What if you seek and don't find?

[Davian]

Yes, there is justice for those who are not covered by Jesus. This is nothing you don't already know.

But belief is not under one's conscious control. How is that justice?

 

[Oncedeceived]

We might have free will to choose between God and Satan, but for that to work they both need to make themselves known.
If I ask you to chose your favorite dish between mystery dish A and mystery dish B, but don't let you see them, smell them, taste them or know the ingredients, how can you freely make a choice?

If God came to earth in the form of man, lived among us, with witnesses to confirm it and spread the word through oral and written documentation both by the Bible and hostile sources; then died by crucifixion as prophecy predicted and rose again as witnessed by at least 500 people who then went on to tell others so that what was written down being circulated was sure to be an accurate account which translated to hundreds and thousands becoming Christians and starting the church; what more would you ask? It is clear cut and very easy to understand the choice.

 

[Oncedeceived]

But belief is not under one's conscious control. How is that justice?

How is belief not under one's conscious control? What evidence do you have that is in fact the case? IF you believe that all apples are red and have never seen anything but red apples your belief is under your conscious control because if you find a green apple you then change your belief to some apples are red and some are green.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

If God came to earth in the form of man, lived among us, with witnesses to confirm it and spread the word through oral and written documentation both by the Bible and hostile sources; then died by crucifixion as prophecy predicted and rose again as witnessed by at least 500 people who then went on to tell others so that what was written down being circulated was sure to be an accurate account which translated to hundreds and thousands becoming Christians and starting the church; what more would you ask? It is clear cut and very easy to understand the choice.

There's written texts for many faiths, and there's a lot to the history of the Bible that makes it questionable in my opinion.
If God is a living God, shouldn't there be something today? Some evidence of Him that becomes clear to those who ask to know Him?

 

[Oncedeceived]

There's written texts for many faiths, and there's a lot to the history of the Bible that makes it questionable in my opinion.
If God is a living God, shouldn't there be something today? Some evidence of Him that becomes clear to those who ask to know Him?

I think there is. You have a choice, you have chosen to believe that the evidence that is there is explained by natural phenomena if I remember correctly as to your position. For instance, most all scientists claim that they observe design in the universe as well as all living things. One can banish that observation by making excuses for it. Claiming it can be there naturally or that it is just an illusion.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

I think there is. You have a choice, you have chosen to believe that the evidence that is there is explained by natural phenomena if I remember correctly as to your position. For instance, most all scientists claim that they observe design in the universe as well as all living things. One can banish that observation by making excuses for it. Claiming it can be there naturally or that it is just an illusion.

If the natural phenomenon correctly predicts what is observed, then how can you reject that for a supernatural explanation?
I don't think that most scientists see evidence of design, but if there's something you'd like to point me towards to learn more, I'd be interested.

 

[Athée]

Every child can be saved. Every one. If God is real as I claim and is the Christian God as He claims, Satan also exists and has been given a limited power here on earth. It is due to Satan that there are other false religions. It is due to Satan that unbelievers are blinded to the existence of God.

Presumably you believe (as always correct me if I'm wrong) that God created Satan and gave Satan his authority. Why would God created a being that he knows ahead of time will destroy his plan? To what extent is God, having created Satan and giving him power and knowing how he will use it (not to mention the to story of Job where he outright tells Satan to do his worst like a high school dare), responsible for Satan's actions in your opinion?

Now you seem to think and as always correct me if I am wrong, that God could have created beings without free will. That would have eliminated the path that Satan took, that would eliminate people having any ability to chose anything but God so no false gods and no one sinning so no need for hell which is the consequence of sin.

Maybe I haven't been clear. We make "free will" choices in accordance with our nature. When traveling from my house to work I have a free choice to walk, run, ride a bike etc but I can't choose to flap my arms and fly like a bird to work. This doesn't mean that I don't have free will, it means that my options are limited by my nature. In the same way I am suggesting that God could have created us such that our nature did not allow us to sin while still allowing us free will choices in a myriad of ways. For any situation where there is more than one possible action/response that is not sinful, such creations would have free will. In fact this is almost exactly the way you yourself have described heaven.

Now God hasn't changed, He is the same as He was when He created the universe and all living things. He may not have any reason to eliminate anyone but He is still the same God, but now you have to worship Him. You have no choice in the matter. All is good but how do we know that? How would we know if God was good or bad? God created the angels and Satan before us. Angels know God, they know He exists but their job is only to worship God and protect us.

I will come back to your idea of God never changing later but I confess I didn't quite understand your argument here. Maybe you could spell it out for me, I'm slow sometimes

So you tell me with as many details you can how life would be for us if we did not have free will. If we were created without a way to reproduce...no sex, no genetic defects, no need for parents, no need for husbands or wives.

You seem to think that the two options are:
1)free will exactly the way we currently experience it
Or ( not ~ by the way, just the colloquial "or")
2) Zero free will.

Why in your mind are these the only options? I outlined another possibility above but I am interested is why you feel this is a binary phenomenon.

No God did not mess up. He chose to create the way He did, and I believe it has everything to do with us having a free choice to chose Him or reject Him

OK. I see that you wanted some time to go research this to make your case. I am happy to wait

I know by talking to many many unbelievers in my life that most that have said they were once Christians that they felt that there were experiences that they "thought" was God at the time but then realized that they just "wanted" to believe it was God and that it was all their imagination. What if everyone of these experience were God and they turned away due to the world's "wisdom"?

