religion and faith (also long)

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
it was heretical to assert that the inability of God to do the impossible was a limitation on his omnipotence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Say no more about your puny god. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
One obvious area where I believe God's hands tied relates to people's choices: God appears to normally allow us to make choices, including a choice to despise and reject him. If he allows that choice it is not clear to me how he is supposed to magically intervene and generate a loving eternal relationship. Your suggestion of do-overs until you choose right does not sound like choice to me!

[/ QUOTE ]

As I said... one strike and you are out, or condemned to this miserable existence until you get it.. both megalomaniac, but of different degrees.

[pilliwinks]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But there is no fudge: either you accept that God is responsible (and trust that he has your interests at heart), or you deny that he is God.

[/ QUOTE ]

God's actions imply the second course is wiser.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry you think so. I take it you are unmoved by the ceaseless efforts of God to get us on the right track.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I guess I wasn't trying to put forward a convincing argument for God's benevolence to those who don't believe in him. I was trying to explain to those who do believe in him, that bad things are not inconsistent with a loving God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then it has no value at all for someone trying to determine whether to believe in an omni3 God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite so. Unless they are only prevented from doing so by a belief that an omni3 God cannot allow suffering. That would be a new one to me! Plenty of people claim a bunch of things prevent them from believing but my experience suggests that pride is the main barrier (was for me!).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hell clearly can lead to something positive, in the same way that all threats of dire consequences can - people make different choices if they know what the outcomes will be.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you that the point of hell is to scare people into submission. I don't think that's a good thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't say the point of hell is to intimidate, since it can only scare those who already believe, and so are at no risk of it (I agree that this was not always appreciated by the church, but the bible is pretty clear onthe topic). The point was just that there can be good outcomes from undesirable suffering.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In that sense it is not a punishment or threat, it is an inevitable consequence.

[/ QUOTE ]

This idea is absurd. God makes the rules - nothing is "inevitable" except when He chooses for it to be. And God is capable by definition of offering redemption even in the afterlife, or simply destroying souls destined for hell rather than allowing them to be tortured eternally. Moreover, as God created our souls and the universe, and all the rules thereof, He is the sole architect of hell.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I mentioned to MidGe, there are limitations to God's omnipotence. Nonetheless, I think it is a fair question why God does not redeem everyone. Plenty of Christians think he does. There are passages that support this interpretation of the resurrection (once for all, and reference to Adam's fall being universal, and Jesus' death being the reverse). Nonetheless, my personal opinion is that this is not what was meant. There is plenty of emphasis on the importance of choice, and the results of that choice. I can't tell you why the results of bad choices has to be so bad, but nor can I tell you why we should be entitled to such disproportionate rewards for good choices.

[ QUOTE ]
Finally, as God is omnibenevolent, He can value nothing above suffering. Even if hell were somehow "just" (and that's not an idea I'd give any credit to except for the sake of argument), God would still stop it - because if He is truly omnibenevolent He must value compassion and mercy above justice. If He values justice above compassion, He's not omnibenevolent. His benevolence plays second fiddle to His sense of "justice."

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think God is omnibenevolent in the sense of being nice even if it has horrible outcomes. Clearly, mercy and justice are in tension. There are so many cases where God does not bring about the consequences that he has warned people about, that I don't accept that benevolence plays second fiddle to justice. Both are priorities, though.

[ QUOTE ]
Also in many cases God created extreme suffering in innocent people in order to secure an advantage for His "chosen" people. That's like telling your son he's going to be brutally dismembered, but that's okay because his brother is going to get all his stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. I'd say the crucifixion was extreme suffering of the innocent, for the sake of the chosen. And God did indeed tell his son that he was to be brutally dismembered and his stuff given to his brothers. It is hard to believe that such an action was justified, but I do believe it, and thank God for it.

[ QUOTE ]
Numbers 31:17-18 - "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
Some "medicine."

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed. Note that God was not partial, though: in chapter 25 you read "So Moses said to Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor"". The corruption of the Israelites led to drastic action first on them, then in chapter 31 on those doing the corrupting. I have no idea what the results of inaction would have been, but God had promised to look after his people, and letting them merge with the locals would probably not have been doing them favours, judging by subsequent such mergers!

Having said that, I don't claim to be able to justify the action. I do claim that it is consistent with the nature of a loving God to kill people. And that we are not always going to know why it had to happen, though in some cases like Jesus, we are told.

