theophilus

But since you reject such a father, what's your justification for saying we shouldn't believe "things that are patently false?"

The "love" of God is greatly misunderstood and misrepresented by both believers and non. God's love is always represented as "agape." This is not a sentimetal love, neither is it merely the natural affection of a parent for a child.
You make the mistake of assuming that all God's creatures are his children. This is not the case.
All mankind, in their natural state, are in active rebellion against their creator. This rebellion is willful and inexcusable. God is "against" his disobedient creatures.
His Love is manifested in that he chooses, of his own will, to redeem some. It is these who "become" the children of God and are enabled to have faith.

Kent Stevens

I think that you are trying to have your cake and eat it too A3. On one hand you might think that if god made his existence crystal clear to everyone would be taking away our spiritual freedom. On the other hand any prophet who reveals the details about god is not taking away our spiritual freedom.

What about the prophets themselves. After Moses clearly seeing the existence of god was his spiritual freedom taken away. Moses might be constantly acting as if god was in his rear mirror and become incapable of doing evil. I think that according to the bible Moses did a few things wrong according to god after revealing himself to Moses. Did God do wrong by depriving Moses of his spiritual freedom.

Jesus coming down to earth would also be taking away peoples spiritual freedom. In particular did Jesus do wrong by demonstrating his divinity to his disciples? These disciples may have doubted Jesus at some stage but they ended up seeing his resurrection. Was the resurrection the equivalent of seeing god in the rearview mirror.

Also miracles such as the parting of the red sea or walking on water would be wrong to the witnesses because this would be taking away their spiritual freedom. This would be equivalent to seeing god in the rearview mirror.

Kent Stevens

If we are not to apply reason to the nature of the supernatural we might believe anything about it. We might believe that God has two aspects or five aspects and he is still has one essence. We might believe that in the Roman religion of Jupiter and his follow gods. We might believe in the sun god of the south americans. God might be an alien creature like an insect as these are the most frequent animals on the earth.

If we rely on blind faith in the supernatural we might believe anything. The holy trinity is a case in point. For it is so much simpler to say there are at least three separate gods in Christianity and not one essence at all. Three personalties means that there are three gods.

This would suggest that God is one of the most useless of designers. Would he make buildings that would fall down under their own weight? Would he make cars that would not work? But God in his omniscience made people who have hardened hearts and reject his existence. God in his omniscience made people that are against him and naturally reject his authority.

If an idea is obvious enough people will believe even with a hardened heart or not. Some people may not like George Bush but they still believe of his existence because of the evidence for this. People would believe in the existence of God, even if they do not like God, if there was clear evidence for this.

A3

Hi theophilus,

Yes, a questioning mind is the beginning of wisdom. It sets us apart from animals.

(a)I think to understand revelation and thus life as much as we are capable.
(b+c) Yes, to ourselves. We determine what we consider the truth and live and make our choices according to it. Our spiritual state now is the same as our spiritual state then.
A3

theophilus

Not if they defined the evidence in such a way that they would never be satisified. Not if there purpose was NOT to acknowledge him.
Pharoah, after 9 plagues still did not acknowledge God's authority.

WJ

Kent!

Hello! The Trinity has always intrigued me as it seems quite outside to constraints of FL. I haven't read all of the posts but your's caught my attention.

Since we know that 3 does not = 1 logically, (nor as in marrage can 2 physically become one) it doesn't preclude that an existing Being (Jesus)is/was logically impossible. Rather, it simply says that a Being (such as God or Jesus)is supernatural, beyond logic. Jesus, like other historical figures, existed. The question is what comprised his existence or Being.

As for the praying to yourself concept, can we also rule out the fact that since the person Jesus was apparently part human, that that in itself, could suggest he had no choice in the matter(?) The determinist, if he was a religious person, could argue Jesus was supposed to pray to himself to serve the ultimate purpose of the passion. Not to mention if he [Jesus]was only God and not part man, it would seem more plausible to doubt the reason why he would need to pray to God, as he would be praying to himself. Then the question becomes what does God look like if he does exist viz. Christianity?

So being part-man kind of makes it seem more plausible he would say these things as he said them in Scripture, from history as we read them in 'Christianity'.

Walrus

A3

Hi Kent,
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, the police is the law, but so is God. You can see the police and if you, as you say, have “clear evidence of his [God’s] existence” it the same as seeing Him in your rearview mirror. This would leave you with very little freedom to do evil.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It dawned on me that maybe this conversation is not going anywhere fast is because we may have a completely different idea of God. I have no idea what believe system you have and what concept of God that entails. Maybe you don’t believe in any god, I don’t know. There seems an indication that you see no difference between a prophet and the God Almighty.
My believe system is New Church or Swedenborgian, so to me He is the One Almighty Lord God Jesus Christ, the Creater and Redeemer of the world. This might be were the issue lies, what do you think?