I suppose that is possible. Obviously though we can't get any type of conclusion from that. As the pithy saying goes" speculation in, speculation out". So if you say "it is possible that this is the explanation, the very strongest conclusion you can draw is that it is possible that God has a reason. You would not be justified on the basis of this argument to say that he is fact does have a reason or even that you believe it is probable that God has a reason. That said what then do you make of all the people who do not have the experience you describe, what about all the people of different religious beliefs who, if you still hold to your earlier statement that thier false gods can have no impact on this material world, must be deluding themselves?

I am going to come back to this if you don't mind. I need to look up some things and I don't have time right now.

Yup,sounds good.

And this harms them in what way?

It tells them that who they are, the way they are born, things over which they have no control and didn't choose about themselves are not just bad but abominable. We have seen the fall out from this kind of thinking in the history of African Americans. They were told and indoctrinated to believe that back skin was dirty, lesser, animal like. The repercussions of this are evident in the history of your country (and mine - Canada). I am suggesting that this is the case when we tell LGBTQ persons that they are abominations. Do you see the harm?

I gave you two in the comment

So looking back your two best examples that a God gave the writers of the Bible do one knowledge that predicted science are that 1) life came from the sea and 2) The universe (space, time and matter) came from nothing. Could you give me the bub reference for supporting that position so I can make sure I am looking at the same evidence you have in mind. Thanks.

The Bible gives a pretty specific outline of how the universe was created and life in it. I think that God gave us the ability to reason for a reason. I've researched religions quite extensively, and there is no other more reasonable narrative or one that has more evidence to support it (in my opinion)than the Christian God.

This could be the case but I think it misses the point of my question. The bible says that even without the Bible, just looking at the "creation" would be enough to bring the unbeliever to saving faith in God. I agree that the Bible talks about all this and I am happy to hear that you looked at the creation myths from other cultures but my question is specifically about how Yahweh is demonstrated by the visible universe. Could you maybe provide your top examples of how the universe makes the exclusive case for your God.

No, I said He used his will for His purposes.

But this is exactly what your Bible says didn't happen. If you read the story in exodus you see that initially Pharaoh hardens his heart and won't let the people go,and so God punishes Egypt (why did the villagers deserve these punishments again?). As the punishment escalates, pharaoh gives in, he has a change of heart and says OK I have sinned against your God, you may go free. But God isn't done showing how glorious he is and so GOD HARDENS THE HEART OF THE PHAROAH, forcing him to act against the what he has just stated was his free will choice, letting the people go. So in this instance God absolutely overrules free will in order to serve his own purposes. Agreed?

But in this day and age we understand life better and yet worldwide 40 to 50 million a year babies are sucked from their mothers wombs or in late term abortions are torn to bits and the babies skulls are stabbed. How in the world is that doing better?

This is a great point. Maybe I shouldn't have said better. Maybe we are barbaric in different (hopefully fewer? ) ways than in the past without necessarily being better.

I do want to say here that I am a bit puzzled by the focus of the response on this issue of abortion. As I have said many times I am absolutely against abortion except in very rare circumstances. I agree with you that a 12 week old foetus is more than a lump of cells, I consider it a human or at the very very least an imminent human, with certain rights and protections. I think this is an area where we more or less agree so I just am not sure why it keeps coming up?

It is unchanging. What is changed is our interpretation of said moral law. Lying is considered to be immoral, if everyone just lied about everything not even science would be immune. Murder is always objectively wrong, where the subjective part comes in is who is killed and why they are killed. But what ever definition is put on murder, murder is always objectively wrong.

It seems to me that if morality is objective this means that it remains true whether or not anyone believes it to be true. To use your example, murder, is always wrong. How then does it matter if our interpretation changes? How does this effect the objective moral principle at the base? If next year we decided that the unlawful killing of three year old boys is no longer considered murder, under the law, does this have any impact on your eternal, unchanging objective morality?

Would you go to war if the United States was attacked and your family were at risk of death from the enemies attack, would you kill women and children of that enemy if that was the only way to stop them from killing your own family?

Sorry I am not sure what analogy you are making here.
Remwbering your earlier comment that God is unchanging, and pairing that with your belief that morals are absolute and objective, how do you justify calling a God good who drowns 99.99 percent of people in the world in a flood, who orders and commits genocides etc. Are you saying, since morality is objective and unchanging (like god), that such acts are in fact good acts and that they would still be good today?

Allah tells his followers to kill. When a Muslim does acts of terror for Allah they are being true to the ways of their religion. God tells us to love our enemies and not to kill. God asked the Jews to kill for a purpose, if you are a former believer you should understand that. I would never hear God tell me to kill. If I had that "thought" I would not act upon it because I know that God would not tell me that and the thought was due to something else.

So again we have this God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow forever. In the past he said, go kill those men women and children over there. He also says love your enemies. Obviously since he doesn't change he can't mean don't kill them because that has been his explicit command in the past. Maybe he means that it is loving to kill them all, men women children, infant and yes 12 week old foetuses as well (remember the bit about telling his followers to cut open pregnant women,it seems your God is pro abortion in cases where it serves his purposes). Is this what you believe? Why or why not?
As an aside I ways find it interesting when Christians say that they have a ler9relationshoo (wow that was supposed to be relationship, I love my phone) with God and that they just know that God would never tell them to do anything like that. But of course there is a case study showing the exact opposite in the Bible. Abraham has a very personal relationship with God,

I would assume then you would think it better to kill all women and children rather than give them protection and homes?

Nope as I said before the best solution, as the God of the universe would be to not order your followers to to kill men women and children but keep young Virgina and make them wives.
That said what I asked was how this is an example of a moral and good God based on your world view. How do you make justify saying God is good and also saying, in the past my God told his followers to kill kill men women, children, infants and yes even 13 week old foetuses (remember the verse in Hosea where God tells them to cut open pregnant women with swords, it ses your God is OK with abortions as long as they serve his glorious purposes, right?).

