Wouldn’t lightsabers be more appropriate?
If “shall” is used with 2nd or 3rd person, as it is in The Ryan’s example, it means “determination, promise, threat, or command”. So in this case, it means “you will eventually die”.
And my version of the Bible says, “the moment you eat from it, you are surely doomed to die”.
This is a little known fact, but God is a lousy driver. Based on my experience, anyway.
On the freeway this morning, a car bearing the personalized plate “GOD FST” cut sharply in front of me and roared away at an illegal rate of speed.
Just who does he think He is, anyway? Or is he copping an attitude because it’s Easter weekend?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Monocracy *
**
If thats true, than the god represented in your bible (what translation BTW?) is not only a prick, but a liar as well (or maybe he was just wrong?)
And, to put the speculation down–I am, and always have been male.
Sorry. Been away for a while.
That’s called “free will”. The abilty to choose. My translation of your question is that you’ve always wondered what kind of a God would make anything other than little mindless robots that would have no choice but to obey Him.
Well, that’s one of the things that I must admit is self-evident to me, that is not self-evident to others. That’s the whole ball game, you see. We are not meant to be little wind-up toys, but little gods that choose freely, one way or the other, to either love Him or love ourselves, that choose freely either Heaven or Hell. That is why the pain, and evil, and nastiness, and all the other stuff we can’t find a reason for here; we are not here to just have a good time, but to come into our birthright, and these are our birth pangs.
You know, one of the worst things that the literalists have done to Christianity in particular and religion in general is foster the belief that it is impossible to take the Bible, and scriptures in general, as anything other than literal truth or complete bushwah. We don’t apply this standard to literature in general. When we read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair we don’t ask if Jurgis Rudkis really lived, or if the novel lied about his hair color. The book is true and powerful as it stands, and it changed the laws in the United States about the way we handle our food and the labor laws of those who work with our food.
But we refuse to allow God the same privilege we allow Upton Sinclair: the ability to write in symbols, in myth, poetry, and metaphor. Don’t tell me that the fundies claim it is all literally true; I am talking about what I (and, perhaps, others) can read there, and take for truth. There can be false myth and true myth, false metaphor and true metaphor. Yes, I believe Genesis to be true, but not as a science or history text. I believe it to present the nature of sin, the choice I must make daily, as nakedly today as it has down through the ages. The problem with discussions like this one is that they dismiss the idiocy of looking at Genesis as science or history (properly, in my opinion) and subtly also dismiss the moral ground of using Genesis as a basis for our own choices, and our investigation of our own sinful natures. And that is a real loss.
And this is an example of what I mean; treating this as history masks the nature of sin. Anything that separates us from God is sin. Eating the fruit was sin indeed; the message here is not that disobedience is (or was) not sin, but that it is the base, the heart of all sin. We sin first by turning away from God; all the other rules are nothing but guilding the lily, modifications of this first and greatest sin. Jesus said the same thing differently in his summary of the law.
Yes, I believe the story is true as stated as myth, and also believe that God represents (more than represents, in a very important sense, is) perfect love. Nor have I ever had any problem reconciling those views. This is not history, but a representation of what happens in our hearts (or at least my heart; I need no other) every day, as I live my life. I experience the truth of Genesis in the daily hurlyburly of my existence, as I try to live according to His word. This is not history or science, but a moral and religious document, giving tools for us to grapple with the contents of our hearts, not our car engines or history books. In my opinion (and no one elses), we should treat the Bible accordingly.
**Alessan wrote:
Come on, Freyr, you know it doesn’t work that way. Religion is a zero-sum game. I’m betting on one horse, you’re betting on another; we can’t both win.**
Says who!? And who says this is a race?
Alessan, unfortunately, this a poor analogy for religion. Something better would be this; We’re all trying to reach the Top of the Mountain, for there is Enlightment. There are a variety of paths to choose to go up the Mountain. You choose the path that suits you best, because each path DOES reach the top. The path you’re walking was recommend by your parents (I presume) and fits you pretty well. I tried the one most associated with Christianity and didn’t like it, but I the one I’m walking now works really well for me.
