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Timmy, You state:
Over centuries men have stated what the "will of God" is in order to make the points they wish to make.
Things that are said to be the will of God currently include:
* AIDS
* The attacks on Israel
* The gay pride parade in Jerusalem has caused the wrath of God to descend upon Israel
* Homosexuality is bad
Yet none of these things, not a single one, are the will of God. All are created by man's incompetence or intransigence.
You may be amazed at this, but I agree with that absolutely. So why do I agree with that statement? Because it affirms what I most assuradly believe, "That acts of man are a result of his having free will and are not the will of God". This simple truth has allowed me to beleive in God in a totally simplistic way. I take the Old Testament as a collection of stories showing how God had tried to get people to follow his way......that is, following the ten commandments. He wants us to do things His way as He knows that is the only way things will be able to be in peace, but we are arrogant know-it-alls that have an extreme emnity against God. The New Testament tells us what is going to be the consequence of our intolerance, greed, and all those other things we find so horrible when done by others and not when we do them.
I have come to peace about reconciling the world around me with a caring God. Now if you are so smart, how is God going to make anything happen without violating man's free will? So it is only that God knows the result of what we are voluntarily doing to each other; and yes, some do it in His name, but I will never believe it is God's will.
You are either part of the problem or part of the solution..............
Ken
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Just wanna point out two little things. First the law wasnt just the 10 commandments, there were actually several hundred laws. Second, has anyone noticed that its called the laws of Moses and not the laws of God.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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Ken,
>Now if you are so smart, how is God going to make anything happen without violating man's free will?
I assume that's a rhetorical question, as otherwise it sounds rather patronising towards Timmy.
As far as I was concerned when I was a Christian, God does not make things happen, and never has done. Heaven is his domain and he can do whatever he pleases there; Earth is where he has handed the authority to make things happen to men and science. Therefore there are no proofs that he existed, nothing as portrayed in the Bible as being against the laws of nature ever happened, the Holy Spirit does not exist, etc. Anything that needs to be achieved on Earth has to be done by human agency, i.e. Christ (who was probably not genetically the son of God, nor had any mechanism for talking to God other than that of everyone else, prayer).
There's no scientific conflict there, which is why I was prepared to accept it.
>So it is only that God knows the result of what we are voluntarily doing to each other; and yes, some do it in His name, but I will never believe it is God's will.
I think it goes rather further than that: no man has the right to expect he knows what God's will is. If there is one thing in Christianity that crops up again and again, it is that man is fallible. At best, he can live his life according to those guidelines that suit him best, but woe betide them if he tries to dictate them to others.
David
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Yes a rhetorical question and not a slam at Tim for sure.
I don't see how we are so far apart on this whole thing really. I just don't want to see people beleive what you espouse and then come back and blame the whole damn mess on God.
Ken
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I am neither part of the problem nor of the solution. I do not accept the terms of the supposed problem
How do you reconcile the alleged deity's alleged command to "his" people to kill everyone who is not them? That is not "man;s free will", that is alleged ot be the "command of god"
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Ken,
>I don't see how we are so far apart on this whole thing really. I just don't want to see people beleive what you espouse and then come back and blame the whole damn mess on God.
Timmy is blaming nothing on God. He is blaming ignorant and barbaric men, and those apologists who refuse to accept that their actions were unforgiveable. And, certainly in my opinion, anyone who blames anything on God is not taking responsibility for his actions, or (if he did not cause the mess himself) correctly assigning the blame to those people who were responsible.
Incidentally, what I, personally, espouse is that there is no God at all. I mentioned in my parent post that a perception of God as being outside science, with no evidence and perhaps even presence in this universe at all, can be accepted by scientists (though, obviously, just because a particular scientist accepts the possible existence of God that does not make God part of science). Including me, when I was younger -- though that may be because I had not yet had time to work through the logic of religion myself.
