Please excuse my walls of text bro....
Chozon1 wrote:Firstly, you're semi right in much of what you've said. I really is impossible to grasp God because He's infinite. In the words of Ohno, "He's not God if He fits in your head". Paul said something much to the same effect "We see as through a glass darkly". Paraphrase. I didn't create the concept of God in my mind because creating a concept of ultimate infinity is impossible. It's hard to grasp because humans are limited in their "sight" of God. That, in part, is why Jesus came. Jesus was the full expression of God's nature. The infinite in a finite body. It's hard to grasp, not because it's impossible, but because we're dealing with something no human mind can comprehend.
The human mind cannot comprehend it, but it's not impossible to comprehend? It might not be impossible in general, but we both seem to be agreeing that it's impossible for us specifically as humans, and that's the important detail I'm trying to get at.
Could God have made it differently? Yes. Absolutely. Why didn't He? I don't really know. I am not God. God is the ultimate authority, ever. He's the sovereign King of all creation. And since He's an infinite King (having all power and authority) questioning Him doesn't make sense because we can't see from His eyes. A science student would question a professor because he doesn't understand what the professor is doing. Which is OK in this case, because God cannot be wrong.
If questioning God doesn't make sense, you're saying that it's pointless, not OK. I think blindly accepting/following something is intellectually weak. You may not know the answer to a question, but that doesn't make the problems a question raises any less important. I don't think ignoring those questions because God can't be wrong and going along with aspect X of a religion even though you may feel it doesn't make sense or is wrong makes much sense.
But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here, because since we can't fully grasp God, the nature of God and what he says/wants is uncertain as well, so it's not a simply yes or no issue of accepting the ultimate authority of the universe and what that entails or not; hence the great quantity of religions and religious denominations in the world.
I was referring to both Adam and Eve, and also us. There is a 100% chance that you've done something wrong in your life. Me too, it's not an exclusive "you're a non christian" thing. Adam and Eve fell and tainted the human race, but when you or I lie, cheat, steal, or whatever, we break God's law ourselves and nullify any "It's wrong to blame me for what they did" questions. Ever told a lie? I have. So for me, it doesn't matter whether Adam disobeyed God, because I did.
The kind of God that would go ludicrously out of His way and bend over backwards to make sure everyone had the chance to come to Him is the kind of God that would let us choose life or choose death. Nothing is left to chance because, if God is the controller and author of history, chance cannot exist. Why do people go to hell? I'm not God, and so not a judge. But my best guess? Because we do wrong, and it's the consequences of our actions. If I choose to drink lighter fluid and die, it's no ones fault but my own. It isn't the manufacturers fault, it isn't Wal-Mart's. I'm the one that picked up the bottle and slurped it down. Adam and Eve tainted this planet like I said earlier, but that's immaterial in the end because we ourselves break God's law in our own lives. Everyone has, there are no sinless people. And God gave us a conscience, so that even if His messengers failed, people would still know what was wrong.
I have done things that are wrong, but I still am not responsible for tainting the human race, and I could argue that the reason I've ever done something wrong in the first place is because I've been tainted originally by Adam and Eve. That's why I say I won't apologize for my imperfection. It's not an imperfect things fault that it's imperfect, that's like blaming a square for having six sides and saying that to be good it must conform to the dimensions of a circle. God painted us this way, and then blames us for being the wrong color. That's madness. The standard we're held to should not be perfection, because we're imperfect.
I've talked about this to Arctic, and he said there indeed is no way for us imperfect humans to win, which is why God gave us Jesus to provide a way to salvation. A forgiveness of that imperfection in exchange for following Him. That sounds nice, but using Jesus as a lopehole around the problem of imperfection, and the perfection we'd be expected to achieve, isn't a perfect solution. Because while that gateway to heaven is there despite our shortcomings, whether or not we get to that gateway in the first place is dependent on our imperfect selves (including our shortcomings) and circumstance. The solution that is Jesus doesn't do anything but move the exact same problem eslewhere, and declare it solved.
