How do you know God is good?

[Neogaia777]

Are you being persecuted by fellow Christians? This is a Christian forum!

They say the information I wish to give out and spread is heresy and blasphemy, and goes against the creeds that are a part of the rules on this forum, they say anyway...

So, would just like to do it privately if I can, etc...

Then I might not have to do it so vaguely or generally or enigmatically, or in a way that no one seems to catch or get, etc...

God Bless!

 

[Eloy Craft]

People who fly planes into buildings have most definitely made a decision to do so. For reasons that they believe are valid, are the will of tbeir prophet and will further their cause. And it is done with forethought and planning. From this: Religious Foundations of the Last Instructions of 9/11 | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion

"An instruction manual consisting of four sheets in Arabic was found with three of the four teams that performed the terror attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. The writing conceived of the action as a raid (ghazwa), as we know it from early Islamic history. It instructed the teams how to perform the ghazwa correctly. Purifying their intentions by recitals, rituals, and bodily cleaning, they turn their attack into an act of worship. A part called the “second stage” anticipates the issue of assuring divine protection at the airport. Finally “a third stage” urges the teams to act in the plane according the practice of the Prophet and to achieve martyrdom."

I wonder how many witnesses are inspired to convert to Islam?. Since the witnesses are all dead, injured or grieving they can't be thinking the martyr is anything but a murderer. A true martyr will be the only one murdered and the witnesses are guilty of it. The conversions are about recognizing the martyr as a holy person who surrendered their life for love of those who did the killing.
The Muslim suicide bomber is a martyr in name only.

 

[Eloy Craft]

Since Jesus came to die on the cross it makes no sense that He prayed to pass it by...More probably He was in such distress in the garden that He thought He was going to die and miss the cross and that is the cup He asked to be removed so He could fulfill the path to the cross.

No, that was Jesus' humanity recoiling at the unnatural experience of death. One must consider that Jesus would not have died if we didn't kill Him. He really chose death and that's why His death is a true sacrifice.

 

[Bradskii]

I wonder how many witnesses are inspired to convert to Islam?

Don't you know that people are inspired by martyrs? Why do you think people sacrifice themselves for a cause?

 

[TedT]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying they have free will but will (not "can") only love.

If you say God can do it, then I say God can create another being who can do the same thing.

BUT HE DID! There are holy and elect angels who have never sinned and by their free will will never sin!!

The problem with your suppositin is that HE can do this without creating anyone who can rebel and cause evil. The ability to become someone who will (not only can) only love is ONLY available by their free will (NOT their creation which would be a constraint upon them) at which time they may also chose to rebel because that is what free will means! Trying to make free will mean 'a constrained will' won't work....a will is free or it is not free.

IF you want to change the definition of free will, so be it but don't blame GOD for not meeting your unrealistic expectations based upon a false definition.

 

[TedT]

You're conflating free with with moral actions.

A free will can decide many things...good, evil or indifferent, but once sinful, the moral imperative of the ensaving, addictive, power of sinfulness permeates all decisions of the person to some extent or other so that person cannot anymore choose full righteousness, only a tainted righteousness.

There is no confusion in this except from those who need our human sinful nature to have a free will...therefore they created a wondrous multitude of ideas to make free mean anything else at all.

 

[TedT]

Does she not have free will when she sets fire to the house but does have free will when she saves the child trapped in the flames?

Until she is reborn in Christ she has no free will. The good she would do is not righteous but as filthy rags because it is tainted by her addiction to evil. She is not a morally right person so she cannot create a morally right decision. As to whether she was free to choose which colour of socks to put on, that is just another set of tracks around the wozzle bush, absolutely meaningless.

The only choices that are meaningful are moral choices. The ability to choose your socks does NOT prove a free will not under any coercion or constraint because people DO choose within their coercions and constraints, that is, choosing while bound by the power of the cercion or restraint, they just don't realize they are coerced to choose sin and restrained from being righteous - even when Christ tells them!

 

[TedT]

This is a good point. Consider that God created Hell, which is the worst place that can be imagined. The worst type of punishment imaginable. If you read the Bible, you will find that death was God's go to punishment. You gather sticks on a Saturday, you die. And, as God envisioned it, you would not die from disease. Other humans would have to pelt you with stones until you die. And Christians consider this sort of God - good. Not just good, but the golden standard for good. You have to measure up to that standard to be considered good.

Ironically, if you refuse to pelt people with stones, you sin, you disobey the golden standard for goodness, so you deserve to be tortured in Hell for eternity for your evilness.

Ahh, it seems like anther round of how to tell the story wrongly or even who can tell the story with the most wrong interpretation, has started. Good luck to all contestants!