Where does God ever say it is ok to beat a slave? It doesn't in this verse.

But it does. It says there is a punishment for beating a slave to death and no punishment for beating them to near death (as long as they survive two days). God even tells us why there is no punishment in the latter case. It is because those slaves are property. These are godvs commands so again, please explain on your view how this is moral and good.

God knew that there were slaves, the system like I've said before was for those that couldn't provide for their families they would go into service for others that could. I could cite various passages that God tells the Jews to treat their slaves kindly

I have already agreed that indentured servitude is a thing in the ANE but these verses in exodus are explicitly not talking a out that kind of servitude so I am not sure why it is being brought up. Maybe you could clarify?

In this case, God knowing that there have been times when man would not treat his slaves well and He is saying that if this happens and they kill their slave they will be put to death themselves. If they don't die, it is not that God isn't saying their should be no punishment, but that he can't be avenged (meaning the master could not be put to death). He still would have to most likely face the other options available.

So God gave his perfect word to his people to guide them in all richeousness. In this book it says nothing about any punishment for beating slaves to near death. In fact, as I said above, it justifies the lack of consequences by pointing out that the slaves are just property. Why do you think you might feel the need to add hypothetical punishments that your God didn't include in the Bible?

 

[Davian]

How is belief not under one's conscious control? What evidence do you have that is in fact the case? IF you believe that all apples are red and have never seen anything but red apples your belief is under your conscious control because if you find a green apple you then change your belief to some apples are red and some are green.

You are misrepresenting what I am saying. I am not talking about changing one's beliefs upon being presented with new evidence.

I cannot simply decide to believe that gods are real or not. Try it yourself. Decide right now to believe that gods are only characters in books. Switch back tomorrow.

To hold one responsible for things beyond one's control is not justice. It is morally bankrupt.

 

[Athée]

How is belief not under one's conscious control? What evidence do you have that is in fact the case? IF you believe that all apples are red and have never seen anything but red apples your belief is under your conscious control because if you find a green apple you then change your belief to some apples are red and some are green.

Hey that's my example!
But i think there is an error in there. In your example your belief does change but not by choice. It changes in the face of new evidence.
On dogma debate (podcast) the host often runs this thought experiment to make the point that we don't choose belief:
If you and I were to walk up 30 flights of stairs to the roof of an office building, then we walk to the edge and I hold your arm as you stand on the edge and look down. You see the tiny cars and people, you feel the wind and probably the vertigo too! Then I blindfold you and say. I want you to choose to believe that this building we are on is only 4 inches tall. When you have made the choice to believe this, when you believe it to be true, I want you to jump.
Would you be able to jump? Why or why not?

 

[Davian]

Hey that's my example!
But i think there is an error in there. In your example your belief does change but not by choice. It changes in the face of new evidence.
...

Exactly. It's like saying that I could consciously choose to believe that Earth is being visited by extraterrestrial aliens, if one were to land it's spaceship in my front yard. That is not what I am trying to get across here.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

No God did not mess up. He chose to create the way He did, and I believe it has everything to do with us having a free choice to chose Him or reject Him. Satan is very good at trying to stop people from turning to God. Pride can be used against mankind to alienate them from God. It is used very well. All people need to do is accept that Christ lived and died and rose again to cover all the wrong doing of mankind. It is very simple, very easy and available to all. How do you know that God has not presented Himself to every living being but like you they have rejected it? I know by talking to many many unbelievers in my life that most that have said they were once Christians that they felt that there were experiences that they "thought" was God at the time but then realized that they just "wanted" to believe it was God and that it was all their imagination. What if everyone of these experience were God and they turned away due to the world's "wisdom"?

Sorry to but in, but there are some points in your posts on which I would appreciate some clarification. Unlike our genteel friend Athée, I have never been a Christian. I have never had experiences that seemed at all supernatural before then deciding that they were mundane. As we read in Psalm 139:16 "all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be". Why did God, who knew before I was ever born that I would fail to find my way to him, not do something different to guide me toward him? God knows me completely and knows what would be required for me to believe in him or to begin to believe in him, so why nothing of that nature? Would this violate free will? Follow up question:

Did God violate Paul's free will when he appeared to him, identified himself as Jesus, struck him blind and arranged for a miracle to restore his sight?

No, I said He used his will for His purposes.

I find this confusing. Could you please explicitly lay out your evidence for interpreting that passage as you do? It seems very clear, based on the actual words in the bible, that God has caused Pharaoh to change his mind. Where do you get the idea that Pharaoh has simply changed his own mind after stating that he believes and he is sorry and he wants the plagues to stop? I would like actual scriptural support if you can supply it, or failing that some more substantive commentary than has thusfar been provided.

But in this day and age we understand life better and yet worldwide 40 to 50 million a year babies are sucked from their mothers wombs or in late term abortions are torn to bits and the babies skulls are stabbed. How in the world is that doing better?

It is unchanging. What is changed is our interpretation of said moral law. Lying is considered to be immoral, if everyone just lied about everything not even science would be immune. Murder is always objectively wrong, where the subjective part comes in is who is killed and why they are killed. But what ever definition is put on murder, murder is always objectively wrong.

This seems like a major inconsistency in your position. You are clearly distressed and outraged by abortion and believe there is no justification for it unless the mother's life is in danger. Yet you consider moral and justified for God to order babies to be dashed on the rocks and cut from their mothers' wombs. You've skirted this question a couple times now. Please explain in detail why dashing babies on the rocks is moral.

You also didn't address an interesting question Athée put to you:

If God commanded you to, say, dash some babies upon the rocks and you knew (with the same certainty that you know God is real) it really was your God telling you to do it, would you? The question isn't whether you think God would ever ask such a thing of you, the question is what would you do if he did?

