Why Not Bypass Earth?

[98cwitr]

Coder, are you seeking God or do you firmly believe He doesn't exist? Honestly and simple question (not looking to condemn you, because I was once an atheist as well)

 

[CoderHead]

Coder, are you seeking God or do you firmly believe He doesn't exist?

I used to be a Christian. I was raised in the church my whole life (a parental mandate). I was very active in the church during my teens (by choice). But I've never, in my life, felt the presence of God or any kind of comfort of the Holy Spirit. After I left my parents' house I realized there was a whole lot of natural world out there and began questioning things. I wondered why Christians could be so "right" and everybody else so "wrong" when they all believed in their deity with the exact same amount of fervor.

Now, I don't have any reason to believe there is a god/gods because my experience tells me that we're physical beings in a physical world. There's no credible evidence of a supernatural realm. Prayer doesn't do anything - and furthermore, doesn't mean anything when it's being used for petty personal gain (like, "bless my son's soccer team") instead of the really important global issues. So I abstain from wasting my precious time on it. I could say I'm agnostic, but we're all atheists to somebody else's god. Maybe I'm a weak atheist.

What I'd really like to do is understand the concepts being presented by religion - specifically Christianity, since that's more familiar - and figure out whether there really is anything to it or not. As of now, I'm unconvinced. And people like "Van" and their sarcastic arrogance don't help convince me, especially when I can find four other Christians that contradict him with their Biblical interpretation and think they're equally right.

 

[pgp_protector]

Hi Pgp, yet another voice from the darkness. If a group day and night never stops saying Holy, Holy, Holy, what is the minimum periodicity of the repetition? Once during the day and once during the night. Now they could say it more often, but not less.

Revelation does not point to rotation? Did you miss the part about "misses the point of their description." Do you not grasp that the four types refers to four capacities and functions?

Folks, again what we have here are pagans "assuming" an unlikely view, then claiming dogmatically that is the only view possible. And to what point? Since they are ostensibly "exploring Christianity.

If they don't stop, then they're constantly Repeating it. IF they're taking a break between repetition, then they're stopping.

 

[98cwitr]

I used to be a Christian. I was raised in the church my whole life (a parental mandate). I was very active in the church during my teens (by choice). But I've never, in my life, felt the presence of God or any kind of comfort of the Holy Spirit. After I left my parents' house I realized there was a whole lot of natural world out there and began questioning things. I wondered why Christians could be so "right" and everybody else so "wrong" when they all believed in their deity with the exact same amount of fervor.

Now, I don't have any reason to believe there is a god/gods because my experience tells me that we're physical beings in a physical world. There's no credible evidence of a supernatural realm. Prayer doesn't do anything - and furthermore, doesn't mean anything when it's being used for petty personal gain (like, "bless my son's soccer team") instead of the really important global issues. So I abstain from wasting my precious time on it. I could say I'm agnostic, but we're all atheists to somebody else's god. Maybe I'm a weak atheist.

What I'd really like to do is understand the concepts being presented by religion - specifically Christianity, since that's more familiar - and figure out whether there really is anything to it or not. As of now, I'm unconvinced. And people like "Van" and their sarcastic arrogance don't help convince me, especially when I can find four other Christians that contradict him with their Biblical interpretation and think they're equally right.

you sounds like me...but I got started in my disbelief at about 12 and carried on for the next 13 years. I hear ya man...but the fact of the matter you are still on this forum questioning His existence and NOT refuting it...which, in my book, is awesome...you haven't reach or even neared the end of your rope with this....again...awesome. I am overly analytical and need an answer for everything (sound familiar), belief come through absolute proof for us...right? I wish I could let you have walked in my shoes and seen what I have seen, felt, heard, and for the better part experienced in my life to bring me to my beliefs and faith, yet I've got nothing tangible to offer you. I do wonder why God just doesn't come down here and prove us all wrong...set it in stone for us. Don't you think if he did that though, 2000 more years pass and people go right back to where we are now? It would be futile at best. But I understand if you want to chalk it up to perception and "reaching." I would too if I was still in that mind set. God bless you man...He blessed and took care of me when I didn't believe and had zero faith...I think He'll do the same for you too.

 

[Van]

Hi Pgp, you know what the guy said when he opened the door? Darkness there and nothing more. May God Bless.