Props to twitter:
Explain A Movie Plot Badly
@ExplainPlot
The place where we explain a movie plot badly...
https://twitter.com/explainplot?lang=en

 

[TedT]

Well, remember that Jesus saves you from Hell! How can you love Jesus if you know that the alternative is torture in Hell for all eternity?

Hi BigV,
Some people would say that since He saves me from hell how can I not love Him? but I do know what you mean...

And how does the knowledge of punishment in Hell let you keep your free will? Free will, by definition, is a choice that you are free to make, not coerced to make. If somone is holding a gun to your head and asking you to make a decision, your decision at that moment won't be "free". And Hell is much much worse than a gun to your head.

It is so refreshing to have someone start a discussion about free will with a proper definition of the words, free will...glad to meet you.

Not to school you but for the other readers who might not know what I am talking about, my definition of a free will is a bit more detailed...

All FREE means is uncoerced:
IF GOD set it up so HIS new creation had no coercion or constraints upon their choices, not forcing them to choose anything, they had free will. And this is about not going to hell, not about what to eat for breakfast....

The Elements of a True Free Will Choice:

1. Free will can't be coerced:
Nothing in their created nature could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all genetics...

Nothing in their experience could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all cultural or familial experience...

Nothing in their understanding or knowledge of reality could FORCE them to choose good or evil, love or hate.

In other words, they had to be completely and truly ingenuously innocent.

[Ref: definition of ingenuous: [URL="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ingenuousness"]ingenuousness[/url] as: 1. Lacking in cunning, guile, worldliness; artless. 2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid.

2. Consequences must be known but not proved:
The person must understand the full consequences of their choice or it is a guess, not a true choice. “What will happen if I choose left or right, the red pill or the blue pill?” must be answered in full detail.

But "PROOF" of the nature of the consequence would compel or coerce the person to choose what was proven to be the best for them. If the answer “death / hell here,” “life / heaven there,” was proven, which would you choose? The weight of knowledge would destroy the effect of a true ‘free will’ choice.

If it were proven you would die if you went left, are you truly free to choose to go right? No, you are forced by your knowledge to go right.

Therefore they must know, but without proof, the nature of the consequences of their choice. Only then will their choices be following their desires, their deepest hope in the nature of reality, defining the reality they most hope to enjoy.

Coercions and constraints are forces we cannot resist. An influence is an idea that we can consider deeply how we should react then choose which way to go...an influence is not designed to force but only to show the possible consequences of the options but without proof.

The warnings about hell and the sufferings of a sinful life were just that, warnings, as, without any proof that HE had any power over such things we were not coerced by them. The proof of their uncoercive nature as warnings is found in the fact that many, Satan and all, ignored these warnings as the lies of a false god and repudiated HIM.

Right now, I'd be more afraid of the gun to my head than I would be if you said, "Believe in me or I'll send you to hell...sometime, somehow...maybe." In this world, just how real is the coercive power of the meaning of hell?

Peace, Ted

 

[Bradskii]

Until she is reborn in Christ she has no free will. The good she would do is not righteous but as filthy rags because it is tainted by her addiction to evil. She is not a morally right person so she cannot create a morally right decision. As to whether she was free to choose which colour of socks to put on, that is just another set of tracks around the wozzle bush, absolutely meaningless.

The only choices that are meaningful are moral choices. The ability to choose your socks does NOT prove a free will not under any coercion or constraint because people DO choose within their coercions and constraints, that is, choosing while bound by the power of the cercion or restraint, they just don't realize they are coerced to choose sin and restrained from being righteous - even when Christ tells them!

You just moved tbe goalposts. It was 'no free will if you are evil'. So I suggested someone making a free will decision to do a morally good act (if that person has committed evil). And now it's 'no free will until you are reborn in Christ'.

So I guess that you have it but I don't. Is that right? Am I 'addicted to evil'? Is any good that I do 'but as filthy rags'? And those aren't hypothetical questions. They need answering.

 

[TedT]

Don't you know that people are inspired by martyrs? Why do you think people sacrifice themselves for a cause?

Well, Muslim people in the Madrasa maybe but not people in general...

 

[TedT]

You just moved tbe goalposts. It was 'no free will if you are evil'. So I suggested someone making a free will decision to do a morally good act (if that person has committed evil). And now it's 'no free will until you are reborn in Christ'.

...but these are the same things for the negative pov to the positive pov: no free will in sinners but a free will in those sinners who are reborn, ie, in whom sin is not accounted to them anymore so it is dealt with by GOD's grace.