However, I no longer believe even that idea for a minute. That there is a God outside our perceived universe, but with no direct contact with ours at all, and no evidence at all pointing to his existence, is absurdly unlikely. Presented as a theory, it's appalling: most importantly, it is not falsifiable (the hallmark of any good scientific theory); there are not even any strong logical arguments for giving it credence (wanting something to exist does not make it likely that it actually does exist); it is unbelievably complicated and apparently completely unexplainable by any science -- and, like it or not, all human endeavor since man first knocked two stones together to make a tool has been based on science. In other words, it's completely useless.
David
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Is free will a purely Christian invention, not present in the Old Testament Jews' faith?
Is free will even mentioned in the Bible?
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Deeej wrote:
> Timmy is blaming nothing on God. He is blaming ignorant and barbaric men, and those apologists who refuse to accept that their actions were unforgiveable. And, certainly in my opinion, anyone who blames anything on God is not taking responsibility for his actions, or (if he did not cause the mess himself) correctly assigning the blame to those people who were responsible.
I am laying the blame firmly at the door of "false prophets" and people such as Moses who chose to invoke an alleged copmmand from his deity for atrocities commited by his people. Put simply, Moses lied. And he turned his deity into a trivial, vengeance taking, appalling creature.
Religion is a business. Ity is in the business of getting money for nothing - tithing - and employing huge numbers of people in priesthoods. Livelihoods are at stake here. Priests (pastors, preachers, elders, whatever you choose to call them) have to be paid (except I understand in the LDS church where it is an honorary position), buildings have to be maintained. Missionaries (yuck!) have to be sent abroad to convert still more into funding the business.
Convert 5 peopole who each convert 5 people, who each convert 5 people and you start to have pyramid selling on a grand scale
1
5
25
125
625
3125
----
3905
====
All those converted souls, all earning their little bit of heaven. And if each contributed even $5.00 per month, that is $19,525 to their parent organisation. This is money, bigtime.
Plus it is control, bigtime.
It has precisely nothing to do with a deity. Deities do not need cash. Nor do they need followers. Nor do they need people to gather together in sp-ecially sanctified places to perform rhythmic chanting.
It is an invention of human beings.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Just use logic
Given that there is a God
Further that God wants his people who He created to live a certain way in peace etc
Then if God is controlling everything in detail there would be no actions contrary to what God wants; therefore a perfect world.
Now it can be observed that the world is far from perfect as far as our actions are concerned.
Therefore it follows that there must be free will.
If there is no God at all then it is all a moot point and nothing can be proven.
For me to accept that last premise is for me to give up all hope. I would challange you to show me why that would not be a logical conclusion for me. (Not necessarily for you)
Ken
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Ken,
Those were actually quite specific questions -- I don't mean "Do Christians generally accept that they have free will?" because the answer is obviously yes. Before Christianity, was there such a thing as free will in religious terms? Was it ever explicitly stated "You can do as you like, including break the law, but be prepared for the consequences," or was it just the basic "Thou shalt do everything I say, or I shall smite thee down?" I'm guessing it was the latter, given the complete and utter intolerance for alternative ways of living such as gay relationships in the Old Testament.
Incidentally, Ken, if you think that God is the only thing that makes life worth living then I honestly think you are missing something. It is perfectly possible to marvel at the sheer glory of creation, the amazing tenacity of Life, to love one's fellow Man, to desire to procreate and leave a legacy for future descendants of the human race, to want to make something great of one's life, without requiring a God. If anything, our desire for a God stems from our appreciation of those things, not the other way round. If you can't see that, then I expect that I won't be able to demonstrate why you shouldn't give up hope, no.
David
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How is there able to be creation without a creator?
Ken
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Get a freaking grip!!!
The concept of "god" was created by men to justify the passing of time, changing of season, growing of crops....
The wrath of "god" was invented to justify a thunderstorm and if you were randomly struck by lightning then you MUST have been a bad person......
Religions sprang up when men realized that there was great profit in fraring this "god" and flourished as their donation base grew....
Plain and simple...... There is no god....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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We're back to pyramid selling again.
"If I can explain why Fred was struck by lightning, and can create a set of 'Holy Hogwash', I can get these fools to give me food, shelter, wealth etc, and I'll never go hungry again."
