B. H. Manners

By BH?

I know, I know, the qoute and reply was concerning the other BH-Bible humper.

On a more serious not I agree that Christians tend to ignore and run from questions we ask, which are entirely legitimate and fair questions.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: BH ]</p>

hinduwoman

You can alwasy argue that they happen because God is punishing our free will decision to do evil, like in Sodom.

Uzzah

That would be the free will the all knowing god gave us, right?

wait...something doesn't sound right...oh yes...I used free will and all knowing in the same sentence...silly me...

Uzzah

Bible Humper

They can't get away with dismissing Jamie's argument with an excuse like this!

What possible use is this sort of "punishment"?

Does the deity hope to reform his creations, steering us back toward the straight and narrow with a demonstration of his evil temper? This has implications for free-will....

Does the deity want his act of mass murder to act as a deterrent for the rest of us? Not only does this ruin the free-will argument, it seems to be an extremely inefficient way for him to go about it.

That leaves revenge, are we to believe that the Great Magic Sky-Juju is so petty that he rocks the earth with tragedy for the sake of his temper? Unless you really go overboard creating God in man's image, this seems ridiculous. On the other hand, the deity's blood alcohol level is so high that it is considered wine in it's own right....

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Bible Humper ]</p>

B. H. Manners

Bringing up Sodom...

Jesus said in the gospels that if the miracles he performed in the Palestine of his day had been performed in Sodom it would have repented of its sin and not have been destroyed. I'll let one of you find the Biblical chapter and verse on this one.

It also says in the Bible that God desires none to be lost, but Sodom (in the Book of Jude, ect.) is given as a prime example of those burning in hell because of their evil.

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: BH ]</p>

A3

Hi Bible Humper,

The problem of evil:
1. If God is perfectly loving, He must wish to abolish evil
2. If He is all powerful, He must be able to abolish evil
3. But evil exists.
The problem is, if you affirm two of these facts, you cannot affirm the third.
4. Therefore, an all powerful, loving God does not exist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming on the scene this late might not be too much of a problem because I have the feeling that in the mean time no one has responded from the Swedenborgian perspective.
Although very human, it seems kind of silly to try to solve the existence of the infinite God into 3 or 4 lines of ‘logic.’
There is a continuous thread from e.g. an ant to the most intelligent human being. Do you think it is possible for an ant to have any concept of what it means to be human? This thread or connection is not tremendously long, it is identifiable. There is no continuous thread between us and God. There is no connection between the finite and the infinite. In fact the only way we can know anything about the existence and character of God is by interpreting revelation, if we want to. Every nation on this planet that has ever existed has had revelation one way or another and every nation has had its believers, doubters and no-way-hosés.
If we have been brought up in a home where all talk about religion was stifled and ridiculed and made fun of, it is almost impossible to want to get any exposure to religious thought. Even more so to become open minded towards it. This seems to hold for abuse as well.
It certainly appears to impede our spiritual freedom.
In a nutshell, without exposure to a revelation we don’t know what we are talking about or asking. The only reason for the existence of revelation is to get us to our heaven.

But back to your thesis.
Exactly, but to believe is only part of it. To love is also part of the equation, and both believe and love cannot, for obvious reasons, exist without freedom.
Also, “meaningful” to what or who?? This should be to ourselves, our life now and the next. We are what we chose to do and so what we are we “take with us.”
Why would you say "divine foreknowledge and human freedom... [are] incompatible", just because God knows doesn’t mean we are not free. God knows what we will do in freedom, which is very much like a loving parent who in a given situation often knows what his child will do or chose. He might try to influence the choice towards the best or less evil result, but it will be our choice all the way.
I have no idea what the connection is between this and God creating something too heavy for Him or unpredictable souls. He knew thousands or millions of years ago what people were going to do so He made predictions all through the Old Testament that He would come.
I agree with part of what you are saying. A literal interpretation does only work partially because it is like the skin. Inside (as with a person) is the reason for being. It is written in four styles, the first section of Genesis is made-up history, the next section to Kings is the historical style then the prophetical style and the Psalms. This ‘skin’ has thousands of discrepancies and even many contradictions in order to accommodate the insides, the four layered message. This is to protect us as well as the message. It is human nature that when anyone is told “clearly ...[and] in an unambiguous manner” what to do and how to do it, he will object and will try to change the rules but most off all hate the one doing the telling. Life would then be one of obedience and not of mutual love.
If a person, in freedom, has already chosen to become a believer his choice is more confirmed than his freedom taken away. God does give us hints and signs but we could be oblivious to them untill we have a close call or someone close to us dies. Then we may slow down and start thinking in ways we never thought before.
Great thought!!!!!!! Some people reading Swedenborg have started uit by saying: “This is interesting” then “This guy is pretty clever” and as they got deeper in the stuff they said: “This man could be a genius but to me this is revelation.” He writes with total consistency about every word in Genesis, Exodus and Revelations. This coincides with every aspect of our life, from birth to eternity, marriage, children and even the Near Death Experience. Regarding your last point, one indication a particular interpretation is not right might be when mysteries crop up. One such contentious issue is the Trinity (as also discussed in the thread about the T. in the Existence of God(s) section)
quote]Fourth is the credibility of miracle claims, which are the foundation of the religion. Despite the fact that all religions have claims of amazing magical phenomena, we are supposed to reject the claims of all other religions as "tall tales" but take the Xian claims seriously.[/quote]
Agree with you 100%. This attitude is deplorable and rejects the omnipresence of God.
I could agree with you here too. Just like our understanding of God, people are much in the dark about prayer too, what it is, what it can and cannot do. Prayer is nothing more than talking with God. It is only for our benefit, there is nothing we can say that God doesn’t already know.
One basic aspect of His benevolent attention is that its prime objective is our eternal state. Only in so far our temporal issues have a bearing on our eternal lot are they considered important by God. Don’t expect to get the car you pray for. It is said that our spiritual freedom is protected by God as one would protect the apple of his eye. And for good reason because that is what makes us human. If there were no free-will there also would be no Bible. God would not ask us to open our door for Him.
Several things. We do have the ability to reject Him, but many don’t. Do they see something you don’t? I also don’t think for a moment that He cares whether you call him God or Allah or higher power. No good person is rejected no matter what the religious background. We will not be tested on what we know but on what we have done with what we know.
The sizzling and gnashing of teeth is the mutual hate that exists in hell, and some people do love it. We all may have known or read about people that just hate people and will do anything to either get their possessions or just make them miserable or plain shoot them. When these people end up in hell they send themselves, they wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. There they are still able to generate a lot of hurt in this world. One person’s hell is another’s heaven.
My post <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000617&p=8" target="_blank">here</a> might be of interest.
You are right, there is no physical evidence or proof and for good reason. It is physically impossible to have proof of something spiritual.
Personally I regard it more reasonable to believe in a creative God than that we are the result of an accident of nature.

I wonder if the decision to “reject God” is actually the rejection of the traditional Christian interpretation of who God is. And I can’t blame them.

Regards
Adriaan

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: A3 ]</p>

The real TruthSeeker

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: The real TruthSeeker ]</p>

Purple Monkey Dishwasher

That's a good post Bible Humper.
I would add that heaven can't be perfect if we have free will.

A3

Hi Purple Monkey Dishwasher,
Just wondering why..

Regards
Adriaan

Purple Monkey Dishwasher

That's according to Christians who blame "free will" for Earth's imperfection (as opposed to God's inability or unwillingness to create something perfect).