Not all paths are equal and they ask different requirements of the individuals, but they do reach the Top, eventually.
Well, not according to Jewish or Christian beliefs, though. The idea there is that, basically, there’s one path up the mountain. You either climb it, or you stay at the bottom. The reason you’re “moving to France” argument wouldn’t work if you brought it to a Rabbi is because he’d prob. just tell you, “There’s only one G-d. So, there’s no way to get out of His authority…it’s not possible to “move out”. You’re free to do what He wants you too or not, but you can’t get out of that.”
I go away for one weekend and you guys bury the discussion in the usual confused muddle of “Each view is valid” vs. “Only one view is correct.” ad nauseum, not really talking about anything, IMHO. Mostly, it’s just semantic.
This discussion is (originally) an assessment of a particular claim in the bible from the perspective of biblical literalism, not bible-as-myth majoritarianism. dlb and others, you may feel that the bible is not literally true, and that it is a disservice to assume that it must be either infallible or nonsense, but literalists are influential and it is worth discrediting their view. Anyway, that’s what we’re trying to do. We know that most Christians don’t believe this version, but enough do to merit the discussion.
I will mention however that your statement that…
…seems to imply that myth=truth. What’s next? Obedience=freedom? Death=life?
Why does God want you to choose between Him and yourself/mankind? There’s no question why preachers would make this claim; it’s very effective. But why would God do this? This is what preachers call “mystery”, but which I call “You have reached a dead-end in the road map of nonsense. Please turn around.” If you turn around without examining why God would do this, you are a victim.
A very important sense? Yes, a very important sense called nonsense. It’s just a feeling, really, but you are using the words of normal discourse to lend it a air of fact. These are phrases you have heard and are simply repeating. I have heard them too, and I think I understand them the same way you do. They make perfect sense to me; these claims create a feeling, the sense of presence of God as loving and perfect. I too feel the tug of desire for loving authority. I admire its emotional power. Religious messages are powerful memetic spells.
The difference between us is, I see it as psychology with no real mystery, and you allow its magic spell to weave its web around your judgement, bind you, and own you.
ImNotMad:
(I hope the following quotes-within-quotes aren’t too badly messed up, but if they are just refer to the earlier post.)
Whoa, are you saying there is a difference between the dichotomies of right vs. wrong and good vs. evil? This would certainly make sense, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it. Then again, I’m no bible scholar. So Adam could be “wrong” without knowing anything about “evil”
Wow. What religion(s) have the view that Adam knew right from wrong before eating the fruit? If you ask me, splitting moral knowledge into two such dichotomies weakens the belief system. You either have moral knowledge or you don’t. I would like you to explain the difference between right/wrong and good/evil, other than one is religious terminology and one is secular.
And I hope everyone’s holiday(s) are/were/will be wonderful.
**Captain Amazing wrote:
Well, not according to Jewish or Christian beliefs, though. The idea there is that, basically, there’s one path up the mountain. You either climb it, or you stay at the bottom.**
I’d like to offer this to you; the god of the Torah is only one out of many. He has very specific rules for His worship, as shown thru out the Torah. All of the various rules are for making the Isrealites (and afterwards, the Christians) the people for follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who lead their children out of slavery in Egypt. It isn’t so much there’s only one God, but there’s only one god for the the tribes of Isreal to worship and still call themselves “The Tribes of Isreal.”
The reason behind the some 630 laws of the Torah is to create a unique culture that stands out from the many that inhabited what we know call Palestine some 3200 years ago.
The Torah implicitly acknowledges that the gods of the other people in the area were real, but the Isrealites were forbidden to worship them. To do so would defile the purity of the worship of the one God of Isreal.
Go ask a rabbi about that.
Freyr:
Pop quiz. What exists?
A. My God.
B. Your Gods.
C. Both A and B are correct.
D. None of the above.
Can you consider a fifth possible question, which is not covered by the four questions stated? I don’t think that’s possible.
I believe in A. You believe in C. We can’t both be correct.
The thing is, in your “mountain” analogy, you were talking about internal religion, which, indeed, has countless paths to happiness, morality and enlightenment. In this, you’re right - we can all be true believers.