 

[CoderHead]

Hi Pgp, you know what the guy said when he opened the door? Darkness there and nothing more. May God Bless.

Huh?

 

[CoderHead]

the fact of the matter you are still on this forum questioning His existence and NOT refuting it

I'm not claiming now, nor have I ever claimed a grasp on absolute truth. God is something that - even while I was one of His biggest fans - I could never quite get a grasp on. It seems so simple, yet so very, very convoluted. Everyone has a different opinion, whether or not they base it off of the Bible. It's overload. It's like everybody's right, but everybody's wrong. So, for the present, and in the absence of a reasonable explanation, I stick to what I can process with my five senses. Can you blame me?

Don't you think if he did that though, 2000 more years pass and people go right back to where we are now?

No. What I've been saying all along is that God's plan for mortals doesn't make sense to mortals. Had He gone about it in a way that human minds could look at it and say, "Oh, that's definitely a loving God at work there," then I don't know how we could have gotten to this point. Everything I've read in the Bible up to this point seems like the plot of a movie villain where it gets so complicated, it couldn't possibly succeed. It's a struggle that I'm losing.

 

[pgp_protector]

Hi Pgp, you know what the guy said when he opened the door? Darkness there and nothing more. May God Bless.

One could quite easily see this as a flame attempt.

 

[Van]

Hi Pgp, I explained why the passage from Revelation 4 did not suggest mindless repetition, and you simply reasserted your assumption. You gave no indication of comprehension. Thus, darkness there and nothing more.

But since you bring up rules, you know the rule of only one non christian participating in a thread? Christianity speaks to those who judge others by one set of rules, and judge themselves by another.

 

[pgp_protector]

Hi Pgp, I explained why the passage from Revelation 4 did not suggest mindless repetition, and you simply reasserted your assumption. You gave no indication of comprehension. Thus, darkness there and nothing more.

But since you bring up rules, you know the rule of only one non christian participating in a thread? Christianity speaks to those who judge others by one set of rules, and judge themselves by another.

Yea I know that rule, it's not an issue for me.

EDIT:
And Given that you've viewed my profile, you should know that it's not an issue for me.

EDIT 2:
Also I managed to back up my reasiong with Scripture, I don't recall seeing any with your post to support your view.

 

[Van]

Hi Pgp, if you are a christian, why are you debating me, is that rule a problem for you? But I have broken the rules in addressing you. Goodbye and God bless.

 

[ebia]

I used to be a Christian. I was raised in the church my whole life (a parental mandate). I was very active in the church during my teens (by choice). But I've never, in my life, felt the presence of God or any kind of comfort of the Holy Spirit. After I left my parents' house I realized there was a whole lot of natural world out there and began questioning things. I wondered why Christians could be so "right" and everybody else so "wrong" when they all believed in their deity with the exact same amount of fervor.

Now, I don't have any reason to believe there is a god/gods because my experience tells me that we're physical beings in a physical world. There's no credible evidence of a supernatural realm. Prayer doesn't do anything - and furthermore, doesn't mean anything when it's being used for petty personal gain (like, "bless my son's soccer team") instead of the really important global issues. So I abstain from wasting my precious time on it. I could say I'm agnostic, but we're all atheists to somebody else's god. Maybe I'm a weak atheist.

What I'd really like to do is understand the concepts being presented by religion - specifically Christianity, since that's more familiar - and figure out whether there really is anything to it or not. As of now, I'm unconvinced. And people like "Van" and their sarcastic arrogance don't help convince me, especially when I can find four other Christians that contradict him with their Biblical interpretation and think they're equally right.

It would be good to carry on the conversation about some of those issues, but one thing you'll have to live with here, unless it goes to a private conversation, is that you'll get a wide variety of responses from the naieve to the well considered to the downright loopy, and ranging from polite, respectful engagement to the arogant and perhaps even offensive, and you'll need to sift those yourself.

This particular thread looks like it's drifted so far off track one can't even see the rails anymore.

 

[ebia]

I'm not claiming now, nor have I ever claimed a grasp on absolute truth. God is something that - even while I was one of His biggest fans - I could never quite get a grasp on. It seems so simple, yet so very, very convoluted. Everyone has a different opinion, whether or not they base it off of the Bible. It's overload. It's like everybody's right, but everybody's wrong. So, for the present, and in the absence of a reasonable explanation, I stick to what I can process with my five senses. Can you blame me?