 

[Oncedeceived]

If the natural phenomenon correctly predicts what is observed, then how can you reject that for a supernatural explanation?
I don't think that most scientists see evidence of design, but if there's something you'd like to point me towards to learn more, I'd be interested.

Lets take one example, the first replicating life form. What natural phenomenon correctly predicts what is observed?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Sorry to but in, but there are some points in your posts on which I would appreciate some clarification.

You are not butting in, as it is open for all. How are you doing Atheos?

Unlike our genteel friend Athée, I have never been a Christian. I have never had experiences that seemed at all supernatural before then deciding that they were mundane. As we read in Psalm 139:16 "all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be". Why did God, who knew before I was ever born that I would fail to find my way to him, not do something different to guide me toward him? God knows me completely and knows what would be required for me to believe in him or to begin to believe in him, so why nothing of that nature?

Well, what makes you lack belief?

Would this violate free will? Follow up question:

Did God violate Paul's free will when he appeared to him, identified himself as Jesus, struck him blind and arranged for a miracle to restore his sight?

Was Paul free to walk away an unbeliever? If Jesus appeared to you and identified Himself to you and struck you blind and arranged for a miracle to restore your sight would you bow down to Jesus and worship Him?

I find this confusing. Could you please explicitly lay out your evidence for interpreting that passage as you do? It seems very clear, based on the actual words in the bible, that God has caused Pharaoh to change his mind. Where do you get the idea that Pharaoh has simply changed his own mind after stating that he believes and he is sorry and he wants the plagues to stop? I would like actual scriptural support if you can supply it, or failing that some more substantive commentary than has thusfar been provided.

IF you will note, Pharaoh hardened his own four different times. Each time there is a new word used for this hardening of his own heart. This first Kabed, which means rather dull or insensitive, the next word used is qasah, meaning very severe, and lastly hazaq, meaning to grow firm or strong. This shows that Pharaoh's will was to harden his own heart more and more during the passages. Now we see God hardening his heart, not because Pharaoh wouldn't himself but because he would say he would let the Jews go before all the judgement was meted out. He still would have went after the Jews and tried to kill them (as shown by his hardened heart each time) but he would lie and say he would let them go. God knew that. Pharaoh never really changed his mind, he just said he did as shown each time a new word for his hardened heart was used. Pharaoh had told all the midwives to kill the first born of the Jews and now it was God's judgement to do the same to them.

This seems like a major inconsistency in your position. You are clearly distressed and outraged by abortion and believe there is no justification for it unless the mother's life is in danger. Yet you consider moral and justified for God to order babies to be dashed on the rocks and cut from their mothers' wombs. You've skirted this question a couple times now. Please explain in detail why dashing babies on the rocks is moral.

You might have missed my response to that. God didn't command this, this was a warning and prophecy of what would happen if the Jews did not repent. The warning was given for 50 years before God lifted His protective hand and allowed Judgement against them.

You also didn't address an interesting question Athée put to you:

If God commanded you to, say, dash some babies upon the rocks and you knew (with the same certainty that you know God is real) it really was your God telling you to do it, would you? The question isn't whether you think God would ever ask such a thing of you, the question is what would you do if he did?

No, I would not. I know that it goes against my religion.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Hey that's my example!
But i think there is an error in there. In your example your belief does change but not by choice. It changes in the face of new evidence.
On dogma debate (podcast) the host often runs this thought experiment to make the point that we don't choose belief:
If you and I were to walk up 30 flights of stairs to the roof of an office building, then we walk to the edge and I hold your arm as you stand on the edge and look down. You see the tiny cars and people, you feel the wind and probably the vertigo too! Then I blindfold you and say. I want you to choose to believe that this building we are on is only 4 inches tall. When you have made the choice to believe this, when you believe it to be true, I want you to jump.
Would you be able to jump? Why or why not?

What did you say belief was?

 

[Oncedeceived]

You are misrepresenting what I am saying. I am not talking about changing one's beliefs upon being presented with new evidence.

I cannot simply decide to believe that gods are real or not. Try it yourself. Decide right now to believe that gods are only characters in books. Switch back tomorrow.

To hold one responsible for things beyond one's control is not justice. It is morally bankrupt.

I am not misrepresenting what you are saying, I am telling you that belief is not an island to itself. It is about evidence and new evidence.

What evidence do you have that you do not believe that God exists?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Presumably you believe (as always correct me if I'm wrong) that God created Satan and gave Satan his authority. Why would God created a being that he knows ahead of time will destroy his plan? To what extent is God, having created Satan and giving him power and knowing how he will use it (not to mention the to story of Job where he outright tells Satan to do his worst like a high school dare), responsible for Satan's actions in your opinion?


Maybe I haven't been clear. We make "free will" choices in accordance with our nature. When traveling from my house to work I have a free choice to walk, run, ride a bike etc but I can't choose to flap my arms and fly like a bird to work. This doesn't mean that I don't have free will, it means that my options are limited by my nature. In the same way I am suggesting that God could have created us such that our nature did not allow us to sin while still allowing us free will choices in a myriad of ways. For any situation where there is more than one possible action/response that is not sinful, such creations would have free will. In fact this is almost exactly the way you yourself have described heaven.


I will come back to your idea of God never changing later but I confess I didn't quite understand your argument here. Maybe you could spell it out for me, I'm slow sometimes


You seem to think that the two options are:
1)free will exactly the way we currently experience it
Or ( not ~ by the way, just the colloquial "or")
2) Zero free will.

Why in your mind are these the only options? I outlined another possibility above but I am interested is why you feel this is a binary phenomenon.


