I truly marvel at and, in a twisted way admire, Curtis’s ability to OP imponderables in GD and draw in pages of responses from seemingly intelligent people. Obviously, I must include myself :o although I will say that I have learned it is a fools errand to engage him directly.
His style is basically to assert an assumption in the form of a question and then kick back and watch the responders debate among themselves, occasionally interjecting ‘what if?’, ‘could be’ and ‘what about?’ to keep things moving.
Hell isn’t someplace God sends you because he hates you. Hell is the state of being out of God’s grace, it is a place you put yourself because you turn your back to him. All you need to do is turn around and there he is. But hell becomes eternal because you simply can’t bring yourself to turn to him. At least thats the way I feel about it.
Why would you want to turn to god?
And why wouldn’t you?
Presuming for a moment that we aren’t insane, we all do things for reasons. This suggests to me that if a person is voluntarily looking away from God, there is a reason, and that they believe that that reason trumps the reasons to turn to God.
So. Unless looking at God is lame, or looking away from god is pleasant, everyone’s going to at least take a glance. (The reason we atheists get away with it on earth is because being an atheist is awesome. Also, we can find anywhere to look at.) So, assuming it’s not better to look away, why do you suppose people wouldn’t look?
OK, then you accept the theory of evolution as absolute truth, where does that leave you? Is this the bible you want, the word of your god? Does it offer eternal life? Does it give you unconditional Love in such amounts that you just want to thank and praise your god? Does your god offer to adopt you as His child?
If you are less then satisfied with your god, shop around, there are other options, there is so much more.
Evolution has nothing to do with any god, of course. It’s simply a process. I could just as easily have mentioned that gravity or the rules of poker or the existence of cheese is substantiated in some subset of the complete body of all literature - the point of the post was just to criticize you for offering the whole frikking bible when asked for a specific cite, after all. (Shows what I get for being subtle.)
As for the specific advertisements you make for your version of diety, I’m uninterested in the latter two, and have conditions about the first. Like, I don’t want eternal life if I’m going to be spending it in Hell, to speak somewhat on the topic of the thread.
He asked for God’s plan for salvation, it took God Himself the entire Bible to put that into words. If it takes God that many words, how am I suppose to do it in less?
Hell is death, not life, but life come with those other conditions. Why is it a deal breaker that God wants to adopt you?
Just thought I’d share the following from someone posting on the de-conversion blog:
There are many innocent people who suffer in this world and do not deserve it in any way. Those people will have greatest rewards in heaven. I totally understand if that seems like small consolation right now when people are in the midst of suffering. But Heaven is supposed to be something when can’t even come close to imagining and it will last forever. A perfect world. It will be the way Earth should have been if sin hadn’t entered into the equation.
But God has to allow these terrible things to play out until the end. Not because he enjoys us suffering, but because “we” are the “example world”, the fallen race, compared to the rest of the universe. God is showing the rest of the worlds out there what happens when someone other than God is in charge. Lucifer.
The main problem why Lucifer can’t do a good job, other than the fact that he is not a god, is his reasons behind rebelling against god. He was jealous of Jesus’ position next to God. He was the highest angel, but he became arrogant and greedy and wanted to be in Jesus’ place, becoming a part of the God-head/trinity, in essence become God. His envy and hatred reached point where he sowed the idea among the other angels that he could do a better job than God.
Now God knew what was going on and he could have wiped Lucifer from existence right then and there, but that would have terrified everyone else. It would have shown that anyone who speaks against God is immediately wiped from existence. Job spoke against God and God allowed it because he wanted Job to come to understand why God’s way was righteous. Not just tell him he had to think that way or else he would be wiped from existence.
This great struggle of good and evil in this world has to play out in order for the entire universe to understand WHY Lucifer’s objections to God are wrong. God wants his creations to understand and obey him out of love, not fear.
And another thing, you guys are arguing about how impossible it would be to create the world in 6 days and other extraordinary things. Hello, he’s God, he is not bound to the laws of physics. He created the laws of physics…
If you consider String Theory, they could exist right next to us and we would never even know it.
Yes, the “aliens” are learning what happens when you sin. It shows that no one but God, can be “God.” Any other way than God’s way only causes problems because God’s way is perfect and good. God’s way would be like “hey please don’t pollute the rivers because it has consequences down the road.”
But someone else’s way would be “but I have to pour my chemicals somewhere, so I’m going to have to disregard what you said.” God’s way is the only way because for example, there’s only one way to keep your body healthy. Eating healthy foods, exercising, clean air, etc. You cannot keep healthy any other way because that is what your body needs.
God’s not a “killjoy” with all his rules. They are needed. The rules are there to protect you and actually make you enjoy life. You can feel safe and happy when no one does horrible things to you. If there weren’t any rules or people didn’t follow them, everything would dissolve into chaos. The word “chaos” defines our world right now. Look around you at all the horrible things people do to each other every day and it’s a vicious cycle that never ends. No one is happy when someone does something mean to them. I am not talking about being “sugary sweet” to everyone, nothing so superficial, but to have compassion, mercy, and respect for everyone you meet, no matter who they are.