And really, why would God create something that compensates the problem he created instead of just righting the original issue? Was this really his plan, to create some imperfect people in an imperfect world and then tell them they gotta do X or face fire?
"The kind of God that would go ludicrously out of His way and bend over backwards to make sure everyone had the chance to come to Him is the kind of God that would let us choose life or choose death. Nothing is left to chance because, if God is the controller and author of history, chance cannot exist." I find this statement really ironic, because you say that he shouldn't make sure everyone has the chance, but then say that nothing is left to chance. It's even more ironic for Christians in general, because they frequently say that it's all up to you, you are in complete control 100% of your choice to choose X or Y, life or death, and then face the consequences you know were coming, but then say that it's not up to God to make sure you understand and have a clear choice. We're not perfect, and therefore no person has a complete grasp and awareness of some kind of ultimate dilemma, certainly non christians don't if they don't even believe the Christian God EXISTS. I find the whole Christian attitude towards freewill obnoxious for this reason, because it ignores the reality of how uncertain, doubtful, flawed, limited, and
short human experience is. Life isn't black and white, it isn't simple, we don't all experience it the same, we aren't all born equal, and free will certainly isn't absolute, because forces in the universe influence to some extent, if not completely deterministically, shape our very thought, minds, actions, and who we are, whether because of our brain chemistry or culture etc.
There are no sinless people, but if that's the case, then why should some sinners get an eternal award, which is essentially an infinite award, and others get an eternal, infinite punishment? Why is an absolute judgement being passed on something that occured for a limited time in imperfect cirvumstances? It's not proportional. You may not know why people go to hell, you may not be the judge, but that's a poor excuse to ignore an aspect of your God that has absolute ramifications for your neighbors, youself, and the morality of God. No one should have to go to hell, that's sick. Only in a world where we had absolute understanding, freewill, and were perfect would an absolute judgement be appropriate. Or maybe that wouldn't even work, because what am I? What defines me, what made me what I am? What are we but the sum of physical interactions in the universe, our biology, chemistry, and the world acting upon the computer that is our brain and consciousness? Does free will even exist at all, because I didn't make that computer and hardware I run on and I didn't make the physical world that molds that computer and hardware. Withouth those things I'd be nothing.
God did not leave it up to people. He Himself told an entire nation what was right, what was wrong, and how to follow Him. The chose to do wrong, make it an exclusive club, and not tell others. I'm not certain if you've read the Bible or not, but you'll see that even then, God didn't leave it up to just that one nation. He sent people to other nations to share the truth with them. He equipped those people with miracles, so that those nations could experience it first hand. Jesus came healing people, changing water into wine, and controlling the elements. He did let others outside of that nation experience it first hand. God didn't wind us up and point us towards a cliff.
yeah a whole nation, as in the founder of one small people out of several who lived in Palestine. Why was the left of the world left our for thousands of years? I don't know if you've read a history book, because I don't think the Romans or Chinese were very familiar with Jehovah. Why do Gods, in every religion, always only reveal themselves and the truth to a handful of people throughout history, and then leave those people to convince everyone else? Why have a middle man and leave the truth up to the happenstance of whether I believe prophet X, or the book prophet X left behind instead of just coming to me directly when I'm in the cradle to dispell all the confusion? God wound us us, let us run around for ten of thousands of years, and then told a few people what was up, hoping they would be able to convince others in the storm of confusion that is human life and experience.
And for the record, as it turned out a majority of the world has never been convinced of any religion exactly because diety X leaving the truth to this one dude Xthousand years ago is going to leave a lot of room for doubt. Doubt that may lead me to become an atheist, or thing that perhaps the dude from that other religion who left behind a book thousands of years ago was actually right. That's an epic communication fail in my book.
It's not like free speech with a dominating president. It's more like choosing to use crystal meth/cut yourself, or not. Something obviously harmful and wrong, vs something that's just a different point of view. It's a free choice of choosing the right way or the wrong way, not choose whatever way you want. It's a fairly simple choice if you think about it. Right way=life. Wrong way=death. God created us and is the infinite King. It's His right to choose what is right and wrong.
