sourdough

excuse me,but doesn't your bible god advises people to murder,and/or enslave their enemies,stone bad children,rape kidnap and steal and treat women like a subservient slaves?
its right there in your holy book(,which is the word of God as you say)or do you conveniently overlook that?
only way to make this world a perfect place is to get rid of ALL the religions and their related superstitions,and hate preaching.
we the people are responsible for everything we do to each other,
not some imaginary skydady.
this life is all we have,whenever you are ready to wake up read here;
www.americanatheists.org

Christian

Rimstalker,

It depends on the person, really. Plenty of people don't want to look when the doctor is giving them a shot because they don't want to know it's coming. They would rather that the pain take them by surprise and then get over with.

Also, I question whether any human can adequately prepare themselves to deal with the suffering of flogging and crucifixion no matter how long they have.

And we have evidence, the record of sweating blood, that Jesus was under a great deal of anxiety on the night before He died. It seems more likely to me that He went to the cross terrified but obedient than that He went to the cross with steely resolve.

I think what you are saying is that it would have put God at cross purposes with Himself, therefore it is inconsistent. Right? Members of the trinity are united in purpose. Hmmm.

MT 26:52 "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?"

Looking closer at the verse, it's more accurate to describe the escape route this way: Jesus decides He won't go through with it and cries "uncle," then the Father immediately calls the whole thing off and sends 12 legions of angels to rescue Jesus from the Romans and their Jewish accomplices who were executing Him.

No disunity of purpose, just a mutual change in plans. Does that answer your objection, or have I misunderstood?

I realize I didn't make this clear in my previous post but let me restate ... the angels in the escape valve I referred to would have been rescuing Jesus from the humans who were crucifying Him. I'm not saying that Jesus could have used the Father's angels against the Father. I'm saying that if Jesus had said "I'm not doing it" the Father would have concurred and sent the angelic army to rescue Him from crucifixion.

Matt 20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

MT 26:27 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

LK 24:25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

(More than likely those scriptures included Isaiah 53, a clear description of the atonement which includes such comments as: "Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering ...")

MT 26:39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

MT 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Yes. Especially since it is included in the very early creed Paul quoted in 1 Cor 15:3-7. Virtually all scholars agree that Paul wrote 1 Cor. The 1st Cor 15 creed predates all the gospels. At the very latest that creed was in existence in 51 AD, and some scholars date it to within 2 years of Jesus' crucifixion. So within 21 years (at the most) after Jesus died a creed existed which claimed that Jesus appeared to over 500 people after His resurrection "most of whom are still living." All anyone had to do at the time would have been to chase down one of those witnesses and ask them. The creed basically invites people to do so. It never would have survived if there weren't a bunch of credible witnesses who were willing to describe seeing the risen Christ when asked. This creed was MUCH to early to have been tainted by legend. The most rational explaination is that more than 500 witnesses really did see the resurrected Jesus. The creed would have been proven wrong by the many enemies of Christianity in that day and never would have survived.

I grant that symbolic embellishments are the very soul of legend. But the gospel accounts aren't nearly "good enough" overall in that sense to be legend. The gospels include many potentially embarassing details ... dis-embellishments if you will. Such as women being the first to see Jesus after the resurrection, at a time when the testimony of women wasn't even admissable in a court. A legendary account would have had Peter or John or some such prominant disciple being the first to see Him, the real story opens itself to charges of being a gossipy old wives tale. And virtually nothing is written about Jesus' childhood .... an oversight that the legend "genre" of the day never would have granted.

If the gospels are legend, they are a very poor attempt at legend indeed.

For human beings there is only one person per being. Granted. But God is a higher level of being. It should not suprise us that He is more complex than we are. His ways are higher than our ways.

I'll grant that it is not consistent with everyday experience. I assert, however, that it is describing a higher order of things and that it is coherent.

There remains a degree of mystery in the idea of a trinity. It can be explained, but it cannot be fully grasped. If that is what you are saying, I'll grant your point.

But I hold that if we were given the necessary information and intellect we would find that the idea of a trinity is, in fact, coherent.



At least angels, yep.

He wanted to. He desired fellowship with such creatures as we are. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we are made in His image.

So Satan had the power to convert every human being to the Christian cause?[/QUOTE]

What you described was "a host of people singing His praises" or words to that effect.

MT 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

It's not a tremendous leap to think that a "king of the world" would have a host of people singing their praises.

Satan is the god of this age. (2 Cor 4:4). But Jesus is the one true God. One is a pretender (although he's been granted a lot of power at the moment) and one is the Real Deal.

