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Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 7:54:16 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
I do not have the power of god to make everything perfect.

However, I'd expect a loving father to do exactly that for his kids.

A sadist, on the other hand, would make the world we live in.


That reminds me of the silly paradox question "Can God make a wall so strong even he can't break it?"

Would we really be children of God if God created us without the capacity to make mistakes?  The mistakes made were ours, not God's after all.


If I make a roller-coaster that breaks, and I refuse to fix it, can I blame the roller-coaster for hurting people, or am I responsible for refusing to fix that which I've made?


If you put up a sign that says "This roller coaster is broken, ride this one instead until it's fixed," and people still ride the broken one, is the people getting hurt still your responsibility?  (Since you're trying to shoehorn a pretty absurd analogy here.)



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:14:29 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun
quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
Apparently god saw no evil in Job, despite your quote.


Or more apparently, you're just entirely ignoring me because it's inconvenient to your argument.


Your argument is the same as Job's friends: that he must have sinned in some way to be mistreated by god.

God's response?

Job 49:7
... My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.

What had they said? That Job's misfortune was a curse from god for some sin of which Job had not repented.

Job maintained his innocence.

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In other words, Job was not a sinner. He was a good man given to satan for testing. He passed the tests and is rewarded for it by god.


Or, as the Bible seems to explain, Job was a good man who tried to be upright, with one flaw that the Bible clearly spells out.  Job got tested, repented, and in the end, Job became exactly what God called him.




InvisibleBlack -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:23:44 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
So are you saying I respect the sanctity of life more than god?


Actually, yes.

You presume that life has sanctity. I would argue that God does not. Pretty much all Christian doctrine is designed to lead you to the salvation of your immortal soul. To attain spiritual salvation and eternal life after you die. What you have focused on is transient. Ephemeral. Irrelevant.

Nowhere did God, nor Christ, promise you a blissful happy life filled with pleasure and contentment. In fact, I would argue, both the New and the Old Testament pretty much flat out tell you that life is going to be rough, unpleasant, difficult, seemingly arbitrary and often painful. The point is not to achieve some sort of satisfaction or happiness in this life. That's a sand castle build next to a roaring sea. A fallacy. It will be knocked down and washed away. The point is to experience what's out there,. to learn, to grow, to recognize our flaws and our imperfections, and to seek to understanding and improve ourselves and attain a state of grace.

You are sitting in the classroom and complaining that the desk is old and the chalkboard is cracked and there's gum on the chair while the vital world of knowledge is being ceaselessly explained all around you - ignored while you look at the dirt on the tiled floor. When the class is over, you'll be leaving the classroom - and all you'll have is a memory of gum on your shoe and chalk dust on your clothes - unprepared for what comes after. The classroom is unimportant. The desk and the chair are unimportant.

The lessons and the knowledge of the class are what matters.

You may not like this view - but it's not unique to Christianity. It's a common theme in many of the world's religions.

This world, this life - do not matter. What matters is the soul.



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:29:05 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
Your argument is the same as Job's friends: that he must have sinned in some way to be mistreated by god.


Not exactly.  I'm not claiming he was mistreated by God, Job's friend's were making that claim.  Satan did everything to Job, not God.

quote:

What had they said? That Job's misfortune was a curse from god for some sin of which Job had not repented.


The bolded is why God was angry at them.  (Again, simplified from an answer that would probably take many hours to go into full depth.)



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:35:34 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun
quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun
quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
I do not have the power of god to make everything perfect.

However, I'd expect a loving father to do exactly that for his kids.

A sadist, on the other hand, would make the world we live in.

That reminds me of the silly paradox question "Can God make a wall so strong even he can't break it?"

Would we really be children of God if God created us without the capacity to make mistakes?  The mistakes made were ours, not God's after all.

If I make a roller-coaster that breaks, and I refuse to fix it, can I blame the roller-coaster for hurting people, or am I responsible for refusing to fix that which I've made?

If you put up a sign that says "This roller coaster is broken, ride this one instead until it's fixed," and people still ride the broken one, is the people getting hurt still your responsibility?  (Since you're trying to shoehorn a pretty absurd analogy here.)


There is no other roller-coaster ... we only have one world, this one.