Personally, I believe that for something to be considered wrong it has to cause something negative, cause harm. If what God says is moral just because he’s God, then His law is arbitrary. He’s an absolute monarch who sets the rules according to His whims. Even if I accept that what God says is moral, “just because He’s God”. even though I find parts of it immoral, it’s still contradictory to tell someone you’re giving them a freedom and then to punish them brutally for exercising that freedom in a way you doesn’t approve of. That’s not freedom of choice. If I hold a gun to your head and say do X, or I’m going to kill you, few people would call the choice you subsequently make a free one; a choice that expressed what you really feel and not your desire to avoid harm.
And actually I don’t think either of our analogies fit’s the issue here, because religion isn’t a matter of choice, it’s a matter of belief. That’s a point so many religious people seem to miss when criticizing nonbelievers for bafflingly choosing to go against the most absolute and all encompassing truth in the universe in favor of clear self-imperilment. It’s not a clear dilemma between life and death, because for that choice to exist someone must first believe, they must first know, that the choice exists. It’s a matter of being convinced. And who wouldn’t choose life? How many people do you know who believe in the Christian God, but aren’t Christian? It’s practically unheard of. To make a choice, one first has to be aware that the choice exists. Hence other religions and sects, which are made up of people who think they’ve actually found the truth. Jews, Muslims, and Christians so often frame the whole issue inappropriately like I explained above, and the people who aren’t part of their faiths find it terribly obnoxious.
God didn’t provide people with a clear choice to follow Him or not; if He had there would be no doubt, no plurality or religions, no faith necessary, simply the undeniably truth, recognized by every human as incontrovertible fact, as clear as the mathematical reality of 1 + 1 = 2. Instead, He leaves people to wander the earth, falling into the pits of hell if they never manage to solve the greatest philosophical question man has ever known.
The kind of God that would go ludicrously out of His way and bend over backwards to make sure everyone had the chance to come to Him is the kind of God that would let us choose life or choose death.
You said above that it was a fairly simple choice between doing what is right and doing what is wrong. The God who makes sure everyone has the chance to come to him is a rational and benevolent one. If people don’t have an equal chance as others, that’s unfair and therefore unjust and arbitrary. If some people don’t have a chance, that means they failed at no fault of their own. An example would be someone who lived their whole life honestly believing Islam to be truth.
Nothing is left to chance because, if God is the controller and author of history, chance cannot exist.
If nothing is left to chance, then how can free will exist? How is one’s religious belief not the culmination of forces out of their control?
Why do people go to hell? I'm not God, and so not a judge. But my best guess? Because we do wrong, and it's the consequences of our actions. If I choose to drink lighter fluid and die, it's no ones fault but my own. It isn't the manufacturers fault, it isn't Wal-Mart's. I'm the one that picked up the bottle and slurped it down.
Ah, but why do we do wrong in the first place? This is why I’ve been arguing complete free will doesn’t exist. You picked up that bottle, but have outside forces not ceaselessly influenced and molded you from your birth up until that moment? Is who your are, your mind, your brain, your conscious and subconscious not the product of those outside influences and how your biology and chemistry has responded to those things? Nature and nurture. Maybe there is some free will in the universe, I can’t rule it out for sure when there is so much about the existence and consciousness humans don’t and probably will never know, but there is no way free will is absolute.
Adam and Eve tainted this planet like I said earlier, but that's immaterial in the end because we ourselves break God's law in our own lives. Everyone has, there are no sinless people. And God gave us a conscience, so that even if His messengers failed, people would still know what was wrong.
If it weren’t for that original sin, people might have turned out to be sinless. That’s the whole significance of the concept of original sin, we’re the way we are today because of that past event.
And people don’t come out of the womb with some kind of universal conscious that come preprogrammed to tell you “X is the real God, and here’s a black and white list of Do’s and Do Not’s.” There’s moral ambiguity and self doubt in life. A feeling one has isn’t necessarily a fact reflected in the world. Views of right and wrong can differ.
