Magus55

And if someone decides to go blow up a building full of people, God is required to stop them because ? ?

The human decided to blow up the building. That is his fault, and consequences will result, including death. Such is the problem with living in a corrupt world. Atheists seem to think God should just fix all their problems and stupid mistakes before they even do them. God gave you the ability to make a choice, if you make the wrong one, take responsibility and deal with the consequences, and stop expecting God to fix it everytime.

Magus55

I'd say God is both eternal and everlasting. God can see the past, present, and future as one, and while not existing within, or bound by, time, he can enter His creation/time and intervene/work in it.

Diadectes

:banghead: Oh, I give up.

mark9950

If your child runs into the street and a car is going to hit him you or God should get him out of the way and stop stop him because???

He will die if the driver doesn't stop in time.

If God is a father than he is one who should have all of his children taken away from DCFS.

<insult deleted>

jfryejr

Magus55 wrote:If god is eternal, which I define to mean "spans all time", as opposed to immortal, which I define to mean "is created and exists from a certain point to infinity, then I would think that all of time would have already passed for god and we should be judged already.

Magus55 wrote:My perspective shouldn't matter. The perspective of god is more of what I'm after. If he is at the end of time, or spanning all times simultaneously, then to him I am already judged and in heaven or hell.

*Since I started the thread...my opinion is that this is another paradox that speaks against the existence of god as defined by Judeo/Christian/Allah tradition. (Although I don't think the Jews necessarily had a heaven and hell--I've heard different opinions on whether that is true or not.) I'm simply curious about other opinions on the subject as I've reached an endpoint with my ability to think about this subject in novel ways.

I think if one believes god exists in our time, as a part of our time, there is no paradox (at least not with regard to my original statement). While his experience of time may be different than ours, the actual time of his experience is the same as ours (hope that made sense). The end of time/judgement/whatever happens for us all simultaneously. This viewpoint places limitations on the power of god by necessity, although it is possible to argue than an omnipotent god could voluntarily limit his own power (although this would make him no longer omnipotent and would present another problem).

If one believes god spans all time simultaneously, then I think the paradox (is paradox good word choice?) above stands. Our "immortal" souls should already be in their final resting place, since they will exist in all time from their point of inception.

Mark9950, while I don't agree with Magus (probably on quite a bit), he was simply replying to my post. The topic of whether god should stop evil acts from happening() was actually brought up by you. I'm not defending Magus' position on god's apparent apathy (I can't and won't), but calling him a troll when he hasn't trolled is unfair.

Abel Stable

Wow, thats interesting!- its sorta like a Shroedinger's Cat for heaven/hell religions. Would you simultaneously exist in both places until you die & are relegated to one? Afterall, both planes supposedly exist outside of time, but if we have "free will" then our final destination cannot be decided until the physical body expires. But then again, how can something pop in & out of timelessness? You can only be always in heaven or always in hell.

I guess it only goes to show: god works in mysterious ways.

Crisor

I've had a problem with this myself. I thought of another problem which some of you may or may not have thought of (or I haven't seen it anyway). It is this:
If an eternal and all knowing god existed, wouldn't this make the bible (or any religious book) useless. I mean, if god already knew who was on the A list and who wasn't, wouldn't he just have the people born with the knowledge needed to get there already without wasteing time with a bunch of people writing down a largely confusing and distorted book which is supposed to show the way (you know, I never really knew how long winded these things get until you write them down. Anyway...) This would stop those who seem to think that everybody needs to go to heaven from bothering us who don't really care.
Another thought, if god already knows who's going to be in heaven, what would be the purpose of creating them here. Skip the middleman, advance directly to eternal bliss or everlasting damnation.

mark9950

Was cruel and heartless.

If you have children and they attempt to cross the street without your supervision what do you do.

a)Stop them
b)Let them get hit by a car
c)None of the above

jfryejr

Mark9950, I don't know if your last post was directed to me or the moderator (for deleting you comments), but I wasn't commenting on the cruel and heartless, just the troll part...

I agree it's cruel and heartless to let a child wander in the street where I know it will get hurt. I have a child and know that I will do anything to protect him from harm. I can also agree that an all powerful, personal god who could, on a whim, alleviate the suffering of all people, especially "innocent" people, but doesn't, is cruel and heartless. I don't, however, hold Magus personally resposible for this. I don't think Magus would intentionally let a child get hit by a car. I think very few people would actually intentionally let a child get hit by a car and the few that would have serious problems. If Magus' god would, then it is cruel and heartless.

Calling someone's philosophy cruel and heartless isn't wrong. Whether god is cruel and heartless is irrelevant to this thread. Magus' 1st post was on topic and simply a response to my question. His second post was a response to your post

This post doesn't deal with whether god is timeless and so forth. Instead it says if god is timeless, he is incompetent and proceeds with a hyperbolic, rhetoric question meant to trap Magus into saying "no one". From which point, it could be said that god isn't a good parent...and the arguments go on from there.

Once again, I'm not defending Magus' position. I disagree with him. I'm merely stating that the post you wrote in response to his is a flawed/fallacious (?) argument with regards to this thread. My only intent is to be fair in the discussion...I didn't, and don't, really think god's timelessness and it's relation to the afterlife should lead to heated, emotional debate like some other topics.

The cruel and heartless (regarding god, not necessarily Magus) could be taken up in another thread...I just did a search and I couldn't find a thread addressing an argument to god's cruelty/lack thereof (I don't know if the search engine goes through the archive), I'll start one here assuming this is an ok forum for the discussion...

mark9950

You was commenting on the cruel and heartless part.

I apologize for the error.

I am sorry.