hi, im just not sure about the whole god thing, and its the morality thing that is the biggest obsticle, so i started to read this thread, and a lot of the replies confused me, there were different explinations for the same concepts like hell/ void etc, unfortunately i only got through the first several pages (it seems like some of the posts are missing?) but hopefully i can write more later cause this is really interestign and helping a lot ;D
God's morality or His Will IS The Bench Mark For Morality. Everything he does is moral, because his will defines morality.
If we used our will as a bench mark for ultimate morality then the question becomes what culture do we use? or what time period is God supposed to live by?? what about 1930's Germany? Or 1960's Soviet Union? How is this any better than 1990's or current western thinking? and even then in what region?
when the president does it its not illegal - richard nixon
your admitting that morality is relative to time place and culture then?
if you really think that western society is more immoral then either soviet russia or Nazi germany, your godwining your own argument (see: godwins law) and admitting you have no sense of history.
If God was subject to our will then he would not be worthy of worship..
in catholism there the impression that what laws the pope and church make on earth god will uphold in heaven. arguably this is free license for a modernization of the church.
and I will give to thee the keys of the reign of the heavens, and whatever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be having been bound in the heavens, and whatever thou mayest loose upon the earth shall be having been loosed in the heavens.' Matthew 16:19
but then, some of those popes were dodgy characters, one drank the blood of 3 boys before dying as a medievil cure. something about the life in the blood...
The practice was not always a success. In 1492, when Pope Innocent VIII was on his deathbed, his doctors bled three boys and had the pope drink their blood. The boys died, and so did the pope
theres a bbc article on this but apparently i cant post links?
In other words if He gives life or takes it away, Glory be to God, because that life, our lives, are his to give or take.
so because god will see you on the otherside your death is meaningless to him? what you want as an independant thinking feeling creature endowed with free thought (against gods will mind you) want is meaningless. such disreguard for a creature he loves on an individual basis.
Imagine all of the horror and the manor of depravity we witnessed in the concentration camps of WWII Germany, and the general downward spiral our culture, and yet none of this sparks the same kind of response that Noah's generation did. Why? Because there were/are more than a single family here living among us to be found righteous before the Lord
again with the nazi's, you know that most SS members were church going confessing christians. and the only christian in the nazi high command excommunicatied before or after the war was goebbles for marrying a protestant. and the idea that every family on earth was steeped in immorality, you really do believe that for the 100-200,000 years our species has been here its lived in a state of complete and utter immorality.
You don't know that they were in fact innocent
so we are guilty from birth? or was birth our sin, which a life of servitude and worship is supposed to expunge? you are not born with loyalty, loyalty is earned through trust and friendship. these children had time for neither
Wasn't that how Hitler got started? Isn't that How he came to power in the first place? Trying to right all that had gone wrong after WWI?
no he was a frustrated artist with a very engaging personality who got into politics, and through politics was given the power to vent his rascist ravings on the jews of europe.
stalin you would be interested perhaps to know was trained and educated in a seminary in georgia, he was going to be a priest.
God doesn't torture those who do not wish to worship Him. We are simply given a choice to live with God, and all that he has created for us for eternity, or to Be sent somewhere completely devoid of God (Which includes all of His creation)
if this were true it hell would be a place empty of all other beings, a nihilistic wet dream, or bhudist state of non being. some cultures seek this. instead we are threatened with fire and brimstone, a devil to plague us (a creation of god) and hell (created BY god)
Jealousy and anger are just as much apart of Love as forgiveness and understanding. If you have gotten past your first 20 years I'm sure you have experienced this.. If you are married would you share your wife with others? if yes would you share you mother with others as you would share your wife?
ah but to be obsessively jelous at the expense of the other persons well being or happyness is not part of love. and my mother is not mine to share, she is her own person to share herself as she sees fit.
Maybe my bible isn't the only one that needs to be read..
Genesis 6:
which version of genisis are you using? they are rather mutally exclusive what with eve being created at the same time as adam in one and adam being created first then eve second in the other, also the mentions of primordial water that exists before god created anything etc.