My take as to what the point of existence it? What is the point of any story (The good ones, I mean. Not the meaningless entertainment)? To teach us. Not God, but us. God wanted us to know how much He loved us, and words cannot describe that. So He set about showing us. "A picture is worth a thousand words, but an action is worth them all".
And God is in absolute control, we aren't just rats inside of a maze some mad scientist put together to watch us run. There's a point.
Yeah, I really feel the love behind the action of making me imperfect, putting me in an imperfect world full of suffering and existential problems, and then sending me to eternal damnation if I happen to not uncover the truth and follow it correctly for my short time on earth. Dude, if God is in absolute control, where is the free will!?!? Why is so much of our human experience different than the person standing next to us and dependent on environmental and physiological factors?
In light of your question about there being another way, there was. God created us as perfect, in a perfect world, with no sickness, death, war, or disease. We broke that. Rather, Adam and Eve did. And we're paying for their mistake. It's not an overdue payment on our fathers sins, it's us having to deal with a gigantic radioactive spill our fathers caused. Also, there is another way, after the other way. God doesn't cause us to war with each other, that's our choice. If we asked God to send fire from heaven on each person who decided to start a war, we would have no choice but to life in terror, wondering if our neighbor would report each falsehood or sommat to God, and get us zapped. He loves the murderers just as much as He loves the saints.
It’s making us pay indirectly, because even though we’re not blamed for the spill we’re blamed for how we behave under the influence of said spill. A world simply with slightly less suffering would already be a better one. It’s one thing if God wanted there to be some trials in the world, but things like genocide? What horrors would it take on earth to shake your faith in God? He loves the murderer more than the saint, by leaving the saint at the mercy of the murderer.
the road analogy was just that. I figured you would see that the way we drive was designed in a set way. Also, you (not just you, remember that. It's important.) are the guy who drives on the wrong side of the road. Hatred, lust and lies pour from the human heart, making Adam's choice immaterial.
Why should humans be blamed for the evil that comes out of their hearts, if they did not make their hearts? We just carry out what’s inherently in us. If Adam’s choice is what opened the Pandora’s box of things like lust and hatred, then it really is his fault for causing my modern day heart to spill forth such things. And for the record, I would argued that hatred and lust etc. pour forth from our biological history.
I quoted that because it's absolutely brilliant. God's justice (the only justice) requires that some form of reimbursement be paid in order to be forgiven. God knew that no human would ever be able to pay that price, so He paid it Himself. Why? Out of love. Only love.
What’s so profound about an eye for an eye? Instead of cutting out our eyes, which would be insufficient, He mutilated Himself?
Forgive:
1. to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve.
2. to give up all claim on account of; remit (a debt, obligation, etc.).
3. to grant pardon to (a person).
4. to cease to feel resentment against: to forgive one's enemies.
5. to cancel an indebtedness or liability of: to forgive the interest owed on a loan.
As you can see, the whole meaning of the word, the whole point of forgiving, is that you’re giving up ill feelings towards another without necessarily being paid what is due to you. The act of forgiving someone who owes you money as you bring them to small claims court is dishonest and contradictory. And how can God pay any price? Wouldn’t the act of giving something up entail being less than infinity powerful? Was dying and coming back to life again three days later really a sacrifice? The significance of giving up a life is that you don’t get it back….
God made the perfect world, and gave it to us as a gift. We broke it (both Adam and Eve, and us every time we sin) and made it the way it is today. So, though God actually created it, we made the world the way it is. It's also clear from that that we cannot make our own world. This planet is rife with evil. You said so earlier. But we can't have it both ways. You can have a God who is a dictator, throwing lightning bolts at whoever disagrees with Him, or you can have a God that made us perfect, but much like parents and children, tried to raise us right, but we rebelled and did what we wanted, breaking the great house He gave us.
For some of the reasons I’ve already touched on, I think that’s a false dilemma. And btw, once again, if we were PERFECT, then how could we have done wrong!?
But it's the only thing that makes any logical sense (to me and my sense of logic)