Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Mad Kally · 02-12-2003, 06:23 AM

Quote:

posted by 99Percent:
If a god really appeared we would all go insane, before he would be able to even dictate any new commandments.

Our sanity and reason is based on the fact that the world makes logical sense. A god by definition would put all that upside down.

I agree. The whole concept of a god coming here is nuts anyway. What if every god/gods/godess that people have worshiped from the begininng of our species evolving and believing in such superstitious nonsense showed up all at once. Which one would we choose? If we had enough sanity left to be able to make a choice.

Volker.Doormann · 02-12-2003, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mary and Mike
This was based from my philosophy class:

(Kill your firstborn....God says so)

For all accounts you know that killing a child is morally wrong and listed as one of the 10 commandments to be wrong.

Tomorrow "god" comes to earth and says, "If you believe in me and want to go to heaven, forget everything you know and kill your first born."

Me: I would be going to hell, my husband says the same thing. I don't think that I woudl believe that this person or being was a supreme god either.

Mary

Reading some text in the OT one can find that this plot has no real bloody core. It is a simple spiritual parable as all of the stories in the Pentateuch to dramatize the awaking of the soul of every human being. Because the soul then becomes more important than the (mortal) body, this is dramatized with a death of that, what is firstborn: The body.

This thread is dramatized some times in the OT. In that very night, when the Israelites get free from a bonding in 'Egypt', what means a spiritual life in a physical body in Hebrew, the body as the firstborn dies ('The Egypt's') while the soul returns back to it's spiritual home as an 'awoken' twiceborn. See also in the Gospel of John for details of that 'twiceborn'.

There is in origin no relation to secular social rules in that religious parable (As I have shown here some days ago, the 10 Commandments are created by Hammurabri www.doormann.org/hammur.htm). The parables of the competition of the firstborn and the twiceborn, as it is told several times (Cain/Abel - Jacob/Esau .. ) have it's primary source in the Indian Vedas and in it's 'Code of Manu' the 'Manusmriti' www.doormann.org/manuslaw.txt, in which the term 'twiceborn' is described with it's spiritual meaning.

Volker

JEST2ASK · 02-12-2003, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by 7thangel
Philosoft said: What is a "good reason"? Is it good from our perspective or good from God's? This is important because the two perspectives don't always agree about what is "good."

There is not only one instance where a life was required to be offered in the Bible. And here is the reason why:

God saved us according to predestination. Predestination teaches that all things come into being because of God�s purpose. .....

And that in such like relationship, our value is dependent to God, like the value of the computer is dependent to the inventor.

Abraham had this faith. Thus he had strength to offer Isaac. Experiencing that as God brought up Isaac from a barren and old woman, **God could also be able to resurrect Isaac from the dead. On that belief he was justified for having the right faith about God.**

Jephthah, on the other hand, having a thought that he could �please� God, swore with pride that he will offer anyone who will come out of the door of his house to meet him if God will make him victorious in the war. But, as I said before, our relationship to God is like a computer-inventor relationship, in which as the computer cannot please the inventor, and that the only way the inventor will be pleased of the computer is according to the inventor�s purpose on the computer. Likewise, God can only be pleased in us according to His purpose. And to show that it is not Jephthah who pleased God to win in the war but because of his purpose that Israel might exist until the coming of Christ, He put Jephthah�s daughter to be offered as burnt offering. ***Jephthah is sure that he had been dealing with God because of the miracles in his life, and realizing his mistake, he accepted the chastisement, fully knowing that God can be able to resurrect his daughter even unto eternal life.***

All these things happen for us to know the godhead because we need to experience them to know them. The same reason when Christ came to be **sacrificed in the cross.*** He himself said that God can send angels to fight against his enemies, but why does he need to suffer death? Because through his dearth and suffering we will understand more perfectly that our salvation is about predestination. That God is letting all things happen for us to know our salvation about predestination; that we do not have anything to do of our salvation.