Yes, the choice was pragmatic for Him. But being king of the world right now would have been tempting. It's human nature to want to avoid torture and horrible death and to want to short cut to the good stuff. Jesus was fully human.

Apparantly God is concerned with other criteria than a simplistic "return rate" for designing a universe. In any case I trust Him on the matter. The current system is a necessary part of the greater good which God intends.

Because He cannot be self contradictory. For example, it is impossible for God to lie. (Heb 6:18) This does not mean God is not omnipotent. It means that God cannot contradict Himself. God IS truth (Jn 14:6) by nature, and for God to lie would be a self-contradiction.

If justice really is occuring, then no mercy will be had. With justice people get what they deserve. With mercy people don't get what they deserve. They are contradictory ideas.

UNLESS you stack the deck by inserting a large pool of "accomplished punishment" into the system. That gives you a way to let people off the hook (mercy) while still satisfying the strict requirements of justice (someone else steps in and takes your punishment for you.) The just punishment is still metted out, but God now has a basis for letting people off the hook.

Mercy and Justice in dealing with mankind would be contradictory attributes of God if it were not for Jesus' substitutionary atonement on the cross.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Rick,

I said faith, not "mindless speculation with no basis at all." Faith exceeds the evidence, but it is not contrary to the evidence and it is not something done in the complete absence of evidence. If there was no evidence at all, how would you even know what to have faith in?

A fair question, though.

Rom 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

What I see in this passage is that the current state of affairs (suffering and all) is something that God subjected the world to in hope. This suggests that creation/fall/redemption model is a better thing than simply creating perfection from the get go. It's possible to interpret this passage in other ways, but that is my understanding of it.

There is also something of a logical basis in that scripture and experience tell me that God is good, and inflicting pain and suffering beyond what is actually necessary seems to me incompatible with an ultimately good Being. If God has something in mind even better (better than perfection from the get go would have been) that can only be achieved with a redemptive system then this system makes sense. I trust Him that the pain and suffering we see in the current world is a necessary price.

Again, I point to the cross as an example of this idea. Terrible pain and suffering. And yet necessary pain and suffering, through which something much better (more good than the pain and suffering was bad) is achieved. God gave me a staggering example of how good can result from pain and suffering (and unmerited pain and suffering at that.)

Yes, unmerited. I didn't realize that anyone challenged the fact that people suffer things in this world that they do not deserve to suffer. (Of course they also suffer things which they fully deserve, but that was not your question.)

I believe that at the final judgment God will expose all wrongs committed and right all wrongs. Such a system implies that wrongs are being committed which need to be righted. Someone inflicting pain on another person which they do not deserve is a good example of a wrong that needs to be righted.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Philosoft,

People will have physical bodies in the eternal state ... after the resurrection anyway. Our bodies will be like Jesus' resurrected body, and He was able to touch and eat and such things after His resurrection.

I do think fewer temptations will exist in heaven, and we will know more, and we will be more powerful. And yes these current bodies give us a propensity to sin that our new bodies do not have. I consider these things "freeing" rather than "constraining." If they meet some technical definition of constaint, then so be it.

BUT, I don't think those things by themselves fully account for the lack of sinful decisions in heaven. Take, for example, simple disobedience. If God tells us to do something, we will always have the option of refusing. Not a wise or preferable option, but how could you rule it out? A universe of where the only choices that exist are choices between good things doesn't seem any more possible to me than a square circle. If anything is "good," then the possibility of it's opposite exists ... namely evil. Nothing will actually stand in the way of our chosing to disobey God ... we simply won't want to, and by that time we will be creatures so powerful that we are able to act consistently.

"Will not" still seems like a much different concept to me than "can not." In heaven we will have the desire to do good and the power to consistently make morally good choices. That's something different than having the desire to do good and no power to chose anything else.

I don't think God's foreknowledge is probabilistic. It is complete and detailed.

Simply put I think that the willing choices of moral agents is precisely one of the things God has determined. God brings about His will through the willing choices of the moral agents He has created ... and if you could look deep enough behind the scenes you would find out the the whole dance has been determined by God.

Consider a simple analogy. Here in Korea in the military we have "Tuesday Night Football." It's really "Monday Night Football," only it's Tuesday morning on this side of the world when the game is played. Since everyone is at work then, they rebroadcast the game on Tuesday night. It works, as long as you can manage to avoid the new reports all day Tuesday.