Also, you seem to be saying that if this information came directly from God Himself everyone would still be just as free to do evil. Well then, why send the message, why give this clear indication if it makes no difference in our ability to do evil? Jesus said something similar: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead (Luke 16:31).

You answered that yourself in the following sentence saying that “Moses did a few things wrong afterwards.” This indicates that his freedom to do wrong was not taken away.

What makes you think so? They still had the freedom to kill Him, and did.
We have talked about miracles before and that Jesus did a slew of them without seeming to do much difference. Also was mentioned that now no more miracles are done. Swedenborg says that the Israellites and the Jews were very external and literal people with a total disregard for anything spiritual. (I have also met some on the internet). So at one point Jesus said something like: if for nothing else, believe in Me because of the miracles that you see. There were people who did take His message to heart and a believe in the spiritual became more prevalent by way or the Christian faith. Since then no more miracles have been done because this is compulsion from the outside. We can, however, compel ourselves. This is internal compulsion and this is done in freedom. Miracles as outside compulsion would compel someone for a while but then doubt would come in (reasoning how it could be explained through nature) and because it was a compelled believe it dissipates.
Kent, (and this is not a trick-question) you have compelled yourself, in freedom, to abide by the rules and you are doing the speedlimit because this is your acquired and habitual way of driving. Would you feel your freedom to go speeding taken away because of the police behind you? Or would you not even consider it an issue at that moment?
A3

A3

Hi WJ,
Did you read the first one though? Would you mind sharing your reaction with us? Just interested.
I am in now way trying to start an argument!! Because I believe that if you are happy in your faith, there is absolutely no problem that I can see because that is your God given freedom of choice.
A3

Kent Stevens

I suppose you take the bible literally which can create problems. In the old testament God is almost always one in nature. Then the new testament comes along and we get Jesus is a God, the Holy Spirit is a God, and Mary is a God if you are Catholic. So we get this contradiction going there is one God according to the old testament but there are at least three Gods according to the new testament. Instead of saying this shows the Bible is flawed we invent this doctrine that attempts to square a circle and say that there are three aspects in one essence. It is easier to say that the new gods of the new testaments either did not exist until the new testament or they were on vacation until the times of the new testament. Then we do not have to invent this essence of God.

Jews and Muslims who are quite clear that there is only one God think that Christains have lost the plot with the invention of all these new gods.

It is quite simple why God made us so that we would rebel intensely against him. He is a bad engineer who always passes the buck for bad workmanship. It is part of the divine mystery of engineering that products fail.

I give an example of someone believing that a certain person exists even with a hardened heart. I am not arguing about who is the "real president". I knew that George Bush existed and Al Gore existed while the presidential elections were taking place. People are not having fierce arguments about the existence of George Bush. I just picked George Bush as a media celebrity that people know that he physically exists. You could pick any other media celebrity as an example of individuals that people know exists. People may dislike Osama Bin Ladin but they know that he exists also.

My criteria for a certain individual existing is not very high. I see Tom Cruise on the TV, he is verified by journalists, I see him in movies. I believe that Tom Cruise exists. I would believe in the a form of the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus if these passed these simple tests. I would believe in God if he was on the six o'clock news or in a documentary. That he hides away from us suggests that he condones the resulting evil of many people having untrue beliefs about him.

Kent Stevens

If Jesus is part of one essence with God then you would think that they would at least be able to see what each other thoughts are. But we get into a standard objection to prayer that God in his omniscience would see what our needs were so he would not require our greasing from him in terms of prayer.

I usually do not think of terms of the police taking away freedom. The police are helping this society from descending into anarchy and chaos. It would only if they start pulling me over and doing something like beating me up for my ethnicity would I start thinking about my basic freedoms being taking away. People who are in jail are not free but they do deserve to be free.

I think that people would have spiritual freedom pretty much no matter what happens. If god gives little evidence or a large amount of evidence of his existence people would still have free will to choose to do right or wrong. I think that any revealation about God is not taking away our free will.

We might be getting into a semantic argument A3 about what the term freedom means and when it should apply. To be clear about my beliefs I am an atheist, a rationalist, and a secular humanist. A rationalist uses reason to prove or disprove things. I believe that nature is all that exists and that there are no supernatural entities.