Sons of the Lord and daughters of man can be interpreted angels or demons having human female wives.
or as the extended family of adam and eve's prodigious offspring deciding to intermarry.
nephilim were the result "Titans" or warrior giants
the nephilim were angelic creatures, who boned the daughters of eve in an attempt to bring about demi gods like hercules. its a ret con to incorperate previous heros and explain those of other cultures.
What if the descriptions of Heaven and Hell Got mixed up somewhere back in time, and Heaven (where God lives) was a fiery pit, and hell was paradise, but without the presents of God? Would you still want to goto Heaven (Where God Lives?)
so your admitting hat heaven is a carrot and hell is the stick
God sending someone to the Void is God Being loving enough to Give that child what he wants.. Eternal seperation from God. (no matter how much He loves them.)
*voice from all dogs go to heaven* and you can never come back.... you can never come back.... you can never come back....
But He has done something about it! God sent us His only Son, Jesus Christ, to receive the punishment for our sins on our behalf.
you lose me here, christ didnt die for my sins, he died for the sins of people dead several millenia now, i commited no sins or offenses, unless my sins are predetermined but thats a whole other can of beans
if they can see Him in the nature of the cosmos and reflected in their own capacities to love, dream, moralize, and laugh, what do you say?
its just a peice of burnt toast, or an oil spot, or the grease stain in a pizza tray (i kid you not christians visit it like a shrine)
If millions of people are convinced that they experience God every day
but can never explain how they know other then "i just know" we cant even tell if all christians the world over hold the same image or concept of god let alone all share a mutual experience because they all feel "something" since none of them can compair what that something is.
The whole of the Bible is taken up with God's efforts to redeem sin-corrupted people from the consequences of their sin. In the Bible we see God most certainly has "made an effort" - even going so far as to be crucified at the hands of the creatures He had made, which is far more "effort" than any of us deserve!
what effort, hes god, he can say "make it so number one" and it will happen, there is no effort in "fixing" mankind or redeeming them. and what is crucifixtion to god? what is pain to god?
Jesus' sacrifice wasn't made to rid the world of sin, but to rid sinners of the eternal punishment of their sin and to break the power of sin in the lives of those who trust in Christ as their Saviour.
because belief in god wasnt enough?
Fire and brimstone" are used to describe Hell because that was the closest thing the writers had to describe what it is like to be consumed by nothingness
so the book is metaphorical? gotcha ;D nothingness is just that nothingness, pain is a creation of god, as are our bodies, this void would only contain the soul or conciousness but then our souls are also creations of god and thus according to you subject to his omnipresence.
by stripping a "sinner" of all of gods creations you are also stripping the "sinner" of all that person loves, a great cruelty, out of love. an odd contradiction.
How is anything said by Finneus not true. 'God' knows EVERYTHING that has happened, that will happen, and that is happening. He would have known trillions upon trillions of years before he created man that nearly all of humanity would fail his completely just and fair standards, that we would implore logical thinking skills, that we would recognize his plan of salvation as some really lame action/drama that skipped theatres and went straight to DVD. Yet STILL he creates man, knowing full well that we will have to end up suffering
my friend read dostoyevskis "the grand inquisitor"
We are all offered free salvation, a salvation which does not require us to work for it, but is given freely
you work all your lives for it, subservient, worshipping, afraid of sin or immorality, afraid of human experience. this is one hell of a price.
One morning I got up and walked into the hall and I heard a voice say "How would you like to be stabbed in the Valley". The Valley was the rough end of town, and the voice scared me a little, I wondered if I had done something to offend God....
I was on a forum libertyunites.us and came across a post by a user called ABC in the post she appealed to the captors to release Douglas Wood because he had gone to a/or the Bazaar and bought food for homeless people and had provided them with "A-meal". I believe God saw this action too and blessed Douglas Wood with an escape from his captors.
see a therapist. its called an auditory hallucination.
Millions of Christians do not see God and His plan for mankind as you've described above.
your dodging the question re gods omnipotence and omniscient powers.
If we chose something in God's will, then we would in fact be in God's will and not in our own.. So to exercise freewill is to sin..
it was in taking free will that man fell from grace, there is no question of letting or asking us to love god he DEMANDS it, and punishment for not. the choice was never to be given, we took it for ourselves... i blame the talking snake.
. I'm taking the approach that says, "I know what I think hell is NOT, so let's see what I'm left with after a deduce."