But I’m talking about external religion - the supernatural nature of existance itself. In that, there may be many possible answers, but there’s only one real one.
Nonsense. It means nothing of the sort. The fact that I believe that a story can be true as myth implies the existence of the converse; that a story can also be false as myth. And so, in fact, I believe; that there is such a thing as false myth, myth that lies about God and the world. An example: the myth of Methestopheles, the erudite and oh-so-civilized devil, humorous and sophisticated, is in my opinion (I have no other) a false myth, and a dangerously false one. It leads to the feeling that evil is liberating, that turning to the Devil can make one urbane and sophisticated, that good is inherently not only more restricted (in the sense that there are things you should not do) but in some sense more limited than evil. And that is a lie, and a nasty one.
I can’t say for sure ---- only you can say why you drew this inference that seems to me ridiculous on its face — but it seems to me that the only reason for it can be the demands of the literalist in general. Myth must be false, as fiction is false. I reply that you need to see both as means of communication, and therefore must look to what is being communicated and judge that as true or false, not the bald statements. It really is possible to be a grown-up about this.
This is certainly not a mystery in the Catholic tradition, nor in any Protestant tradition with which I am familiar. There may be mysteries in those traditions, but this is not one of them. God wants you to make this choice because this is the reason He made you: to love and to be loved by Him. There is no other reason for your existence. Why would He do this? Because God is Love: the exchange of Love is what makes us most what we are, and gives Him the opportunity to love as only He can love. Why get married or buy a pet? Because it is good to love.
And now you are using words as spells, or rather counter-spells. People deal with love every day (and in the Christian understanding, it is not just a feeling). They base decisions upon it, get married, have children, buy pets, sacrifice, buy insurance, and finally die, all based on their love of God and other people. If you wish to deny that power, or rather, wish to escape that power, then you are welcome to do so; however, you are at odds with the vast majority of the human race. There is of course, the psychological deconstructionist approach:
And you try to use psychological jargon to break a spell to be “free”. I submit that your way is no less jargon laden or conditioned than mine. You are correct that the words that I use here are at least as conditioned as yours (you may regard them as more so if you wish), for there are none available to me in these arguments that do not have the baggage associated with them. The problem isn’t new you know, and has been noticed before. Emotion laden language can’t be avoided in religious discussions because religion is an emotional subject. We can note briefly that spiritual experience and emotional experience are two different things, and move on from there.
But none of this makes God a prick. It just means that the language we use to talk about Him is emotion laden, and emotions are used to condition people.
**Alessan wrote:
Freyr:
Pop quiz. What exists?
A. My God.
B. Your Gods.
C. Both A and B are correct.
D. None of the above.
Can you consider a fifth possible question, which is not covered by the four questions stated? I don’t think that’s possible.
I believe in A. You believe in C. We can’t both be correct.**
Why do you find it so impossible for more than one god to exist?
Part of the problem might be how we define the concept of “a god” Many people automatically add the omni qualities of omnipotence and omniscience (sorry about my spelling there).
There’s the problem right there, because I feel no being can have these qualities, and infact, giving them such qualities leads to logical contradictions; such as what the OP of this thread pointed out.
Of course, this isn’t to say that the Gods possess qualities that far in excess of what we mere mortals can conceive. Consider this, how powerful and knowledgable do humans appear to beings like kittens or lesser animals? Imagine trying to explain something like math or Shakespearean sonnets to a kitten (if the communication barrier could be surmounted). It’s the same way with humans and Gods.
Every pantheon gives the “omni” qualities to their Gods. I think if it like advertising; all auto manufacturers label their cars as the best around.
Not convinced? Okay, let’s turn the argument around then. What if only one God does exist; and that God is specificially the Judeo/Christian God.
If that’s the case, why isn’t the msg. He has revealed to the various peoples on this planet basically the same? Agreed, you’ll find some commonality, be nice to each other and don’t do nasty things. But the J/C/I god gave some pretty explicit instructions to the early Hebrew tribes. And again, thru the Archangel Gabriel, He gave some very explicit instructions to Mohammed. Why didn’t He do the same to the Hindus, the early Chinese or Japanese or even the Native Americans? Why is each msg. so different?