Not at all.

But a couple of comments anyway:
1. If there is a creator-god, wouldn't one expect him/her to so far beyond our understanding that at best we can capture an imperfect, partial and distorted picture of him? And that a lot of the time those imperfect, partial and distorted pictures would contradict each other at least in part?
2. All of us have tended to come to the bible with cultural assumptions about who and what god is. And it's quite clear even from this thread that there is quite a bit of variation (and quite a bit of common ground) around. And then, at best, we might try to tweak our view of god to try to fit what we find in the bible, and find that doesn't work very well. Then we try to fit Jesus into that picture and find it doesn't work at all.

What we need to do (but it's challenging to manage) is dump all of our assumptions about god in the bin, and take "Jesus is God" not as a statement that tells us about Jesus, but a statement that tells us about God. To look at Jesus in his historical and religion context and find that what we begin to see is the image (still somewhat indirect) of a creator-God who makes sense and who is putting the world to rights, and is achieving that by putting us to rights - by restoring us as his image throughout creation.

 

[pgp_protector]

Not at all.

But a couple of comments anyway:
1. If there is a creator-god, wouldn't one expect him/her to so far beyond our understanding that at best we can capture an imperfect, partial and distorted picture of him? And that a lot of the time those imperfect, partial and distorted pictures would contradict each other at least in part?
2. All of us have tended to come to the bible with cultural assumptions about who and what god is. And it's quite clear even from this thread that there is quite a bit of variation (and quite a bit of common ground) around. And then, at best, we might try to tweak our view of god to try to fit what we find in the bible, and find that doesn't work very well. Then we try to fit Jesus into that picture and find it doesn't work at all.

What we need to do (but it's challenging to manage) is dump all of our assumptions about god in the bin, and take "Jesus is God" not as a statement that tells us about Jesus, but a statement that tells us about God. To look at Jesus in his historical and religion context and find that what we begin to see is the image (still somewhat indirect) of a creator-God who makes sense and who is putting the world to rights, and is achieving that by putting us to rights - by restoring us as his image throughout creation.

 

[jlow]

Since the beginning of time there have been millions of people who have never heard of Jsus/Christian God therefore they never had a "free choice" opportunity. What happens to them? When God says "You follow me and you will go to heaven and if you don't follow me you go to hell to be tortured beyond your imagination". What kind of free choice is that. Seems like "free will" should involve options of equal value. When an evangelist preaches "God loves you because he gave you a free will to choose heaven or hell and someone sits next to you and pleads that you accept Jesus as your Savior - that's not free will in action -that's making someone vulnerable by manipulation. When you join the church, they give you a box and tell you that they put God in for you and all you have to do is keep it with you at all times. They give you a book and tell you that it contains all the doctrines, tenets, creeds, and do's and don'ts Hang on to the box and play by the rules and it might increase the odds that you'll make to heaven. Free will? I'd like to see a concrete example.

 

[98cwitr]

They give you a book and tell you that it contains all the doctrines, tenets, creeds, and do's and don'ts Hang on to the box and play by the rules and it might increase the odds that you'll make to heaven. Free will? I'd like to see a concrete example.

you look at yourself and you can look at me while you're at it

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19through whom[d] also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge[e] of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

1 Peter 3 Jesus did not forget them either, Brother

 

[CoderHead]

But a couple of comments anyway:
1. If there is a creator-god, wouldn't one expect him/her to so far beyond our understanding that at best we can capture an imperfect, partial and distorted picture of him? And that a lot of the time those imperfect, partial and distorted pictures would contradict each other at least in part?
2. All of us have tended to come to the bible with cultural assumptions about who and what god is. And it's quite clear even from this thread that there is quite a bit of variation (and quite a bit of common ground) around. And then, at best, we might try to tweak our view of god to try to fit what we find in the bible, and find that doesn't work very well. Then we try to fit Jesus into that picture and find it doesn't work at all.

1. If there were simply a creator-god, then I would expect for it to have kick-started everything and then gone somewhere else to create something else. That's not a problem for me. I might even concede right here and now that that's a reasonable take, since there's still so much we don't know.

