The Logical Premise?

[Obliquinaut]

He has this single fixation about murder that is keeping him from understanding.

AV, I am so much further ahead than you, you should really keep your mouth shut. You keep bearing false witness against me. Except in this case you are doing so unwittingly. I presume you have read almost nothing of what I've written on CF and even if you did, you aren't capable of understanding most of it. Such is the myopia of a poor second-rate education and simple thought.

You peanut gallery comments are no longer necessary. Take your simpleton's faith and go elsewhere please.

 

[Obliquinaut]

I go with Bonhoeffer on this one. It's a meaningless question. God does what he does, and we, as finite beings, can never discern some absolute judgement of good and evil. We either do God's will or we don't. We may talk about good and evil among we finite humans, but that's more a curse than anything else.

And would you call that "worship"? Would you call that love of God? It sounds like just short of being an automaton.

Is that what mankind is born to be? An unthinking, unreasoning automaton?

Why did God gift us with such large brains? Was it just to torment us?

 

[Obliquinaut]

I've made this statement on CF myself many times. I'm perplexed as to why it is so difficult to grasp.

Here's a couple reasons why it's so difficult to grasp:

1. God is not just a "person". And indeed, there is no comparison. God is, by definition, the most important being in the entire universe and beyond. So why do so many people have different experiences of this being? Shouldn't the most important TRUTH in the universe be universal in aspect?

2. What about those of us who tried for decades to get to "know" this being and thought we might have had a bead on Him, only to realize we were actually pursuing our own imagination of what this being was like? What did we do wrong such that He hid himself from us while opening the door wide for you?

 

[AV1611VET]

I tried to get to know the "person" of God. Decades and decades. I "phoned" and wrote letters and rang the doorbell.

For decades and decades you "phoned" and wrote letters and rang the doorbell of a murderer?

Sadly no one seemed to be home.

Perhaps He was out looking for someone to order a hit on?

 

[Obliquinaut]

It seems to me that the problem of evil is only a problem if you presuppose that God's number one priority is to ensure his creatures lead lives as pain free as possible. If, however, he has other priorities, and they necessitate some suffering on the part of his creatures, then there is at least no logical problem.

As Leibniz noted "This is the best of all possible worlds".

Of course, that is easy ffor a comfortable westerner to say. If you are living on the poverty line in Africa, it might be less easy to accept. (And yet, paradoxically, it is precisely in the less affluent parts of the world that Christianity is growing.)

Christianity grew in Medieval Europe and arguably the people for whom it was most important were those least capable of affecting real change in their lot in life. Religion should bring comfort to the oppressed by giving them hope that there is some greater thing than their mere short life of suffering.

Perhaps it is actually easier for an atheist in comfort here in the Developed World. Atheism is available since I can find comfort through other things.

However I'm still a nihilist (or at least an existentialist) at heart. My frustration lies in accepting that my life inherently has no meaning. That any meaning I find in life is wholly up to me to provide. In many ways that makes things harder. You have to work for it.

But it is also comforting to think that upon the end of life there is nothing beyond that. I'm happy with oblivion. I have enjoyed the life I have (again, quite the lucky thing for me to be born in the wealthiest nation on earth and in a position to be able to pursue my dreams and achieve). But also sad for me that I no longer allow myself the imagined future without evidence.

It would pain me greatly if I felt my discussions of God with His believers would ever cost them their faith, but by the same token I can think of nothing more wonderful to do than to talk about ideas.

That is my cross to bear.

 

[Obliquinaut]

For decades and decades you "phoned" and wrote letters and rang the doorbell of a murderer?

Did I actually call God a murderer? I believe I noted that God could, indeed, kill whomever He feels is appropriate. Indeed He reserved the right to hold guilty the offspring of those who did wrong.

BUT, that being said, as my faith started to wane and I paid more attention to what is in the Bible I began to see an image of God in those pages that wasn't a clear picture. And a God who commanded or oversaw vicious wars and death no longer seemed to be a clear image of God. It started to look more like a human construction. You know the kind of gods you don't believe in? The ones from other mythos that have all these human features like petulance and jealousy and unhinged rage? Yeah, that.

Perhaps He was out looking for someone to order a hit on?

Indeed. Perhaps he was hoping Saul would murder me. Or Joshua.

 

[lesliedellow]

Yet it is our only instruction manual on what God is.

In order to receive the truth of the Bible you have to start by accepting the truth of the Bible before reading it.

The Eastern Orthodox Church has a saying: "If you are a theologian you truly pray. If you truly pray you are a theologian."

They have no conception of theology as something hived off into a seperate intellectual discipline, and, judging by the results, they are right. Western universities are full of theologians who have difficulty believing in God.

 

[Obliquinaut]

They have no conception of theology hived off into a seperate intellectual discipline, and judging by the results, they are right. Western universities are full of theologians who have difficulty believing in God.

My experiences in life have taught me a valuable lesson: it is always possible to debate a concept, no matter how bizarre or how little you may believe in it's actual reality.

This comes from having as one of my closest friends in high school and college who was a philosophy major and is now a philosophy professor. He is, interestingly, also a Christian and a believer, but I always had my most interesting discussions about faith with him. Even back when I was a believer.

It also comes from the fact that I am a reader as well. I love to play with ideas and concepts, even if it requires suspension of disbelief.

For me the life of the mind is one of the few things of interest in life in general. I don't like sports. But I do love running around in a field of concepts.