"If I help you and get a few more people in other villages to join us, can I get a cut of the take?"
"Hey, tell you what, let's crate a band of missionaries. They can all get a cut of the take!"
It's also a protection racket, onc membrship is large nough
"If you don't (pay me, do as I say, have sex with me, let me have sex with your husband/ wife/ son/ daughter) I'm going to kick you out of the club. And that means we can kill you and ot will not be a sin."
Now, since all that is, de facto, a sin, this means that all members of that club who condone that sin will be damned to burn in eternal torment.
It is an example of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BALLS
---------------------
Assume there were a deity.
How likely is it that this deity would allow this scenario?
And the answer is Not likely.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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How is the earth only ~6,700 years old when the evidence points to it being so much older?
Who or what created your creator?
Why is a creator necessary?
Why do so many people actually care?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Why should belief in a God / Gods / the divine / whatever always be taken as having a belief in some kind of creation, or creator, or assuming that the God-thing has any interest in any kind of formal "worship", or that the God-thing wants to impose some kind of set of artificial rules?
It is perfectly possible to see God-ness as an emergent property of the dynamic complex system called life. Insights obtained from religious (mystical) experiences may or may not be useful in helping an individual formulate rules for their *own* conduct, but should be subject to the same rational process as insights gained from all other sources (from reading philosophy to listening to music).
Almost every religion asserts that God is not only greater than we know, but greater than we *can* know, and I'd certainly agree with that. In this sense, we can only ever have a limited and necessarily erroneous view of God - the orthodox theology of most organised religions accepts this but asserts that their religion has a special exemption from this misperception by divine grace ... which is where the rot sets in, and the downwards spiral towards self-interest, financial gain, and personal power over followers sets in.
I'd agree wholeheartedly with every criticism of organised religion that timmy and others have made.
But this doesn't mean that that "there is no God", nor that personal religious / mystical experience is invalid ...
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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You seem to be totally sidetracked now, but I would not have expected a straight answer to any question that actually matters.
Let me tell a little story.
A tree falls over in the wood. Mad Bob comes along a few hours later, takes one look at the tree, and concludes that the pixies must have pushed it over.
I meet Bob later, and he explains his theory to me. "Don't be ridiculous. Pixies don't exist," I say.
Bob replies, however, with a smug smile, "In that case, who did push it over?", believing this clinches the argument. If the pixies didn't push the tree over, someone else must have done, right?
I say, "Nobody. There could be any number of perfectly natural reasons."
"Ah, but I believe that it was pushed over by the pixies, and I need you to prove there are NOT any pixies before I will believe that they did not push it over."
So here we have got into a hopeless argument, including a fictional construct -- pixies -- and Bob will never be convinced that the pixies did not push over the tree until I have established without doubt that they do not exist. And it is impossible to establish without doubt that a fictional construct does not exist somewhere, assuming a semi-infinite universe. I can't just look at the tree, conclude that it's rotten and that it was blown over in a storm, because now we have pixies to contend with, and they could have faked all that rotten wood to cover up their tracks!
It's like that with religion. So what if there is a force we do not understand (Mad Bob might not understand why storms happen, either)? It doesn't make it okay to invent another, far more ludicrous one, to explain it. Especially if you then project onto it thousands of years of ignorance, dogma and prejudice.
It's a small step concluding that there is a reason that everything started out, though it does not have to be a being: it could be a simple physical process we simply don't understand well enough yet. It's a giant leap, many times the diameter of the sun, to assume that we can project any characteristics onto it whatsoever.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Of course, there is nothing to prevent Bob believing in Pixies. The thing that is not good is Bob forcing Pixies on anyone else. Nor is it good if Bob forms the "Pixilators" and demands a tenth of the oncome form the aseembled p[opulace to support Bob and his family.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Arrgghhhh Income, not oncome.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Are you saying there are no pixies?
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I would never deny the existence of The Great Pixie. Enid Blyton be praised! She was The Great Pixie's One True Servant and Scribe.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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