But...that's not the Biblical God. He's not an "it." He has a desire to have personal relationships with each and every one of us. He wants us to seek and eventually find Him. He interferes (according to the Bible) in the universe and causes things to happen or not happen. He created a place for good people to go, and a place for bad people to go. This is what I find very hard to grasp. If He wants a relationship with us, why hide?

2. The entire concept of atonement through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a concept that I just cannot grasp, no matter how hard I try. He was man, but also God. He died, but He came back to life. In the OT when a sacrifice was required, it meant death...permanently. The flawless sheep or fattened calf did not come back to life, and that was why it was a sacrifice. If the people could have had their sheep come back to life after three days, they probably wouldn't have viewed it as a sacrifice, so much as an inconvenience.

But Jesus didn't stay dead, and he was also not a sheep or a calf. He was human. The moment God moved away from livestock and got into human sacrifice, things got really crazy for me. Why would a loving God want human sacrifice? If you viewed the rituals of the Aztecs and Mayans today you'd be revolted and have no trouble labeling it wrong. So this, among other things, confuses me. The need for Jesus Christ doesn't make any sense to me.

Think about it. Every time you ask God to forgive your sins, you're praying over a dead human body...or a live one...I don't know.

 

[98cwitr]

Coder, ask yourself this, and put this into context of how the Jews were back then...

how far did God have to (or was willing to) go to get our attention? By killing his Son and bringing him back from the dead. Sure, Jesus suffered horribly, but it was all to get us to listen! We wouldn't have been so enthralled or amazed by Jesus simply from an act of resurrection, but to watch Him die like he did, knowing all the miracles He did, how he fulfilled all the Old Test. prophesies about Him, and finally to come back to life and to show up in various places to various people for 40 days after his death is proof enough for not 120 believers, but just the testimony via the Holy Spirit created 5000 in such a short time...Im sure you can understand the trickle theory from here. (See Acts...like the first 5 chapters)

 

[98cwitr]

Let me put this into worldly perspective for you:

Ask yourself "Why would I have a child?"

ok...got an answer?

-------

if yes, ask this "Would you try to raise that child to the best of your ability?"

then ask yourself "Would I do if they disobeyed me when I gave them the right instructions on how to live."

What if they kept ignoring you, talking back to you, disobeying you even with what is, in your mind, on the verge of getting arrested for child abuse...what if they left you all together to live their own life without your consent or blessing and left on bad terms...

you'd be pretty ticked, right? But you would still love them, wouldn't you?

My point is if I look at God like a literal Father...which He is, it really puts things into a clearer perspective.

And I think by asking this you might answer your own orginal question:

I'm pretty sure that your reasons for possibly wanting to have a child are kinda close to the same reasons why God created the Earth in the first place...

You still don't sleep with your parents, do you?

...and watch you say you never have planned to have children

 

[ebia]

1. If there were simply a creator-god, then I would expect for it to have kick-started everything and then gone somewhere else to create something else. That's not a problem for me. I might even concede right here and now that that's a reasonable take, since there's still so much we don't know.

But...that's not the Biblical God. He's not an "it." He has a desire to have personal relationships with each and every one of us. He wants us to seek and eventually find Him.

Okay so far.

He interferes (according to the Bible) in the universe and causes things to happen or not happen.

Interferes is not the right idea. YHWH is not the distant god sometimes interfering, but constantly and intimitely involved in the ordinary as well as the exceptional.

He created a place for good people to go, and a place for bad people to go.

Um, no. That's got more to do with gnostism than Judeo/Christianity. God's intention is not to whisk everyone off to somewhere else, but to restore us to be fully the image of God in and for a creation put right. God is fixing up the mess we've made of this world so that the veil between heaven and earth can be lifted.

This is what I find very hard to grasp. If He wants a relationship with us, why hide?

What makes you think he is hiding.

2. The entire concept of atonement through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a concept that I just cannot grasp, no matter how hard I try.

I'll be quite honest and say I don't find atonement to be the most helpful model for understanding how Jesus death and resurrection works either. And that's what it is - a model to explain, not the event itself, and not the only model. Christus Victor I find a lot more helpful. That by coming at the climax of the story, by drawing the forces of evil upon himself and letting them do their worst - and coming out the other side he defeated them once and for all.

It's worth remembering that when Jesus wanted to explain what his upcoming death was all about he didn't explain the theory, he gave them a meal.