I keep forgetting that some people don't like that and that they take a concept and put it away in a box in the hopes that they never have to open it up and look at it or consider it. They move on in the hopes that they never have to reconsider it, especially in hopes that they got the concept right before the put it away in the box.

 

[Resha Caner]

What about those of us who tried for decades to get to "know" this being and thought we might have had a bead on Him, only to realize we were actually pursuing our own imagination of what this being was like?

Good for you to reach that awareness.

What did we do wrong such that He hid himself from us while opening the door wide for you?

Hopefully you're not done listening.

 

[lesliedellow]

I keep forgetting that some people don't like that and that they take a concept and put it away in a box in the hopes that they never have to open it up and look at it or consider it. They move on in the hopes that they never have to reconsider it, especially in hopes that they got the concept right before the put it away in the box.

If I put my concept away in a box, I would presumably still be a woolly Anglican, who could more correctly be called a atheist than a Christian. But I have had the repeated experience of what I can only suppose is the Holy Spirit opening it for me - usually against my will.

In fact, even before I was a woolly Anglican, I was a not particularly committed atheist. But then there was this strange inner prompting which, unless I resisted it, would require a complete rethink of my self image. So I resisted it - for a time.

 

[quatona]

Strange you should mention that. A good part of the arguments in this thread have been along the lines of:

"I don't much care for the God of the Bible. Therefore I am going to conclude he doesn't exist. Of course, if he more resembled the God I would like to exist, I might believe in him then."

You can discuss it with them.
When you respond to my post, I expect you to address what I said, instead of pointing at what someone else has said.
But since you have evaded my point several times now, I guess I let that fact speak for itself.

 

[lesliedellow]

You can discuss it with them.
When you respond to my post, I expect you to address what I said, instead of pointing at what someone else has said.
But since you have evaded my point several times now, I guess I let that fact speak for itself.

Do as you please. I am tired of this thread.

 

[AV1611VET]

Do as you please. I am tired of this thread.

That makes two of us.

 

[quatona]

Do as you please. I am tired of this thread.

...ok, then the argument you were no so tired to bring up remains undefended.

 

[Obliquinaut]

That makes two of us.

Well, you better get over on some other threads and call people anti-semites when you get in a snit!

We'll call it your "Witness" for Christ!

 

[Obliquinaut]

Do as you please. I am tired of this thread.

Was it too much when your fellow Christian started bearing false witness and calling people anti-semites?

 

[AV1611VET]

Well, you better get over on some other threads and call people anti-semites when you get in a snit!

We'll call it your "Witness" for Christ!

This is what I said in post 303:

Thank you for showing how anti-Semitic that mindset is.

Judges 6:1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.
2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.
3 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them;
4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.
5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

I've shown before how anti-Semitism and atheism go hand-in-hand,* and your mindset is yet another example.

* Two other good examples are:

1. The atheists who moan and groan that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, despite the fact that Pharaoh was committing slow genocide by having all the male Jews born in Egypt killed.

2. The atheists who claim Israel isn't the Promised Land (since God allegedly doesn't exist).

I'll just add your anti-Semite bigotry, disguised as a fake indignation towards the Amalekite children, to the pot.

I'll throw in an honorable mention too, while I'm talking about how anti-Semitic atheism is:

3. The atheists who moan and groan that Israel isn't in their homeland now due to fulfilled prophecy. This means, of course, that Israel would have to go back into captivity in order to fulfilled that prophecy before the LORD's return.

Keep up your "God murdered" bologna, the Bible exposes you and your kind as bigots.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

If you don't see those three points as anti-Semite, I feel sorry for you.

I'll ask you a very basic question that only one person in my lifetime ever answered honestly:

Q: Are the Jews in the Promised Land: YES or NO?

One person (can't remember if he was an atheist or not) answered honestly from his perspective: NO.

Usually I get ten tons of atheistic side shuffle, or six paragraphs of some scientific bull horns, leaving me to wonder where he stood.

 

[Obliquinaut]

This is what I said in post 303:

If you don't see those three points as anti-Semite, I feel sorry for you.

AV, you are doubling down on annoying another poster. You are flaming. Sorry that you can't see that!

I'll ask you a very basic question that only one person in my lifetime ever answered honestly:

Q: Are the Jews in the Promised Land: YES or NO?

AV, you gave up the right to ask anyone a question with a request to answer it honestly. You bear so much false witness against other people it is SAD.

Thou hypocrite.

One person (can't remember if he was an atheist or not) answered honestly from his perspective: NO.

Usually I get ten tons of atheistic side shuffle, or six paragraphs of some scientific bull horns, leaving me to wonder where he stood.

You don't deserve an answer. Thou hypocrite. What would I care about your faith when you don't seem to care much about it yourself????

LOL!

You want me to engage with YOU on YOUR FAITH? Your faith seems about as meaningful to you as it does to me!

Sorry, hypocrite. I don't care to take your "challenges". You need to challenge yourself a little bit more.

You are busy looking at the mote in your brothers' eyes rather than the beam in your own.

You deserve NOTHING that even hints of respect.

NOTHING.

 

[Kylie]

I go with Bonhoeffer on this one. It's a meaningless question. God does what he does, and we, as finite beings, can never discern some absolute judgement of good and evil.

Why not?

 

[Resha Caner]

Why not?

Why can't we discern the absolutes of good and evil? Because we're not omniscient.