So I guess that you have it but I don't. Is that right? Am I 'addicted to evil'? Is any good that I do 'but as filthy rags'? And those aren't hypothetical questions. They need answering.

Well, Bradskii,
according to the Bible and to the orthodox understanding of the pertinent bible verses which in this instance I accept, ...yes, basically. That is the whole intention about needing a saviour from this mess. <shrug>

 

[TedT]

They're able to choose to hate God, but they never ever will, 100% guaranteed.

The guarantee you speak of is only in effect after they make their choice and even then, it has been schooled by the experience of seeing others sin, being sent to the prison planet earth and the suffering thereon. Who would dare choose sin after all that???

You seem to want the guarantee to our being perfectly loving to be from our creation somehow but it cannot be! It was not from the creation of the holy and elect angels that they will never choose to sin but only from their personal commitment to GOD and HIS definition of morality and reality BY THEIR FREE WILL CHOICE ...nothing else.

 

[Bradskii]

...but these are the same things for the negative pov to the positive pov: no free will in sinners but a free will in those sinners who are reborn, ie, in whom sin is not accounted to them anymore so it is dealt with by GOD's grace.


Well, Bradskii,
according to the Bible and to the orthodox understanding of the pertinent bible verses which in this instance I accept, ...yes, basically. That is the whole intention about needing a tsaviour from this mess. <shrug>

So you accept scripture that says a person is addicted to evil without you knowing anything about them whatsoever. So Ghandi was addicted to evil. As is the Dalai Lama. And you want me to accept that this a reasonable view?

How can I possibly take that seriously...

 

[TedT]

So you accept scripture that says a person is addicted to evil without you knowing anything about them whatsoever. So Ghandi was addicted to evil. As is the Dalai Lama. And you want me to accept that this a reasonable view?

How can I possibly take that seriously...

My reply would be firmly based upon Romans 1 especially from verse 18 to the end... which tells us why the good people of the world reject the proof of the truth about YHWH's divinity and power that they have witnessed with their own eyes...if I cared to argue with you, which I do not. You asked, I answered....

 

[Moral Orel]

BUT HE DID! There are holy and elect angels who have never sinned and by their free will will never sin!!

Okay, so that's even better. Not only does God have free will and will never sin, there are created beings who have never, and will never sin, and they too have free will. They can sin, but they freely choose not to, so why not make everyone like that?

Why make any sort of being that will sin?! Everyone that God creates can have free will and sin never needs to exist, so why does God want sin to exist at all?!

You seem to want the guarantee to our being perfectly loving to be from our creation somehow but it cannot be! It was not from the creation of the holy and elect angels that they will never choose to sin but only from their personal commitment to GOD and HIS definition of morality and reality BY THEIR FREE WILL CHOICE ...nothing else.

But those angels have never sinned, so from the moment of their creation they made the free will choice to not sin. Why not make everyone like that?

If you have one group of people that have never and will never sin, and another group of people that will definitely sin, then they're created different.

 

[Bradskii]

My reply would be firmly based upon Romans 1 especially from verse 18 to the end... which tells us why the good people of the world reject the proof of the truth about YHWH's divinity and power that they have witnessed with their own eyes...if I cared to argue with you, which I do not. You asked, I answered....

That's clear enough. You think that myself, and even more amazingly, people like Ghandi and the Dalai Lama are (and I'll quote the verses you chose to empasise your point):

'...filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.'

Do you think a reasonable person would accept that as a valid proposal?

 

[TedT]

They can sin, but they freely choose not to, so why not make everyone like that?

NOBODY CAN BE MADE LIKE THAT!

People must choose to be like that which also gives them the chance to not be like that.

 

[TedT]

Everyone that God creates can have free will and sin never needs to exist, so why does God want sin to exist at all?!

You describe a non-free will situation but call it free will...you are having me on aren't you? GOD can't do logical inconsistencies. 2+2≠7. Water is wet and the results of a free will decision must be chosen, not created or it is not free will.

He does not want sin to exist - HE wants everyone to choose the life they want to live: Our free will decision to live with HIM in heaven is a much more important than actually living there with HIM because, as I have repeatedly said, love and marriage are only real from a free will acceptance of the proposal.

Why do you keep insisting robotic compliance with a fake hoiness is preferable? Is a stone holy or loving? Not a bit because it can't choose anything!

 

[TedT]

Do you think a reasonable person would accept that as a valid proposal?

I think your willingness to gaslight folk who do believe this as unreasonable or worse is par for the atheist course who has run out of reasons for his morality except personal preference. If you have that right, why do I not?

Whats next? Believers are deluded, psychotic, should be restrained...I've heard all of these.