One thing though, that it is the chosen who will only benefit in such a demonstration of godhead. The chosen are the only one�s who will come to understand, according to God�s predestination itself.

................

Well written a good defense of what you **believe**.

However I take exception to some of your conclusions as being just our personal view (supported by your churc , meaning specific place of worship) .

I thought sacrifice means to give up the examples you cited all gloss over the act of demanding a human life. To read into the O.T. passages the "modern" Christian ideas of Heaven an after life, resurrection etc. seems at best wishful interpretation.

God >>... Abe I want you to offer up your son Issac.
Abe >>. Oh you just want to borrow him for awhile, when can I expect him back.

The take by Christians that Abe knew or felt God was going to return his son in some fashion is (IMO) reading a lot more into the story than what is actually there.

And the sickening story of Jephthah (which is found in Judges well after the time of Abe) is several magnitudes greater. What would lead anyone to believe that God did not equate Human life on the same level as that of bulls,goats,sheep and doves etc. Sorry but to explain away that story , the reactions of Christians tell me that what I and others have posted regarding the God is right / good / merciful etc" because he is God mentality while ignoring all other possible bases, interpretions of such passages as an illogical leap(IMO).

And why did God demand that Jesus be subjected to torment (as brief as it was). In this case I really do agree with your framing of sacrifice ... for at best (infinitly powerful, eternal being ) Jesus was (for the smallest - relative fraction) momentairly inconveinenced, and the Father even less so.

Sorry I come across as bitter but I am

, frustrated:banghead: , amazed / disappointed

and several other things .. I know I should really get over it:boohoo:

I sincrely believe you are a good human(and I am sure I have not offend you too much because you had the courage to post here in the first place) but it sounds like you are simply parroting doctrine. (You probably feel the same about most of us

)

So let me end this rant.

Peas on Earth

JEST2ASK · 02-12-2003, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by long winded fool
I don't see how the passages you've illustrated are contradictions. What if your dad says, "Don't question your father, he is not to be put to the test!" And then later you do question him and put him to the test and he decides to humor you and do nothing about it. He didn't contradict himself. You just disobeyed him and got away with it. There seems to be alot of that in the Bible.

In human terms yes but I thought God was unchanging?
Dad : Be home by midnight or else you will be grounded for a month.
Dad : Hey it's 2am but that's ok I hope you had a good time.

Yeah right.

Quote:

The only knowledge any of us has of "God" is through the Bible. Any being which contradicted the Bible could not be the God described in the Bible, therefore wouldn't be God in the traditional sense. If God is omniscient then he can't make a mistake. Therefore how could he tell you to break one of His own commandments? This couldn't possibly be the God of the Bible.

I don't know how I would KNOW that an entity which claims to be God is God. However there is an easy way to know that he is NOT God. As soon as he does something ungodly. How do we know what "ungodly" is? Check the place where we get the concept of God from. Anytime he commands you to break a law that the God of the Bible told you never to break, then the entity is a serpent, whatever it looks like or claims to be.

I seem to think what you are doing as working backwards from the conclusion of your belief in who/ what God is to interpret what the bible says. Ok I probably can not communicate this effectively but "Circular reasoning" is what I am trying to say.

long winded fool · 02-12-2003, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JEST2ASK

In human terms yes but I thought God was unchanging?
Dad : Be home by midnight or else you will be grounded for a month.
Dad : Hey it's 2am but that's ok I hope you had a good time.

Yeah right.[/B]

According to the Bible, God is unchanging, but His laws aren't. The "old covenant" said "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." The new covenant said "Turn the other cheek." This is no more a contradiction than changing the speed limit on the highway. Even a perfect being would have to change the rules to accomadate imperfect beings, assuming a perfect being could create imperfection. The Bible states that this new covenant is the last covenant. Therefore any changed laws that come after the new covenant, are not Biblical and therefore not Godly.