Out of all those who say "my god is the only one" we're supposed to pick out the right one by faith alone, and should we guess wrong we get tossed into the lake of fire.

And this is the best an all-loving god who once tried to drown the world can come up with?

More like a sadistic god who hates us and is doing his best to keep us out of heaven by refusing to prove his existence and thus ensuring we'd have about as much luck picking the winning numbers for the next lottery.

Just think of how much fun he's going to get punting all the hindus, buddhists, confucians, atheists and agnostics into that lake of fire of his.

Of all the people born throughout time, very few called themselves "Christian" and even fewer actually worshipped the 'right' god because the others were being led astray by heresy. Think of all the children who grew up in the faith of their parents without ever thinking of betraying their faith, just like kids going to Sunday School.

So god made this world with a surplus of people he could deep fry in his lake of fire because he knew from the very beginning they were never going to get into heaven.

Sound like an all-loving god to you?



Kirata -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:36:48 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: InvisibleBlack

The point is not to achieve some sort of satisfaction or happiness in this life.... You may not like this view - but it's not unique to Christianity. It's a common theme in many of the world's religions.

I am inclined to disagree with this. Since you mention Christianity, Christ taught that the Kingdom of God is within you. The problem is, we look for happiness outside ourselves. If we don't seek it within while it's right here inside us, it isn't going to be handed to us on a silver platter "later."

K.



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:40:26 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved

There is no other roller-coaster ... we only have one world, this one.


Which is exactly why I said your analogy was a silly one.

As for the rest of your rant...there is definately one biblical example of a large group of people becoming saved after they had died physically...everyone that had followed God before Jesus was able to come to do his thing were redeemed after death when Jesus went to Hell for the weekend after the cross. Knowing how loving God is, I believe there's certainly the capability that those who wished to do the right thing, but didn't know the answer would have their chance to after dying. As I don't know this for sure though, I'm glad to not be taking the chance.



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:41:19 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun
quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
Your argument is the same as Job's friends: that he must have sinned in some way to be mistreated by god.

Not exactly.  I'm not claiming he was mistreated by God, Job's friend's were making that claim.  Satan did everything to Job, not God.


God sent Satan on a mission to test Job.

Why absolve god of the responsibility, He certainly had no problem accepting responsibility for what he did.



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:50:26 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun
As for the rest of your rant...there is definately one biblical example of a large group of people becoming saved after they had died physically...everyone that had followed God before Jesus was able to come to do his thing were redeemed after death when Jesus went to Hell for the weekend after the cross.


Quote where it says Jesus went to hell?

As for this "large group of people", the only people who could have followed God were those who knew of him. In other words, the Jews.

So everyone else gets deep fried for not being born a Jew.

This supposed to be the act of an all-loving god?

quote:


Knowing how loving God is, I believe there's certainly the capability that those who wished to do the right thing, but didn't know the answer would have their chance to after dying. As I don't know this for sure though, I'm glad to not be taking the chance.


You don't know Revelations, then.

Revelations 21:8
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerors, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

In other words, anyone who doesn't believe in the 'right' god ("the unbelieving ... the idolaters") gets deep-fried.



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:53:55 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved

God sent Satan on a mission to test Job.


Satan came to God. God said "Behold!" or "Look!" when telling Satan that he had the power to affect Job, it wasn't an on the spot decision to remove the protections around Job. Why were those protections gone?

"That which I have feared most has come upon me..." Job's own words. Fear/doubt/worry/disbelief is anathema to faith. And remember, the Bible says that Jesus was even unable to heal the sick once because of the unbelief there.

There's so much more to what happened there than what it looks like on the surface, that took scripture from several points in the Bible to understand.

God didn't cause Job's suffering. He certainly did use the suffering caused by Satan to teach Job something, in the end, making Job exactly what God said he was when he was calling things that be not as though they were, a "perfect, upright man who stays away from evil."



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 8:58:54 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved

Quote where it says Jesus went to hell?


1st Peter 3:18

18 Christ sufferedd]'>[d] for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.e]'>[e]
19 So he went and preached to the spirits in prison—20 those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood.



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:00:13 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: InvisibleBlack
This world, this life - do not matter. What matters is the soul.