I just noticed we’ve moved onto a second page. Duh.
Freyr,
Are you saying it’s possible for both A and B to be true:
A. The Judeo-Christian God exists, is all-knowing, all-truth-telling(1), and claims to be the only god.
B. Other gods exist, such as Hindu gods.
( (1) Or are you saying He’s lying? )
If A and B are both true, then these different Gods must exist in different universes of reality. Then what if somebody’s God says “There are no other universes of reality”, or better yet, “Krishna is Satan”. Would this “all-perfect” statement be correct? Can’t different Gods prove each other false by making mutually irreconcilable claims?
dlb,
Oh, so Myth isn’t necessarily true. That’s reassuring. But at least you are indeed claiming that Myth can be = Truth
So, instead of the traditional two truth statuses, true and false, we now have four:
True As Myth
False As Myth
True, but not Myth
False, but not Myth
This should be interesting to logicians. Have you proposed a new Theological Calculus to construct metaphysical proofs with this? Perhaps Freyr and Allisan could use this. Maybe you can be the first “theologician”.
Ahem. Anyway, your remarks show a deep interest in blurring fantasy and reality. You suggest it’s more grown-up to see fiction (which is indeed false, btw) and myth as “true-in-a-sense” based on some kind of essential Truth of what you call “what is being communicated.”
What is being communicated is a claim. It is true or it is false. Giving it a status of “Myth” has no effect on whether it is true.
Isn’t it possible that you are part of a culture that plays word games with nonsense to force an impression of accuracy in your minds?
And it’s not that we positivist types don’t have the ability to see things in a sophisticated way, it’s that we know that no matter how vivid the characters in a novel, we know they don’t really exist. It’s just make-believe, and make-believe is wonderful, fulfilling, funny, tragic, endearing, playful and powerful. But it is not true.
dlb, there are only two truth-statuses; true and false.
And you begged the question of why God is obsessed with us loving him.
All of this says, “God is obsessed with us loving Him because that’s who he is: A God obsessed with us loving Him.” You are so used to repeating the nonsense so many different ways you no longer even notice when you haven’t responded to the question. So I will rephrase it:
Why is God pure love? That is, why does there exist this God of pure love, rather than some other God or nothing at all. What does creating beings to love him accomplish?
Come on; you have no idea, admit it. You’ve chosen to believe it but you have no idea why such a thing should be actually true.
Freyr, I’m confused. you said:
But you also said:
You give me a being whose thoughts are impossible for me to comprehend, and then you ask me to second-guess him? How would I know?
Freyr, just because I don’t understand something, that doesn’t make it impossible.
As for the rest - yes, I agree, your view of the universe may be correct and I wrote as much earlier on. Most likely we’re both wrong. Still, sooner or later we’ll both find out, right? If you’re right, I’ll buy you a flagon of mead in Valhalla; if I’m right, the wine’s on you in Heaven. Deal?
Besides, methinks you’re belittling my faith. I don’t think of God as the ruler of the universe; to me, God is the universe.
No, no, no. I am saying that there is more than one way to communicate than making a flat statement of fact, an elementary truth known to all English students. Truth is applied to what is communicated, not to how it is communicated.
Oh, nonsense. My remarks show a deep interest in reading what other people have written and understand it, as opposed to deliberately closing my eyes to what they are trying to put on the page. If I wanted to blur fantasy and reality, I would state (as you seem to want all Christians to) that Genesis is factually correct, that evolution is false, and that the world was made in seven days. That blurs fantasy and reality; it takes fantasy (myth) for factual (real) statements. Stating that fantasy can be used to communicate moral truth, and that the moral statements it communcates are true does the exact opposite; it separates the fantasy (myth) from the moral reality, and applies a truth value to the reality and not the fantasy. Conversely, if I wanted to blur fantasy and reality, I would state that Genesis is not factually correct, and it is thus useless, a harmless little fairy tale that is at its maximum value as a story for children. That blurs fantasy and reality.
