Agnostics and athiests do that (although I wouldn’t call it “love”…I have no idea what you mean by that), and we don’t attribute it to “god.” We attribute it to understanding the difference between right and wrong and taking the high road. There’s nothing supernatural or metaphysical about it.
Did I say “my interpretation”? I was stating that I merely followed other people’s interpretations (the Apostles).
And yes, I know debating the existance of God over the internet is entirely fruitless. I’m not going to lose any sleep over that.
I’m sorry if someone’s trying to make you attribute something to “God”. That person should mind his or her own business.
Me, I know that some things are right, and some things are wrong, and I think I can usually tell which is which, but I couldn’t tell you the physical difference between them.
I think maybe I should not post to these threads. I don’t really know anything about philosophy, so maybe I’m in over my head. Forget I said anything.
I don’t think you should pull out of a conversation (particularly around HERE!) because of your limited knowledge base. I’m not a professional on these matters either! The whole idea is to broaden your understanding. In my opinion, it’s impossible for anyone to have the answers, so all approaches are pretty much fair game.
But it is **your ** interpretation of some ancient writings. Not everyone who reads those writings interprets it the same way you do. I’m sure you know that.
No. Actually, with modalities, negation of necessity is merely possibility. Thus, it means that it is possible that all who seek find.
Interestingly, science has not yet succeeded in defining life, let alone death. It is therefore necessary to speak of life and death in metaphysical terms. My understanding of the teachings of Jesus is that there is no death of the spirit upon death of the flesh. He draws a dichotomy between the two, stating that spirit is born of spirit and flesh is born of flesh. He draws this dichotomy when He is explaining to a religious authority, Nicodemus, what He means by being born again. He says that a man seeking the Kingdom of God must be born of water (the physical birth when a woman’s water breaks) and of spirit (the spiritual birth when a person’s heart opens up). Therefore, we cannot know empirically what men might have encountered during the process of physical death because the spiritual part of the process is not open to scientific investigation. (Science investigates nature, but not super-nature.) Jesus teaches that all men will see God, some sooner some later, but that those who come later are at no disadvantage to those who come sooner. “The first shall be last, and the last first.” — Jesus. He teaches that neither He nor His Father judge anyone; rather, that we all judge our own selves by His standard. That is to say that we, upon seeing God, will decide for ourselves whether we accept or reject Him. He is what He is, and we are free moral agents.
Sort of, I suppose, but only in the broadest sense. He is the firstborn of God’s children, but He is not the only one. We all are God, and that is what He teaches. I take great care not to ascribe to Him by default what people who claim to represent Him say. After all, He Himself said that many would invoke His name, but would be people whom He does not even recognize.
I can give you a definite NO on that one. I believe that God despises religion, and that religion is the enemy of goodness. Religion is a discipline not unlike business and government, filled to the brim with political men who seek nothing more than to control the lives of others for the sake of their own gain. Religion is law. Jesus teaches that His incarnation has fulfilled that law, thus rendering religion irrelevant.
I really cannot speak on His behalf in this matter, but I do know that without mystery there cannot be faith, what with free moral agency and all that. That said, it is not necessarily the case — or, it is possibly the case — that God is indeed speaking to us from birth, but we are not hearing. You and I, for example, could be talking past one another during this whole discussion, me not hearing you, and you not hearing me. It could also be the case that my posts are God speaking to you, and yours are God speaking to me. There is a story you might have heard about a man who decides to wait out a hurricane to demonstrate his faith. He tells all those who come to rescue him that God will save him. He waives away a police car, a firetruck, and a helicopter. “God will save me,” he declares to each good Samaritan who pauses to give him their time. Presently, a storm surge overtakes him and he drowns. Upon seeing God in Heaven, he is angry. “Why did you not save me?” he protests, “You made a fool out of me. I told everyone that my rescuer would be You.” God shrugs and says, “Well, I sent you a police car, a fire truck, and a helicopter. What more did you want?” Philosophically speaking, God is a logical tautology (necessary existence existing actually), and everything proves a tautology. (Contrast its opposite, the contradiction. A contradiction proves everything.) Jesus teaches that all of creation testifies to the glory of God, and that of course includes helicopters and message boards.
You’re welcome. I will give you all my time if you want. Nothing is more interesting or more important to me than this.