Quote:

Originally posted by JEST2ASK

I seem to think what you are doing as working backwards from the conclusion of your belief in who/ what God is to interpret what the bible says. Ok I probably can not communicate this effectively but "Circular reasoning" is what I am trying to say. [/B]

On the contrary, I am basing my conclusion on what God is solely by the words of the Bible and not tradition and superstition. Since I don't have any other frame of reference having never met God, (and I am not Catholic) my only clue as to who or what He is are the words of the Bible. Therefore, anything that contradicts the words of the Bible, cannot be the God of the Bible. This is not circular.

sourdough · 02-12-2003, 07:05 PM

Quote:

[i]Originally posted by 7thangel

It also God who predestines men to be good, or to be evil. [/B]

naw,its your parents and your environment that makes you the way you are,
if you have loving parents,you will grow up straight,
if you grow up in hell's kitchen or some other ghetto,where only way to survive is to steal and kill,you will most likely take a road of crime.

sourdough · 02-12-2003, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mary and Mike
This was based from my philosophy class:

For all accounts you know that killing a child is morally wrong and listed as one of the 10 commandments to be wrong.

Tomorrow "god" comes to earth and says, "If you believe in me and want to go to heaven, forget everything you know and kill your first born."

For Beliver's of a god(s):

What would you do?

Would your moral values suddenly change because "god" said so?

If your an atheist:

Would you suddenly believe in this god as a supreme being and do it?

Me: I would be going to hell, my husband says the same thing. I don't think that I woudl believe that this person or being was a supreme god either.

Mary

didn't bible god advise people to kill anyone who works on saturday,and stone children who misbehave?

thank god I don't believe in him!

VivaHedone · 02-13-2003, 01:22 PM

Quote:

The problem about questioning God is that we end up thinking that we know better than Him.

But God has no right to expect us to believe in him. Say I told you that I was omniscient, omnipotent, and what's more created the world and everything in it. You would have the right not to believe me, unless I could prove the truth of my claims.

Even if I could prove them, I would have no right to tell you how to live your life, and certainly not if this way of life was a manifestly ridiculous philosophy which I could not justify. If I was truly good, than I would justify the philoshophy, as this is the only way that you could rightfully and meaningfully live a good life.

Only if I was a bad god would I say, "The obvious flaws in this situation are merely a test of your faith, you are too ignorant to understand them anyway, dare to question me and you shall be tortured for eternity (all in the spirit of love and forgiveness, of course)."

malookiemaloo · 02-14-2003, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by VivaHedone
But God has no right to expect us to believe in him. Say I told you that I was omniscient, omnipotent, and what's more created the world and everything in it. You would have the right not to believe me, unless I could prove the truth of my claims.

Even if I could prove them, I would have no right to tell you how to live your life, and certainly not if this way of life was a manifestly ridiculous philosophy which I could not justify. If I was truly good, than I would justify the philoshophy, as this is the only way that you could rightfully and meaningfully live a good life.

Only if I was a bad god would I say, "The obvious flaws in this situation are merely a test of your faith, you are too ignorant to understand them anyway, dare to question me and you shall be tortured for eternity (all in the spirit of love and forgiveness, of course)."

Difficult to know how to respond.

Wasn't Satan's basic problem was that he thought he could run the universe better than God? And now look at the state of the world thanks to Satan's influence. But God has not deserted us-as He had the right to do.

Alistair

VivaHedone · 02-14-2003, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Wasn't Satan's basic problem was that he thought he could run the universe better than God?

Um, no, that is merely what the Bible tells us was Satan's problem. Let us for one minute set aside all the inherent contradictions, impossibilities and lack of proof of the Bible, and assume it is the word of 'God'. There is no way of telling whether what 'God' tells us is true or not - yet you choose to place unconditional trust in this god to tell you the truth, merely because he tells you that he is good. How do you know?

In any case, the world as we experience it does not fit with the idea of a good, omnipotent and omniscient god - it seems more likely that if there is a god, he is bad and manipulative.

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