[pilliwinks]

[ QUOTE ]
Say no more about your puny god. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol. Roger that. No more references to impotent omnipotence.

[ QUOTE ]
As I said... one strike and you are out, or condemned to this miserable existence until you get it.. both megalomaniac, but of different degrees.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I think you can be 'out', but I think you get as many swings as you like, and have to want to be out. I don't think it happens by accident!

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry you think so. I take it you are unmoved by the ceaseless efforts of God to get us on the right track.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see no such efforts. If I assume the Bible is true, then the greatest of God's "efforts" was torturing His own son to death. That's not exactly persuasive to me. We don't even get miracles any more, and don't give me the "every sunset is a miracle" [censored], you know what I mean. Some of the apostles demanded hard evidence before they believed, and yet those in the modern world who have similar reservations are on the fast track to the Devil's playground.

[ QUOTE ]
Quite so. Unless they are only prevented from doing so by a belief that an omni3 God cannot allow suffering. That would be a new one to me! Plenty of people claim a bunch of things prevent them from believing but my experience suggests that pride is the main barrier (was for me!).

[/ QUOTE ]

If self-respect counts as "pride," then I agree with you.

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't say the point of hell is to intimidate, since it can only scare those who already believe, and so are at no risk of it (I agree that this was not always appreciated by the church, but the bible is pretty clear onthe topic). The point was just that there can be good outcomes from undesirable suffering.

[/ QUOTE ]

If hell only affects those who believe and are therefore immune from it, what good outcomes does it have? In any case, there are no good outcomes for those who are subjected to the suffering.

[ QUOTE ]
As I mentioned to MidGe, there are limitations to God's omnipotence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are these limitations arbitrary? Is what God can and can't do limited to what's convenient for your arguments? Did He create us or not? Did He create the universe or not?

[ QUOTE ]
Nonetheless, my personal opinion is that this is not what was meant. There is plenty of emphasis on the importance of choice, and the results of that choice. I can't tell you why the results of bad choices has to be so bad, but nor can I tell you why we should be entitled to such disproportionate rewards for good choices.

[/ QUOTE ]

This seems like a bad joke. If God created us, how are our choices independent from Him? But it's more than that. People don't make mistakes because they're horrible and evil, more often because they're confused and desperate. Even those who are cruel and sadistic would look, from God's perspective, like schoolyard bullies. And most "evildoers" would simply be children who took a cookie from the jar when they thought Dad wasn't looking. And the nonbelievers are merely stubborn. For this they receive eternal damnation!

You can't explain why it "has to" be so bad? That's all you can say? That's not good enough for me. To me this is unimaginably horrible. If the Christian God were a God of balance, with equal parts cruelty and compassion, heaven might mitigate it (although God would be far from even-handed even then). But for an omnibenevolent God the existence of heaven is irrelevant to the problem. Heaven is to be expected from a compassionate creator, "disproportionate rewards" only make sense. But disproportionate punishments, from a being that is meant to be the embodiment of compassion? That doesn't make any sense at all.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think God is omnibenevolent in the sense of being nice even if it has horrible outcomes.

[/ QUOTE ]

God controls the outcomes.

[ QUOTE ]
Clearly, mercy and justice are in tension.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps, but even in these cases I fail to see how an infinite punishment for a finite crime can ever be considered "just" in the first place.

[ QUOTE ]
There are so many cases where God does not bring about the consequences that he has warned people about, that I don't accept that benevolence plays second fiddle to justice.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't follow you. God threatens a punishment He has no intention of inflicting. To me that's not an indication of mercy, that's simply a lie. God is omniscient; when He makes the warning He knows full well that He won't follow through on it. Perhaps the lie has a higher purpose, but I don't see how it indicates mercy.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes. I'd say the crucifixion was extreme suffering of the innocent, for the sake of the chosen. And God did indeed tell his son that he was to be brutally dismembered and his stuff given to his brothers. It is hard to believe that such an action was justified, but I do believe it, and thank God for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not analogous. Jesus made the choice to do this, and He has the reward of heaven. However, I agree with you that the entire situation is hard to justify. How, by brutally torturing His favored Son, did God help anyone? That's a real stretch. Redemption through brutality? Makes no sense.

[ QUOTE ]
Indeed. Note that God was not partial, though: in chapter 25 you read "So Moses said to Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor"".

[/ QUOTE ]

And their children and wives as well? And give their daughters into slavery?