Liberal,
I have read your last post but have not had time to think about it. I will be away from the computer for a day or so but will get back to you then.
Thanks
Can you point me towards any interpretation of the New Testament other than “Jesus is the Son of God”?
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Well, I am unfamiliar with modalities, but unless you are asserting that all who seek do in fact find my point still obtains. Is it your assertion that everyone who has ever lived found God eventually, even if it was just before death? Do you know this for a fact?
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I read this cite and am a little confused. It said nothing about not being able to define death. And anyway, we are talking about human beings here. Absent a precise definition of life cannot we still agree that some humans are in fact alive and that others are dead? I am alive. Abraham Lincoln is dead. Do I really need to defend those statements?
This is a rather interesting idea. I cannot imagine anyone, even the most ardent atheist, actually rejecting God after a face to face encounter. I certainly would not. It does seem to give me license to behave any old way I want to, knowing that when I die I get to disavow my wanton life and embrace God. Am I misunderstanding?
Now I am confused. This seems to refute the premise of the OP. I was assuming that some people knew God while others did not, but if we are all God then we all must know. Is the same God who created the universe the God that I am?
This gets at the crux of it for me. Why is faith a requirement? If he would just show himself all would believe.
I just don’t get it, I really don’t. Why would God create some humans who can hear him and others who cannot?
Thanks again. You’ve given me some things to think about.
Don’t forget the dichotomy between spirit and flesh. One is essential and the other trivial. It may well be a man’s flesh that stands between him and Himself as God. All that death of the body means is that a man can now see clearly — in a spiritual sense, the essential sense. The intellect (which is flesh) is not only unnecessary but can be an obstacle. This is not to say that you have searched with your intellect, but your intellect may be hindering your search. Even now (and understandably so) you are offering an intellectual summary and defense of your spiritual journey. I’ve tried “A”, expecting “B”, but “B” did not happen. That is the nature of a scientific experiment, of empirical research. The wonderful thing about death is that the intellect is completely stripped from a man. He is no longer a dual creature. His spirit discerns perfectly. If he has never found God while his flesh had him bounded, then he will certainly see God when he is free from it. It is in fact the first thing he will see. Jesus never teaches that God has given man a, um, deadline. 
Only if you intend to make a logical point about cellular decay. The problem, of course, is that death of the flesh is irrelevant in matters of spirit. Spirit is essence. Jesus teaches that God is spirit, and to comprehend Him, a man must seek Him out in spirit and in truth. Abraham Lincoln’s body might be dead, but his essence remains alive. “If a man relies on what I say, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” — Jesus.
You’d be surprised how many people value evil as an aesthetic above all else. Remember, seeing God is not seeing your judge. Jesus teaches that the Father does not judge, but has given all power to judge to the Son, and that the Son, in turn, has waived His own power to judge. What men see when they see God is a standard that they have either loved or hated their whole lives. It has nothing to do with behavior, since (remember the dichotomy) behavior is a manifestation of the brain. It has to do with moral intent. There are many reasons that a man might behave in a manner that society calls “bad”, and yet within his essence always be yearning for justice and goodness. Therefore, it is not a matter of your wanton life, but of your want in life. Jesus puts it this way: God is the Light. Some men will love the light and will run toward it. Others will despise the light and will run away. There are men who exist who despise goodness simply because it is good. Their want in life has always been power and wealth at the expense of other people. When they see God, they will see something that they abhor — humility, kindness, charity. Jesus teaches that God gives to man exactly what it is that he asks for. He rewards the good and the evil alike. A man may elect to spend his eternity separated from God, and if that is what he wishes, then that is his reward. But for those of us who love God and who value goodness above all else, the man who would disavow Him is myopic and unfortunate beyond measure.
Yes, it is. When Jesus teaches that man is created in the image of God, He does not mean that God has two eyes, two ears, and a mouth. He means that man has God’s spirit. He dwells within each of us, which is why our bodies are temples. Jesus teaches that He is one with His father, and that we are one with Him. This is the nature of God’s sacrifice — He has distributed to us as free moral agents “pieces” of His own self to do with as we please. He has done this because the reward greatly outweighs the risk. If even one man will love — that is, if even one man will share His evaluation of goodness as the greatest aesthetic — then that will mean that goodness is multiplied. There are now more than one free moral agents (He and the man) who value goodness and love, thereby facilitating goodness. Love, in the spiritual sense, in fact, may be defined as the facilitation of goodness. Jesus teaches that if a man will surrender his intellect, his flesh, completely, then he will do even greater things than Jesus did as the Christ. Oneness with God is not a competition wherein one will win and one will lose; it is a gift of charity wherein one will cherish and one will squander.