OK. I see that you wanted some time to go research this to make your case. I am happy to wait


I suppose that is possible. Obviously though we can't get any type of conclusion from that. As the pithy saying goes" speculation in, speculation out". So if you say "it is possible that this is the explanation, the very strongest conclusion you can draw is that it is possible that God has a reason. You would not be justified on the basis of this argument to say that he is fact does have a reason or even that you believe it is probable that God has a reason. That said what then do you make of all the people who do not have the experience you describe, what about all the people of different religious beliefs who, if you still hold to your earlier statement that thier false gods can have no impact on this material world, must be deluding themselves?



Yup,sounds good.



It tells them that who they are, the way they are born, things over which they have no control and didn't choose about themselves are not just bad but abominable. We have seen the fall out from this kind of thinking in the history of African Americans. They were told and indoctrinated to believe that back skin was dirty, lesser, animal like. The repercussions of this are evident in the history of your country (and mine - Canada). I am suggesting that this is the case when we tell LGBTQ persons that they are abominations. Do you see the harm?


So looking back your two best examples that a God gave the writers of the Bible do one knowledge that predicted science are that 1) life came from the sea and 2) The universe (space, time and matter) came from nothing. Could you give me the bub reference for supporting that position so I can make sure I am looking at the same evidence you have in mind. Thanks.



This could be the case but I think it misses the point of my question. The bible says that even without the Bible, just looking at the "creation" would be enough to bring the unbeliever to saving faith in God. I agree that the Bible talks about all this and I am happy to hear that you looked at the creation myths from other cultures but my question is specifically about how Yahweh is demonstrated by the visible universe. Could you maybe provide your top examples of how the universe makes the exclusive case for your God.



But this is exactly what your Bible says didn't happen. If you read the story in exodus you see that initially Pharaoh hardens his heart and won't let the people go,and so God punishes Egypt (why did the villagers deserve these punishments again?). As the punishment escalates, pharaoh gives in, he has a change of heart and says OK I have sinned against your God, you may go free. But God isn't done showing how glorious he is and so GOD HARDENS THE HEART OF THE PHAROAH, forcing him to act against the what he has just stated was his free will choice, letting the people go. So in this instance God absolutely overrules free will in order to serve his own purposes. Agreed?



This is a great point. Maybe I shouldn't have said better. Maybe we are barbaric in different (hopefully fewer? ) ways than in the past without necessarily being better.

I do want to say here that I am a bit puzzled by the focus of the response on this issue of abortion. As I have said many times I am absolutely against abortion except in very rare circumstances. I agree with you that a 12 week old foetus is more than a lump of cells, I consider it a human or at the very very least an imminent human, with certain rights and protections. I think this is an area where we more or less agree so I just am not sure why it keeps coming up?



It seems to me that if morality is objective this means that it remains true whether or not anyone believes it to be true. To use your example, murder, is always wrong. How then does it matter if our interpretation changes? How does this effect the objective moral principle at the base? If next year we decided that the unlawful killing of three year old boys is no longer considered murder, under the law, does this have any impact on your eternal, unchanging objective morality?


Sorry I am not sure what analogy you are making here.
Remwbering your earlier comment that God is unchanging, and pairing that with your belief that morals are absolute and objective, how do you justify calling a God good who drowns 99.99 percent of people in the world in a flood, who orders and commits genocides etc. Are you saying, since morality is objective and unchanging (like god), that such acts are in fact good acts and that they would still be good today?


So again we have this God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow forever. In the past he said, go kill those men women and children over there. He also says love your enemies. Obviously since he doesn't change he can't mean don't kill them because that has been his explicit command in the past. Maybe he means that it is loving to kill them all, men women children, infant and yes 12 week old foetuses as well (remember the bit about telling his followers to cut open pregnant women,it seems your God is pro abortion in cases where it serves his purposes). Is this what you believe? Why or why not?
As an aside I ways find it interesting when Christians say that they have a ler9relationshoo (wow that was supposed to be relationship, I love my phone) with God and that they just know that God would never tell them to do anything like that. But of course there is a case study showing the exact opposite in the Bible. Abraham has a very personal relationship with God,


Nope as I said before the best solution, as the God of the universe would be to not order your followers to to kill men women and children but keep young Virgina and make them wives.
That said what I asked was how this is an example of a moral and good God based on your world view. How do you make justify saying God is good and also saying, in the past my God told his followers to kill kill men women, children, infants and yes even 13 week old foetuses (remember the verse in Hosea where God tells them to cut open pregnant women with swords, it ses your God is OK with abortions as long as they serve his glorious purposes, right?).


But it does. It says there is a punishment for beating a slave to death and no punishment for beating them to near death (as long as they survive two days). God even tells us why there is no punishment in the latter case. It is because those slaves are property. These are godvs commands so again, please explain on your view how this is moral and good.


I have already agreed that indentured servitude is a thing in the ANE but these verses in exodus are explicitly not talking a out that kind of servitude so I am not sure why it is being brought up. Maybe you could clarify?


So God gave his perfect word to his people to guide them in all richeousness. In this book it says nothing about any punishment for beating slaves to near death. In fact, as I said above, it justifies the lack of consequences by pointing out that the slaves are just property. Why do you think you might feel the need to add hypothetical punishments that your God didn't include in the Bible?

This is really long and so I'll get this tomorrow. Have a good night.

 

[Davian]

I am not misrepresenting what you are saying, I am telling you that belief is not an island to itself. It is about evidence and new evidence.

What evidence do you have that you do not believe that God exists?

Before you go trying shifting the burden of proof to me, let's deal with my point first.

I am not talking about changing beliefs based on evidence, new or otherwise.