If I have an issue with any religion it is the insistence of the religion that life serves no purpose and that we are expected to obey our superiors with mindless faith in the hopes that when we die we will be rewarded.

I'll bet that works out real well for the "superiors".

I am of the opinion that life does indeed have purpose and meaning: it is an opportunty for us to learn to love one another, here and now.

What comes after life is a mystery and is unimportant to our lives in the here and now.

What matters is whether we love others, and are loved by others.

As I see it, learning to be the best I can be, a life-long process, is my best hope for learning to love and be loved.

I need no faith in a sadistic god to accomplish that purpose.



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:00:22 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
You don't know Revelations, then.


You don't know how salvation works then.  Once someone accepts Christ, they are a new creature; the liar/unbeliever/etc no longer exists.



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:02:09 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
I am of the opinion that life does indeed have purpose and meaning: it is an opportunty for us to learn to love one another, here and now.


Personally, as a Christian, I believe the same. =)

quote:

I need no faith in a sadistic god to accomplish that purpose.


Neither do I.  Which is why I follow a rather loving God. =) 



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:02:59 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata
I am inclined to disagree with this. Since you mention Christianity, Christ taught that the Kingdom of God is within you. The problem is, we look for happiness outside ourselves. If we don't seek it within while it's right there inside us, it isn't going to be handed to us on a silver platter "later."


Whole-hearted agreement.



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:06:55 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun
quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
You don't know Revelations, then.

You don't know how salvation works then.  Once someone accepts Christ, they are a new creature; the liar/unbeliever/etc no longer exists.


You are ignoring just how many do not accept the words of an ancient book to be truth.

You are also ignoring that your all-knowing god was aware of just how many of his creations he'd be punting into the lake of fire at the end before he ever created the world.

Did he create the world for the few he'd allow into heaven, or for the many he'd be deep-frying in the lake of fire?

Couldn't he have just created those few he'd allow into heaven and spare the rest of us all this suffering through life followed by a quick dip in the lake of fire at the end?

He has the power to create a human, complete with personality and memories of living a life, right?



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:08:28 AM)

So anyways, since it's obvious you're so set in your opinion that nothing will change it, and since there's no contradiction to be found in my beliefs, personally I think we should just agree to disagree rather than waste time. ;)



InvisibleBlack -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:08:44 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: InvisibleBlack

The point is not to achieve some sort of satisfaction or happiness in this life.... You may not like this view - but it's not unique to Christianity. It's a common theme in many of the world's religions.

I am inclined to disagree with this. Since you mention Christianity, Christ taught that the Kingdom of God is within you. The problem is, we look for happiness outside ourselves. If we don't seek it within while it's right there inside us, it isn't going to be handed to us on a silver platter "later."

K.


You are correct, and I was too extreme in my arguments. I should have said that the point is not to become caught up in achieving satisfaction or happiness based on this life or external events, but to come to an understanding of one's self and an understanding of others. You say it much better than I do.

I also certainly didnt mean to imply that happiness was going to be handed out later. Christ was quite clear on the penalty if one doesn't come to achieve salvation.



BLoved -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:08:48 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Raiikun
quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
I am of the opinion that life does indeed have purpose and meaning: it is an opportunty for us to learn to love one another, here and now.


Personally, as a Christian, I believe the same. =)

quote:

I need no faith in a sadistic god to accomplish that purpose.

Neither do I.  Which is why I follow a rather loving God. =) 


Then you'd better hope you have a perfect understanding of your god's plan, because if you are wrong, you'll be punted into the lake of fire just like me.



Raiikun -> RE: About the "Flood" ... (2/23/2010 9:10:57 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BLoved
You are ignoring just how many do not accept the words of an ancient book to be truth.


No I'm not.

quote:

You are also ignoring that your all-knowing god was aware of just how many of his creations he'd be punting into the lake of fire at the end before he ever created the world.


You're just ignoring my disagreement on this point.

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Did he create the world for the few he'd allow into heaven, or for the many he'd be deep-frying in the lake of fire?


Which is why this question is a red herring.

quote:


He has the power to create a human, complete with personality and memories of living a life, right?


Got a source for this assumption, and that such a creation would infact be human and not a puppet, which is not what God wanted?



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