We have to be the “example” because we are the ones who sinned. God could have wiped Adam and Eve out of existence and started over with a new pair that wouldn’t have been so foolish. Frankly, that’s what I would have done if I had been God when that happened. But he didn’t. He was merciful enough to give them and all of their descendents a way to redeem themselves.
Satan and his angels were cast to earth, so they are aliens, so to speak, and yes, they’re right here watching us. The good angels are among us and watching all that we do as well. The good angels help us and are also writing down all that we do, good and bad, and report back to God with it. What they are writing down is what will be used as evidence in the final judgment for whether we lived a good or bad life.
This is God and the universe is an inconprehensively vast terrain. Do you really think humans and angels are the only races God has every created?
They are not allowed to interact with us because we are the fallen race. We’ve been placed in a “time-out” zone. Like when you send a bad child to the corner for “time-out”. Until our “time-out” or probation is over, and final judgment comes we will not come into contact with these alien races, but they are watching us very closely. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Satan was the very first sinner. This is a huge battle between good and evil and unfortunately earth is the battleground.
The good and bad angels are among us and we arn’t even capable of seeing or touching them–> explaination in string theory.
Apparently, this person worships in the Church of String Theory, wherever that may be, and claims Biblical evidence for all of the above.
It is logically impossible for God to be engaged in a war with evil. Evil cannot exist without God’s will. Satan cannot exist without Go’s will. God knew what Satan would do before he created him. All of Satan’s actions are therefore God’s will. In any alleged cosmic battle between good and evil, God is only playing chess with himself. He does not, and cannot have any enemies. It is logically impossible for Satan (or anybody else, for that matter) not to do God’s will. If it were not God’s will, it couldn’t be done.
Ah…another poster apparently so full of faith that he/she is blind to the methods employed by those who would believe in a God; despite the fact that direct human observation and science are silent on the matter, or one who doesn’t understand the word “Logic.”
The flaw in your argument, as I see it, is that you consistently imply—if not directly state at times----- that because Satan (et al) were created, and are allowed to exist and practice their craft, it isn’t simply evidence of God’s “will”, but his approval.
If this God exists, it’s all his, right? And…it must be true that everything that happens must be according to his will; for if he is omnipotent his refusal to act is his implicit endorsement of it.
Wrong.
He’s got a right to make it interesting, right? Theres nothing intellectually inconsistent with his intention to create beings with the capacity to defy him; to essentially choose for themselves whether to accept his offer/terms or reject them.
And whether “salvation” manifests itself as heaven, or ‘heaven on earth’ he appears wants to stock it with people who had the power to choose to want be there, and demonstrate that through their actions/behavior/choices.
The fact that he could have made people/creatures that wouldn’t defy him, or that he would have known up front who would/ who wouldn’t defy him, or that he could at any time put a stop to any/all of this, or even that his “offer” may seem coercive to some, doesn’t invalidate the possibility that he didn’t; that he chose to create beings with capacity to choose.
You might see that as capricious or even unfair, but there is nothing inconsistent with it. In other words, objections to the possibility that he set this whole experiment up (of which we are players in) isn’t based on the prospect that he couldn’t, but rather we don’t like it.
People of all stripes----------parents, managers, politicians, soldiers, etc etc-----may allow a set of circumstances to continue despite it being distasteful or objectionable because of a larger, compelling reason. Their ‘tolerance’ for it cannot automatically be construed as an endorsement.
Wrong. Being omnipotent and omniscient means that everything that happens in the universe created by such a being, the being knew and intended beforehand. There is no “choice” in such a case; Satan’s choice was planned beforehand by definition, as were the choices of everyone else.
Erm, hold on a minute. I reject God because I think he doesn’t exist and even if I did think he existed he/she/it doesn’t appear to be working in our favor.
How does that equate to me “choosing hell”?!
And if your answer is something like “hell is the end of existence” then please explain why we need a new word for “being dead”, and why it only turns up in the new testament (you know, the nice and forgiving part of the bible).
You know, it seems to me that, while religion is often about who is going to hell, mostly faith is about how can I be as God wishes me to be.
I am not religious. I have faith that God wants me to love everyone, and that He also loves them. I don’t think Hell, as it is generally believed exists.
All that death, and burning, and destruction is simply the ordinary nature of the world. Heaven is about being lifted above it, by the Love in your heart, and in God’s heart. Both are prerequisites of eternal salvation. He will do His part. You must choose. And even in Heaven there will be some sadness. We shall mourn, with great love, those who would not be saved.
What’s logically inconsistent about it is not the omnipotence, but the omnibenevolence – or to be more precise, the combination of omnibenevolence, omnipotence and omniscience. He can do all this stuff, of course, but he can’t do it and still be good. All evil is unnecessary, therefore there can be no reason consistent with omnibenovelence to create it and sustain it. Anything accomplished by allowing sufferening can be effortlessly accomplished without allowing suffering, therefore all allowed suffering is capricious, therefore an omnimax God cannot exist.
The Bible contains no otherworldly place of eternal suffering and torment. All of the words frequently translated as “Hell” in both the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament refer to other things, usually just death or the grave.