So when I'm watching Tuesday Night Football the outcome of that game has already been determined. In fact, everything about that game down to all the actions of all the players is set in concrete ... it occurs exactly as it happened real time a few hours earlier. But it is still completely accurate to say the players are making willing and volitional choices, and that those choices have consequences. In fact, those choices determine the outcome of the game. Quarterback "Y" is fully engaged in deciding who he will pass the ball to. Noone is forcing the decision on him (assuming a good Offensive Line). And yet who he is going to pass to is an absolute certainty.

So it is with God and His creation. I should clarify that I believe God is time-less. He is not just eternal, He exists outside of time. Time is just a convenient reference point for the creatures, because we would get real confused if things didn't happen in sequence. God created time, and He exists both in it (He's everywhen) and external to it.

So from God's perspective, what I'm typing at the computer right now is as set in concrete as Tuesday Night Football. Of course, from my perspective what I'm typing right now are the words that I am freely choosing as I try to explain the concepts bouncing around in my head. We're both right. But we are right on different levels. On the level where I operate I'm freely choosing these words as I go along. On the level where God operates on my choice of words has always been an absolute certainty.

Is that one of "the common forms of compatibilism?"

Leaving: "The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by an agency such as fate or divine will?"

My response would be the same ... I think we are all constrained by divine will, even though that divine will accounts for our willing choices freely made.

Maybe I misunderstood ... are you suggesting: "The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances?"

In any case, I still hold that we have: "The ability to act volitionally and chose between options, resulting in suffering consequences from your choice and being morally accountable for having made the choice you did." Whatever you call something like that.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

And so I'm caught up.

By the way, Rhea ... I hope it's alright for me to be monopolizing your thread like this. That wasn't what I set out to do.

Respectfully,

Christian

Rousseau_CHN

Free Will ends when you start believing in God.

Radorth

That is true to some extent, )although I believe the Christian has more meaningful choices than the non-Christian.) Of more interest to me is how the anticipated loss facilitates irrational arguments against the NT.

Rad

Philosoft

Hmm. Maybe I'll just leave Radorth out of this.

Well, presumably not all things about earthly carnal desire are sinful. It seems God would have to get rid of these good things, as well as all the sinful things.

Hmm. I see two ways of dealing with the 'Problem of Disobedience':

1. People in heaven "freely" choose to obey God. This seems to be just a specific case of the 'Problem of Free Will in Heaven.' It doesn't explain why disobedient choices never occur, just that they don't.

2. God only makes requests of the people in heaven that he knows beforehand they will obey. This seems like a denial of free will by assuring the future outcome.

I guess I'm having trouble understanding the implications of "we simply won't want to." This does not, by any stretch of the imagination, seem like a problem whereby a "simple" explanation will suffice. "No bad choices will obtain" is certainly an extraordinary claim, is it not?

I'm not understanding how we have the "power" to do anything other than what you're telling me we will do. Is there a possible world in which bad choices do obtain in heaven?

I think the problem is you are using words and phrases like "moral agents" and "willing choices" and "determined by God" together, as if they have obvious complementary meanings. This is, IMO, one of the greatest failings of compatibilism - that a philosophy can just blithely usurp other well-defined concepts and stick them together in a sentence as if their mere spatial conjunction is enough to provide coherence.

Certainly not. The "free will" you're observing is illusory. In fact, the entire set of actions and decisions is illusory. There aren't any beings making any volitional choices, just photon patterns based on magnetic patterns that are capable of convincing your brain that you are observing beings making volitional choices. Your belief does not define actuality.

I must tell you I find the "timeless God" apologetic to be nearly devoid of rational content, if only because it is so often asserted without a hint of comprehensible explanation. Very few things scream "ad hoc!" so loudly.

I strongly disagree with this. If Truth exists, one of the aforementioned perspectives must be True - presumably God's. We may believe we are making free choices, but if God's version of the story is True, our freedom is merely illusory.

Opera Nut

This is so tiresome I think I will go read some Buddha and some Nietzsche.


I have a complete absence of evidence, that's why I don't have faith.