Pardon me, but I cannot think of any other way to say this: if you cannot read books intended for grown-ups you should not try. You will extract no value whatsoever from the Bible, nor from the Quran, nor from any of the teaching stories of innumerable cultures, nor from anything other than a textbook, until you learn to read like a — I’m sorry, but I can think of no other word — mature person. This sounds insulting, but I can’t help it. Writers, great writers, poets and playwrights down through the ages, have discovered that they have things to say that cannot be stated in bald terms, as a logical statement of fact. They sculpt in metaphor, they use symbols, they create using the sounds of words, they suggest with connotations, the draw pictures with characters, they suggest with the actions of those characters. The things that they say with these tools can be true or false, grand or small, good or evil just as logical statements can be. Until you can learn to read such works, understand them, and apply your mind to the messages behind them, the Bible, Shakespeare, poetry, and a majority of the literature of most of the human race will be closed to you. And that is a damned shame.
Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t you see how silly this sounds? Isn’t it plainly evident that I am not a creationist? What kind of “impression of accuracy” do you think has been forced on my mind? With all the people, down through the ages, that have rejected creationism and that still see some form of value in Genesis, and that still call it true, don’t you think that there might be another way?
Actually, this is an idiotic statement; you should check out fuzzy logic systems sometime. You use the logic system that is useful. But taking this as correct (and in most cases I do; fuzzy logics are only useful in limited cases), you apply the truth status to what is communicated.
In other words, your knowledge of logic is insufficient. A statement in logic has a truth value only with respect to a given model (a real life situation) under a given interpretation (a mapping of the symbols in the statement to the objects in the model). I am saying that you were using the wrong interpretation and the wrong model; that the model must be a richer one (a moral one), and that the interpretation must be filtered through an intermediate understanding of the myths involved.
No, you haven’t noticed that your questions have devolved to tautologies, and that my answers simply pointed this out. “Why is God pure love?” devolves simply to “Why is God God?” (i.e., “why does God conform to your definition of God?”), which is a nonsensical question. A tautology is a poor question. What does creating other beings to love him accomplish? See previous answer: it creates other beings for him to love, and to love him. This is a direct implication from the definition, one place (one of the few) where there should be no mystery at all. If a being who is pure love has infinite power, what should he do? Why, create things to love that love him. Not a complex thing to understand.
I think what you are asking is “How do you know?”, and possibly “Why do you associate this ‘pure love’ with the creator of the Universe (assuming one exists)?”, both of which are quite different questions, not “Why is God pure love?” If either of these are your questions, by all means ask them.
There are lots of places where logic and Christian mystery are weaker than here; you are attacking the strong point, not the weak one. If you want some help, I’ll point you to some different places. 
Okay, once more with feeling… 
**Axel Wheeler wrote:
Are you saying it’s possible for both A and B to be true:
A. The Judeo-Christian God exists, is all-knowing, all-truth-telling(1), and claims to be the only god.
B. Other gods exist, such as Hindu gods. ( (1) Or are you saying He’s lying? )
If A and B are both true, then these different Gods must exist in different universes of reality. Then what if somebody’s God says “There are no other universes of reality”, or better yet, “Krishna is Satan”. Would this “all-perfect” statement be correct? Can’t different Gods
prove each other false by making mutually irreconcilable claims? **
I am saying that:
-
Multiple Gods exist. Yes, both the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God exists. So do the Norse Gods, the Hindu Gods, the Celtic Gods, etc, you get the idea.
-
However, all claims by Gods (or more likely, Their followers) of Their ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING abilities are so much hype.
Every pantheon makes the claim that their Head God is the ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING One. This is a logical contradiction; you can’t have several ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING Beings running around.
If you drop the ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING claims, then you do have several powerful, deeply knowledgable Beings who bestow Their favor on Their followers. Certainly they’re powerful and more knowledgable than humans can comprehend, but They’re not ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING. That’s why I was using the analogy of the kitten, comparing a kitten to humans to show how a being can be more powerful and knowing yet not ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING.