I am talking about consciously changing them. A decision: you can choose to shoplift, or not. You can choose hide money from the taxman, or not.

Can you choose what you believe in that manner? I cannot.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

You are not butting in, as it is open for all. How are you doing Atheos?

Oh fine, thanks for asking.

Well, what makes you lack belief?

I have simply never experienced anything remotely supernatural or something that I felt even slightly compelled to attribute to any sort of agency. I regularly try the mental exercise of pretending that I do believe such things and thinking about events in that context, but I can't force myself to actually believe these things. Clearly I need something less subtle to put me on the path to salvation. Hence the example of Paul.

Was Paul free to walk away an unbeliever? If Jesus appeared to you and identified Himself to you and struck you blind and arranged for a miracle to restore your sight would you bow down to Jesus and worship Him?

First, I assume from your response that you would disagree that Jesus appearing to Paul violated Paul's free will, but I would appreciate you explicitly stating this so I understand where you're coming from. Am I correct in my assumption?

As for your questions, I imagine Paul would be free to walk away an unbeliever, and I imagine I would be too. However I think it would be a lot harder than ignoring a subtle sign that other people may find kindles the beginnings of faith. I don't know if I would immediately fall to my knees and worship, but I would be waaaaaaaaaaaay closer to believing the whole deal. I would basically have to assume that either:

a) I had just had a supernatural experience, or

b) I had experienced, with no prior history of such, an intense neural disturbance (I'm no neuroscientist so I'm using this vague term) that caused me to have auditory and visual hallucinations (including blindness) lasting three days. This neural disturbance also produceda vision that a specific person will restore my sight and by some wild coincidence my vision was restored by the person I saw in this vision.

As I said, I'm no neuroscientist, but option b) sounds more unlikely to me. I think I can say honestly that at that point I would be pretty convinced that I had experienced the supernatural.

IF you will note, Pharaoh hardened his own four different times. Each time there is a new word used for this hardening of his own heart. This first Kabed, which means rather dull or insensitive, the next word used is qasah, meaning very severe, and lastly hazaq, meaning to grow firm or strong. This shows that Pharaoh's will was to harden his own heart more and more during the passages.

I don't really agree that "very severe" is a step down from "grow firm or strong". Is that the exact translation?

Now we see God hardening his heart, not because Pharaoh wouldn't himself but because he would say he would let the Jews go before all the judgement was meted out. He still would have went after the Jews and tried to kill them (as shown by his hardened heart each time) but he would lie and say he would let them go. God knew that. Pharaoh never really changed his mind, he just said he did as shown each time a new word for his hardened heart was used. Pharaoh had told all the midwives to kill the first born of the Jews and now it was God's judgement to do the same to them.

This seems extrabiblical to me. Nowhere does it say that Pharaoh was insincere. I am no biblical scholar obviously, but to me this assumed treachery doesn't have enough heft to change the meaning of a pretty straight forward phrase. Do you have any sources that show that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" actually means "God allowed Pharaoh to lie about his repentance while actually planning to go back on his word"? Unless you can produce some scholarship that indicates this is a more accurate meaning of the original languages, I think the somewhat tenuous inference of planned treachery fails to change the meaning of a pretty uncomplicated phrase.

You might have missed my response to that. God didn't command this, this was a warning and prophecy of what would happen if the Jews did not repent. The warning was given for 50 years before God lifted His protective hand and allowed Judgement against them.

Fair enough. But there are other examples that present the same issue. Like in 1 Samuel 15:3

"Now go, attack the Amalekites...Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys"

So same question then. Why is putting both children and infants to death the moral command of a good being?

No, I would not. I know that it goes against my religion.

This is very interesting to me, so I want to be perfectly certain I understand you. Despite knowing in your heart without a shadow of a doubt that your God (not an impostor) had really commanded you to kill babies, you would not do it because it is against your religion. Is that correct?

Is your religion not dependent on God? Are you saying that your religion is not necessarily in line with God's will? Are you saying that the command to kill babies would be immoral even if it came from God himself?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Presumably you believe (as always correct me if I'm wrong) that God created Satan and gave Satan his authority. Why would God created a being that he knows ahead of time will destroy his plan? To what extent is God, having created Satan and giving him power and knowing how he will use it (not to mention the to story of Job where he outright tells Satan to do his worst like a high school dare), responsible for Satan's actions in your opinion?

I think you error by saying that God created Satan knowing ahead of time that he would destroy God's plan; Satan's evil plans are used in God's plan. God's responsibility is in creating free will, free will seems very important to all of God's plan.

Maybe I haven't been clear. We make "free will" choices in accordance with our nature. When traveling from my house to work I have a free choice to walk, run, ride a bike etc but I can't choose to flap my arms and fly like a bird to work. This doesn't mean that I don't have free will, it means that my options are limited by my nature. In the same way I am suggesting that God could have created us such that our nature did not allow us to sin while still allowing us free will choices in a myriad of ways. For any situation where there is more than one possible action/response that is not sinful, such creations would have free will. In fact this is almost exactly the way you yourself have described heaven.

IF God is an all knowing Being that has foreknowledge of every situation in this universe or any other universe possible, He knows what every person created will do in all possible situations and all possible worlds. With this knowledge He has determined I assume that this is the best possible world for us to be saved and for the most souls to live in communion with Him. It is conceivable that in every possible situation the person would still do something sinful. If there is a limit on our will, it is not free.

I will come back to your idea of God never changing later but I confess I didn't quite understand your argument here. Maybe you could spell it out for me, I'm slow sometimes


You seem to think that the two options are:
1)free will exactly the way we currently experience it
Or ( not ~ by the way, just the colloquial "or")
2) Zero free will.

