type of world, because life and survival depends on death. Suffering aside. Even if everyone was vegetarian, the fruits and herbs need to be harvested, so some tolerance of a loss for someone else's gain is a necessary component of this world.
Rest is not ust about fatigue, but also about obligation. Work is the act of doing what you must do. Rest on the other hand is the act of doing whatever you want to do, which could even be nothing. But it is the ceasing of the doing of what you need to do. I just have to wonder about your imagination of Him, because I reckon it's totally reasonable to imagine that God would like the freedom to just let people live their lives without needing to watch their every move.
That's ok for Him. But do you think it is realistic that everyone who knows Him and knows His enemy, and as the story goes, is friend with His enemy, would naturally just believe Him when He tells them that He had to get rid of their freind because he had malicious intent? Is that the way you would respond? It's a serious question to you. Imagine it. Your brother who you have spent 32 years with, suddenly drops dead and God says "oh, yeah, I had to get rid of him because he had malicious intent". How would you respond? "Ok, thanks for that, I didn't know", or "Really? That is unbelievable! I knew him all my life, a really nice guy. Are you sure he didn't intend to build a school? He has been talking about doing that..". I mentioned a bit earlier, some of those who trust Him do not trust Him blindly, and probably cannot trust Him blindly.
Well, He doesn't control us. We have the right to be offended by His actions. It is only natural, if our friends and family are uprooted, some of the remaining would develop resentment as a result of normal hurt. Please, can I ask that you start considering reality? It isn't helping you to understand the situation, problem and solution.
I don't know of anything else that I can say to this. If you are suggesting that scripture is wrong about God, then you aren't even discussing the God that scripture refers to.
I viewed risk as stemming from potential harm. You can calculate risk accurately if you are well informed and understand the behaviours involved. I expect an omniscient God (as I do tend to assume is possible and likely), will be capable of calculating risks with effective perfection. And in doing so, knows the potential harm from each decision, therefore the cost of each option. I don't see this as being an unreasonable expectation of someone in His position.
Only fatugue draws near to it, but I would say more that He probably loses interest. This was demonstrated in Genesis 6:3 - that although there isn't an indication that contending with humans was making Him fatigued, it seems to have worn down His patience and caused Him to lose some of the joy that He once had. I expect this is a real possibility for any person, regardless of whether they have limits or not. Joy is all about whether our desires are being satisfied. We see that humans have consistently not satisfied God's desires. Therefore, I expect He does not enjoy the world as much as He once set out to do. Having said that, I am also sure that He was aware of that risk, and that He thought it could be an affordable price to pay, in order to end up wth the world that He will enjoy. Do you remember His words to Jesus at His baptism?
Then you need to find someone else to play with. That card atually belongs on the table.
I am sure I remember you saying that Christianity is not a religion. But then in that last post you said it is a religion. Then you explained that your Christian faith is not Christianity. It's ok to say that. What is not ok is to say that Christianity is not a religion, because it is a religion by definition. I understood you all along, just that you were insisting on changing the meaning of the word "religion".
Dogma is a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.
To be honest Todd, if it is possible for someone else to do it, I really don't know why you think it would be something that I would never ever do under any circumstances. What makes me different to that person, if not for circumstances, and being the result of circumstances over time?