**Alessan wrote:
You give me a being whose thoughts are impossible for me to comprehend, and then you ask me to second-guess him? How would I know?**
What I was trying to show was that from a kitten’s point of view, humans must seem ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING. We can do things that are utterly incomprehensible to it. Yet, from the viewpoint of another human, we’re quite limited in our abilities. The same between us and the Gods. To us humans, the Gods seem ALL POWERFUL & ALL KNOWING, yet I’m pretty sure They’re not.
Besides, methinks you’re belittling my faith. I don’t think of God as the ruler of the universe; to me, God is the universe.
No, I’m not and I apologize if I’ve come across that way. I’m simply trying to demostrate the viewpoint of a polytheist and how some logical contradictions one finds in monotheism are explained in polytheism.
If you, however believe that God = The Universe, that’s fine. Have you read Rudolph Otto’s The Holy? I highly recommend it.
dlb,
I never said or thought you were a biblical literalist. Only that you believe that certain claims about God are indeed true, namely your own beliefs. The ones you have expressed are not literalist. They are still nonsense, because you only believe them (I think) because of their emotive power and use twisted logic to get out of demonstrating them.
If I ask “Why does a dog bark?” and you answer “That’s like asking ‘Why is a dog a dog?’” you are simply wrong about that. It isn’t like asking that at all. “Why does a dog bark?” is a real question with a real answer, undoubtedly a complex one.
So is the question “Why does this God of Love exist?”, “Why is He a God of Love?” or any of it’s other forms we have been discussing. It’s a very simple question, it demands an answer, which you do not know. That’s all I’m saying.
And yes there are many artistic forms of expression that allow us to say things that cannot be stated factually, because they are not facts; they are impressions. Dali’s Persistence of Memory evokes a powerful impression of the decay of our memory that cannot be simply stated. “Our memories are not so good” can be stated, but the impression in the painting cannot. It is not a claimed fact. Reason doesn’t apply. There is nothing to Dali’s message but an impression in his brain. That, and that alone, is the reason proof isn’t relevant.
Such is not the case with religious claims, or any other claims of any kind ever. They are statements of fact. Dali’s segmented crucifix of Jesus (I forget the title) is indeed an impression, but the statement “Jesus was crucified” is a claim, and therefor can be evaluated.
Writers, artists, composers and the like are only saying what’s on their minds.
Anyone who makes claims about the real world outside their minds invites critical evaluation of those claims using the simple truth values “true” and “false”. Everyone. Every claim. No exceptions. (Only religions and superstitions ask for exceptions, anyway. That’s the point!)
There is nothing mature about accepting your religion as true by applying standards normally and properly used only to assess artistic power and meaning. Quite the opposite.
And feel free to use references, but you are providing plenty of grist for my mill 
I want to know why you believe what you do, not why someone else does.
Freyr,
OK, so no reality silos. Too bad, really; it sounded interesting.
But I’ll keep picking on you: Are all these gods real because people believe them? Thus, our worship alters physical reality, and what is worshipped comes true. (I hope you’re not burying this in a reality-is-subjective dodge, because that’s boring and pointless: Nothing is provable, everything is true, we can’t prove we’re not dreaming, blah, blah, blah.)
Or are you saying that these Gods already existed, and people came to believe in them because they were real? Did they divide up the turf first, or what? And why do these Gods exist? Is it all unknowable? Or knowable “as myth” a la dlb?
Did the old pantheons (Sumerians, Greeks, Egyptians, ad nauseum) really exist? Do they still, or did they die, or perhaps shrink in proportion to their market share?
And why do you believe it’s true? In theorizing, do you arrive at internal consistency (“It could be true”, “It would make sense”, etc.) and conclude based on that?
Why doesn’t anybody just say “I don’t know” anymore?
That’s what secular humanism is all about: The acknowledgement and acceptance of ignorance in metaphysical matters, and the presumtion that any given human claim is nonsense. If we just evolved from pond scum, then we just might not have immediate access to the Nature of Reality ™. These questions are difficult. The hardest thing to do in an absence of data is to admit our ignorance.
So, do Gods exist, or just extreme gullibility? Which one does everyone already know exists? There’s your answer. To be human is to be gullible. The trick is to recognize it, and also that authority-based belief systems are based on it, and to resist their magnetic attraction.
Just how many gods are there supposed to be?