If only that were the case. It certainly was not for me. In retrospect, I can see many instances in my life where God revealed Himself to me, but at those times I saw past Him. Consider the skeptic to whom God reveals Himself by various means: (1) a booming voice in the sky — a nondirectional amplification from some unknown radio source; (2) making water into wine and walking on the sea — cheap parlor tricks done by magicians everywhere; (3) demonstrations of love and charity — mere acts of men motivated by altruism and weakness. And so on. Men see exactly what they’re looking for. Everything in your life that you believe, whether it be a scientific fact or an analytic truism, is at its root a matter of faith. The scientific method bases its validity upon the principle of falsification, and yet falsification is itself not falsifiable. Logic bases its rules upon premises that it cannot then invoke to validate its rules lest it make a circle of reason. (Circulus in demonstrando is a logical fallacy.) In the end, we do not choose what we believe. If we did, you could this instant proclaim your faith in God, and I could this instant renounce my own. But you can no more declare your faith than I can renounce mine. To declare yours would be to deny your own experience, and likewise, to renounce my faith would be to deny what I know to be true. We are subjective beings, with subjective points of view, each of us living a life unknowable and separate from the other. And that is the nature of the chronosynclasiticinfundibulum — the space-time cone — that no two people can experience the exact same thing in the exact same way at the exact same time. Thus, we all have unique frames of reference. Only God the Father, Who is unbounded by space and time, enjoys an objective reference frame, as will we all when we have shed our flesh. Consider a creature that lives in two dimensions only, knowing width and depth but not height, seeing either the inside or the outside of a square on a flat piece of paper, but never both at once because he cannot see “over” the line. If he is inside the square, he can see only its inner walls. If he is outside the square, he can see only its outer walls. But you and I are creatures unbounded by two solitary dimensions. You and I can see both what is inside the square and outside the square at once. By the same token, consider a creature who is unbounded by three dimensions. You and I can see only the inside of a cube if we are inside it, and only the outside of a cube if we are outside it. We cannot see both the inside and the outside, but a four-dimensional creature can. He can see both the inside and the outside of the cube at once. He sees our three-dimensional bodies the same way. The insides and the outsides are all visible to him. Now consider a reference frame that is perfectly objective, unbounded by any spatial dimension and eternal, unbounded by time. This creature is God, and sees all of existence at once, everything inside, everything outside, everything any-side, and because He is eternal, He sees all that transpires all at once. What began, what is ongoing, what is final — all of these, from His perspective, happen at once. It does not matter what size the universe is or how long it has existed. From God’s point of view, it is all simultaneously not yet started, ongoing, and completed. That is why Jesus teaches that the first shall be last and the last first. There is no difference between the man who believes his whole life and the man who does not believe until he dies and sees God face to face. From God’s perspective, both men believed at the same “time”. Your frustration with your moral journey stems from your perception that it is taking so long and your perception that others are arriving before you. But that perception is an illusion born of space-time constraints that are themselves illusions of reality. It is spirit that is real. Matter and energy are not. The universe, in the end, is nothing more than a probability distribution.
He does not create some who can and some who can’t. After all, they all are pieces of Him. As I said at the beginning, you never know what’s around the corner. In one instant I denied Him; a moment later, I loved Him. Keep seeking. Let your intellect die, and your heart surge. Open yourself not to knowledge, but to love. Do not look for facts and figures. Do not seek the living among the dead. Look instead for goodness. Let goodness be what you treasure, just as God treasures goodness. Your heart will take you there. “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” — Jesus
So if I have this right, the argument is that if you haven’t heard “the call of the Divine” yet, you either: a) don’t want to hear it, b) aren’t looking hard enough, or c) just haven’t gotten to the right moment yet?
If you don’t like faith, but still want to think about religion, check out gnosticism.
Only (c).