Stephen T-B

This is something I really cannot get my head around: “The question here, never resolved or fully discussed, is what are the consequences of God fixing all the problems of the world when the majority steadfastly refuse to obey him.” (Radorth).
“...the majority refuse to obey Him.” HelenM took a stab at explaining what “obey Him,” means, and I think she said (sorry if I’ve got this wrong, Helen) that it is to do with acknowledging him in our hearts. Well, if it was perfectly clear that god had fixed all the problems in the world, I wouldn’t have to acknowledge him in my heart. I’d know he’d done it. But I might ask, why now? Why not several millennia ago? I mean, he can do ANYTHING and he’s just proved it. So why did he wait so long and allow so many people to live horrible lives and die horrible deaths. If I kept my children in the attic and permanently hungry and cold, and one day let them out and gave them clothes and fed them properly, I don’t think I’d deserve their thanks. And it'd be worrying if I demanded it.
Radorth went on: “...Case in point. If I alone ask God to stop all gang warfare in the Valley here, and he does so, how many people will thank and praise him for it?”
So what’s all this about “thanking and praising god” for doing something he could have done a long time ago? And anyway, why does this all-powerful, all-knowing super entity need me to praise and thank him? He’s got lots of angels doing that, why does he want me to add my tiny little voice? Because he loves me and wants me to love him? And in consequence bring me to heaven, where, although I’ll have free will I won’t choose to exercise it because I’ll have learned that there’s only One Way to Go - which is what brought me to heaven?

Deary me. What tangled webs we weave.

Christian tells us: “Vengeance is distinctly the role of God. He has delegated some of that role on earth to the governments He establishes.” Like Ayatollah Khomeni’s bloodthirsty regime of mullahs in Iran? He and they certainly believed their government was established by god - (didn’t god protect it by burning the Infidels’ helicopters in the desert?) and boy, was it vengeful!.
Which other governments has God established - or are we waiting for one, and will it be as delightfully vengeful as Khomeni’s?

Later Christian wrote: “I will say that any unmerited suffering experienced by God's children in this world will be more than compensated for in the eternal state.” A justification, perhaps, for accepting the injustices of the world because when they’re dead, those treated unjustly will be more than compensated? It was a philosophy which allowed many Christians to excuse slavery and extreme social injustice up to the late 19th century. Eventually, enlightened Christians (specifically in Great Britain) began to realise that injustice is a crime against Man and God; it was an affront to them, and they assumed it was an afront to their Loving and Just god
They did not, however wait for God to put it right with a miracle; they didn’t think it suitable to allow those who suffered injustice to wait until they were dead in order to enjoy God’s compensation: Judging the “here-and-now” to be of more practical importance than the “hereafter,' they did the hard work necessary to change a harsh, uncaring (overwhelmingly Christian) culture in order to bring about humanitarian reforms. (Not religious reforms, we should note. Religious reforms don’t improve the material welfare of human beings.)

And now to the nitty-gritty. He wrote: “Suggesting that I believe because of some ‘externalising instinct’ is just as insulting and inadequate a proposition to me as ‘you don’t believe because you don’t want to believe’ is for you.
“Neither proposition actually accomplishes much in the way of meaningful conversation. My only point is that such an argument cuts just as sharply both ways. It's probably an argument best avoided by both sides.”
Yep. This is the Great Gulf, Christian.
My failure to acknowledge god, welcome god into my heart and worship god is a sin, for which I will burn in hell? Right? For you, god’s existence is as plain as the sun in the sky and the only reason you can conceive of someone not agreeing is because s/he won’t look up.
I understand this conviction to be an essential part of your belief system.
Now, let me try to show what things look like from my side.

All though my childhood and teenage years I accepted there was a god because I was told there was one. I didn’t rebel in my heart. Why should I? I was brought up to do as I was told, to eat the food on my plate, to be polite to grown-ups, to go to church, to pray every night and seek god’s guidance every morning. Everyone else seemed to be receiving his guidance, and there came a day - I was about 20 - when I resolved to put god at the centre of my life and obey him 100 per cent.
That morning I had two choices: to hitch-hike to work, as I sometimes did, or go by train, and it seemed to me that if I was going to do only that which god guided me to do for the rest of my ;life, then I should make an immediate start and seek clarification as to what I should do that morning
Was this my sin? Was this my unwillingness to accept the Lord in my heart?
Apparently God was attending to someone else’s affairs that morning because he let me get on and do my own thing - and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Subsequently, god didn’t only NOT claim me back, he vanished into thin air, and so when I postulated the “externalising impulse” here which accounts for some people’s certainty of god’s existence, it is because I believe there is a fundamental difference between the way they perceive the world and the way I do. For me, the universe, as I stated, is a closed,, self-sufficient system.
Christian's posts in this thread suggest to me that for him it is an open system - open, that is, to the influence of an external entity whose characteristics are described by his religious texts, his fellow-believers, possibly his parents, and fine-tuned to suit his own personal preferences.

You don’t like that notion?
I’m sorry. But I don’t like yours either.
Sadly you are right: the gulf remains.