Why in your mind are these the only options? I outlined another possibility above but I am interested is why you feel this is a binary phenomenon.

Free will would not have limits upon it or we would not have free will. We would have semi-free will or partial free will but not totally free will. I don't think that there is a middle ground here. Your example is not totally free will and in that would not be free.

OK. I see that you wanted some time to go research this to make your case. I am happy to wait

I scrolled up and this doesn't make sense to me with what you are quoting and your response. I will later go back and see if I am missing something here.

I suppose that is possible. Obviously though we can't get any type of conclusion from that. As the pithy saying goes" speculation in, speculation out". So if you say "it is possible that this is the explanation, the very strongest conclusion you can draw is that it is possible that God has a reason. You would not be justified on the basis of this argument to say that he is fact does have a reason or even that you believe it is probable that God has a reason. That said what then do you make of all the people who do not have the experience you describe, what about all the people of different religious beliefs who, if you still hold to your earlier statement that thier false gods can have no impact on this material world, must be deluding themselves?

I think you are making your own arguments from speculation here as well. First of all, as a Bible believing Christian, it is a cohesive argument to claim that the unbeliever may have had some type of information available to them as the Bible says: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them. So to say that I have no justification would be in error. Now, if what I say is true and the Christian God is actually real then no other God exists and so yes, they would be deluding themselves. That or as God is the God of all, may at times move in relationship to their needs. As the Bible says: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Yup,sounds good.

Well shoot...I have to go back again because I can't just scroll up to find it.

It tells them that who they are, the way they are born, things over which they have no control and didn't choose about themselves are not just bad but abominable.

What evidence do you have that homosexuality is not under someone's control? If Christianity is true, then God calls it abominable. That is simply what God thinks about the issue.

We have seen the fall out from this kind of thinking in the history of African Americans. They were told and indoctrinated to believe that back skin was dirty, lesser, animal like. The repercussions of this are evident in the history of your country (and mine - Canada). I am suggesting that this is the case when we tell LGBTQ persons that they are abominations. Do you see the harm?

Nothing in the Bible makes this claim, that the African Americans were
dirty, lesser or animal like. IN fact, quite the opposite. We as Christians are not suppose to do anything but love the sinner and so as Christians we are not to judge, that is God's place.

So looking back your two best examples that a God gave the writers of the Bible do one knowledge that predicted science are that 1) life came from the sea and 2) The universe (space, time and matter) came from nothing. Could you give me the bub reference for supporting that position so I can make sure I am looking at the same evidence you have in mind. Thanks.

I think you are aware of the universe from nothing concept from the Bible...here is the other example I brought up about life starting in the seas:


21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

The Cambrian era was the time period which consisted of all phyla alive today and some that have gone extinct. The waters literally swarmed with life. This period which is called the Paleozoic period includes the Silurian era in which there were centipedes and millipedes, the Devonian with its sharks and amphibians. This also includes the next period which is the Mesozoic period which then includes dino's and of course within this period comes the first appearance of birds. This is a general overview of what was created during this period. So an overview of this is that the day includes first the Paleozoic and next the Mesozoic.

This could be the case but I think it misses the point of my question. The bible says that even without the Bible, just looking at the "creation" would be enough to bring the unbeliever to saving faith in God. I agree that the Bible talks about all this and I am happy to hear that you looked at the creation myths from other cultures but my question is specifically about how Yahweh is demonstrated by the visible universe. Could you maybe provide your top examples of how the universe makes the exclusive case for your God.

The details of the Creation Narrative in the Christian Bible most accurately fits with evidence we have garnered from the universe.

But this is exactly what your Bible says didn't happen. If you read the story in exodus you see that initially Pharaoh hardens his heart and won't let the people go,and so God punishes Egypt (why did the villagers deserve these punishments again?). As the punishment escalates, pharaoh gives in, he has a change of heart and says OK I have sinned against your God, you may go free. But God isn't done showing how glorious he is and so GOD HARDENS THE HEART OF THE PHAROAH, forcing him to act against the what he has just stated was his free will choice, letting the people go. So in this instance God absolutely overrules free will in order to serve his own purposes. Agreed?

I wrote this in response to this to Atheos:
IF you will note, Pharaoh hardened his own four different times. Each time there is a new word used for this hardening of his own heart. This first Kabed, which means rather dull or insensitive, the next word used is qasah, meaning very severe, and lastly hazaq, meaning to grow firm or strong. This shows that Pharaoh's will was to harden his own heart more and more during the passages.
Now we see God hardening his heart, not because Pharaoh wouldn't himself but because he would say he would let the Jews go before all the judgement was meted out. He still would have went after the Jews and tried to kill them (as shown by his hardened heart each time) but he would lie and say he would let them go. God knew that. Pharaoh never really changed his mind, he just said he did as shown each time a new word for his hardened heart was used. Pharaoh had told all the midwives to kill the first born of the Jews and now it was God's judgement to do the same to them.

This is a great point. Maybe I shouldn't have said better. Maybe we are barbaric in different (hopefully fewer? ) ways than in the past without necessarily being better.

Considering there are not all that many ways discussed in the Bible how would you quantify "fewer"?

I do want to say here that I am a bit puzzled by the focus of the response on this issue of abortion.

You have focused on the children being killed in the Bible as being immoral but have said that the society is not immoral for killing children as we both view fetuses as children, you saying you believe them to be. By way of claiming that killing children in the Bible being immoral and then on the other hand claiming society is not immoral for killing children is a contradictory element in your belief system, is it not?

As I have said many times I am absolutely against abortion except in very rare circumstances. I agree with you that a 12 week old foetus is more than a lump of cells, I consider it a human or at the very very least an imminent human, with certain rights and protections. I think this is an area where we more or less agree so I just am not sure why it keeps coming up?

See above.

It seems to me that if morality is objective this means that it remains true whether or not anyone believes it to be true. To use your example, murder, is always wrong. How then does it matter if our interpretation changes? How does this effect the objective moral principle at the base? If next year we decided that the unlawful killing of three year old boys is no longer considered murder, under the law, does this have any impact on your eternal, unchanging objective morality?

I think not and that is point. Coming back to your views on the killing of children in the Bible and the killing of children in our society, you stand that on one hand it is immoral and on the other that it is not. That is inconsistent with your worldview, which states that there is no objective moral standard. To be consistent with your worldview, you would need to see both as morally determined by the culture or society that felt it was morally acceptable. Now you and I can allow that even while our objective moral standard informs us that killing children is not moral we can also hold that in some situations it may be moral. If the mother will die if an abortion is not done and the fetus too young to survive if born it might be the more moral thing to do considering the mother can go on and give life to another where if both died no good could come from their deaths. If we can allow that, is it not reasonable to conclude in the Christian theology that God too can make a more moral decision for the greater good?

Sorry I am not sure what analogy you are making here.
Remwbering your earlier comment that God is unchanging, and pairing that with your belief that morals are absolute and objective, how do you justify calling a God good who drowns 99.99 percent of people in the world in a flood, who orders and commits genocides etc. Are you saying, since morality is objective and unchanging (like god), that such acts are in fact good acts and that they would still be good today?

God's morality is unchanging as is ours. We have an ingrained morality within us. We act upon it, as with you and I in regard to how we view the fetus. I believe that God knows what each and every person that is created will do in their lives in every situation and in every possible world. So in the case of the flood, which I am pretty certain without asking you that you don't believe really happened but to to along with your accusation that God was immoral for drowning 99.99 percent of the people of the world in the flood, I would say that He saved the only righteous souls on earth. He had to do that to save the people as a whole who would bring rise to Christ. These people were not good people as they did evil all the time. That is presented in the passages. Now we know that these people were very different to those that went on to populate the world after the flood. If God had not stepped in, His plan would be destroyed. Those people if killed would have not given rise to Christ and the whole redemption of mankind would be lost. So, if God had knowledge of every person in that 99.99% of the world's population and what they would do in every possible situation, in every possible world and found that they would never, ever no matter what accept God. In this case, they would never in this world or any other world be anything other than evil. So God would not be killing innocent babies but souls that He has knowledge of that would not only do evil in their lives but would not in any case accept God. He had to allow these souls that would never accept Him to die so that others in the world could live and accept Christ as their Savior. So it was a moral act for the greater good.

So again we have this God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow forever. In the past he said, go kill those men women and children over there. He also says love your enemies. Obviously since he doesn't change he can't mean don't kill them because that has been his explicit command in the past. Maybe he means that it is loving to kill them all, men women children, infant and yes 12 week old foetuses as well (remember the bit about telling his followers to cut open pregnant women,it seems your God is pro abortion in cases where it serves his purposes). Is this what you believe? Why or why not?

It is not, see above.

As an aside I ways find it interesting when Christians say that they have a ler9relationshoo (wow that was supposed to be relationship, I love my phone) with God and that they just know that God would never tell them to do anything like that. But of course there is a case study showing the exact opposite in the Bible. Abraham has a very personal relationship with God,

I have to say here that you do not speak as a former Christian. It is pretty well understood that in the Old Testament reasons and purposes were different than after Christ. Satan actively went after the Jewish people to destroy any chance of Christ being born. After the birth, death and resurrection of Christ it is a different reason and purpose to what God does. He hasn't changed, but the circumstances have. Satan is still out to get the Jews because He knows that it is all about them here in our generation.

Nope as I said before the best solution, as the God of the universe would be to not order your followers to to kill men women and children but keep young Virgina and make them wives.
That said what I asked was how this is an example of a moral and good God based on your world view. How do you make justify saying God is good and also saying, in the past my God told his followers to kill kill men women, children, infants and yes even 13 week old foetuses (remember the verse in Hosea where God tells them to cut open pregnant women with swords, it ses your God is OK with abortions as long as they serve his glorious purposes, right?).

See above.

But it does. It says there is a punishment for beating a slave to death and no punishment for beating them to near death (as long as they survive two days). God even tells us why there is no punishment in the latter case. It is because those slaves are property. These are godvs commands so again, please explain on your view how this is moral and good.

I did explain my position.

I have already agreed that indentured servitude is a thing in the ANE but these verses in exodus are explicitly not talking a out that kind of servitude so I am not sure why it is being brought up. Maybe you could clarify?

How do you know?

So God gave his perfect word to his people to guide them in all richeousness. In this book it says nothing about any punishment for beating slaves to near death. In fact, as I said above, it justifies the lack of consequences by pointing out that the slaves are just property. Why do you think you might feel the need to add hypothetical punishments that your God didn't include in the Bible?

We know that the Jews had a multitude of laws about all sorts of things. I feel that the lesser action (not murder) was covered elsewhere possibly.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Before you go trying shifting the burden of proof to me, let's deal with my point first.

I am not talking about changing beliefs based on evidence, new or otherwise.

You believe that beliefs are created in a vacuum? How do we come to our beliefs in your mind?

I am talking about consciously changing them. A decision: you can choose to shoplift, or not. You can choose hide money from the taxman, or not.

Can you choose what you believe in that manner? I cannot.

We chose not to shoplift due to our moral standard. We can chose to hide money from the taxman but what does our conscience tell us? Our beliefs, are justified by what is evident to us. Evidence informs our beliefs.