[ QUOTE ]
The corruption of the Israelites led to drastic action first on them, then in chapter 31 on those doing the corrupting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, those babies were full of corruption.

[ QUOTE ]
I have no idea what the results of inaction would have been, but God had promised to look after his people, and letting them merge with the locals would probably not have been doing them favours, judging by subsequent such mergers!

[/ QUOTE ]

A weak justification for mass infanticide and child slavery.

[ QUOTE ]
And that we are not always going to know why it had to happen, though in some cases like Jesus, we are told.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah yes. Though God appears to be a horrible tyrant, I'm supposed to bow down and worship Him under the assumption that really He's a nice guy. Why is that, again?

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I think you can be 'out', but I think you get as many swings as you like, and have to want to be out. I don't think it happens by accident!

[/ QUOTE ]

So you believe in reincarnation? I don't understand how this idea is compatible with what you're saying. Also, you'd have to be pretty incompetent to miss the ball on each of 1 quadrillion swings. Are you trying to suggest that hell is a conscious choice? If God gave me a scrap of paper with two checkboxes on it, one marked "Paradise" and one marked "Eternal Damnation," I would check the "Eternal Damnation" box?

[pilliwinks]

No, I don't believe in reincarnation, but I think you have plenty of opportunities to reconsider your decisions in the one life you do have.

Yes, I think hell is a conscious choice. Plenty of people would take Faust's deal. Even without the bonuses on offer, people prefer being boss now, and not worry about later.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]

Well, I think you can be 'out', but I think you get as many swings as you like, and have to want to be out. I don't think it happens by accident!

[/ QUOTE ]

But life is limited, I may not be able to get the number of swings I need to get out. I haven't to-date... lol

I was talking about benevolence.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, I think hell is a conscious choice. Plenty of people would take Faust's deal. Even without the bonuses on offer, people prefer being boss now, and not worry about later.

[/ QUOTE ]
I assume you wouldn't take the pact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't and I suspect Midge wouldn't. Many would.

Does that make us better than them? presumably they see the world differenty to us and it makes sense for them to take the pact in the same way it makes sense for us to reject it. That's our nature and our nature is a gift from god if you will excuse the expression [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

A benevolent god will not punish us for eternity for acting during a short life according to our god given nature, even if we are mistaken.

chez

[pilliwinks]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I take it you are unmoved by the ceaseless efforts of God to get us on the right track.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see no such efforts. If I assume the Bible is true, then the greatest of God's "efforts" was torturing His own son to death. That's not exactly persuasive to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I recommend you reread! All the prophets and apostles spent their lives trying to get the message across, under God's direction. Countless times God sends the message: "all you need to do is trust me". Then he sends Jesus, and plenty of miracles later, folk still won't accept the message. I can understand why the death of Jesus is unpursuasive (Paul agrees with you!) - it is the resurrection of Jesus that is pursuasive. It is the ultimate demonstration that all you need to do is trust God.

[ QUOTE ]
We don't even get miracles any more... Some of the apostles demanded hard evidence before they believed, and yet those in the modern world who have similar reservations are on the fast track to the Devil's playground.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the question is: what evidence would you accept? Plenty of folk saw miracles and did nothing. I think God is aware of their limitations!

We are not omniscient, so we can expect some of the things God does to look strange (he sees outcomes we don't). Consequently, we need to be able to trust him. That is the bottom line. Miracles are helpful for some, but many would put their hand in Jesus side and still not trust him. God clearly understands the difficulties of those who have limited evidence of his faithfulness (John 20:29), but at the same time, today we have unprecendented levels of access to the testimony of those who have personally experienced God. So it is hard to make excueses.

[ QUOTE ]
Plenty of people claim a bunch of things prevent them from believing but my experience suggests that pride is the main barrier (was for me!).

[/ QUOTE ]

If self-respect counts as "pride," then I agree with you.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think have no shortage of self-respect. The question is, how much respect for others do you have? And how much for God? If you come first every time, I think it's clear where the problem lies.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't say the point of hell is to intimidate, since it can only scare those who already believe, and so are at no risk of it (I agree that this was not always appreciated by the church, but the bible is pretty clear onthe topic). The point was just that there can be good outcomes from undesirable suffering.

[/ QUOTE ]

If hell only affects those who believe and are therefore immune from it, what good outcomes does it have? In any case, there are no good outcomes for those who are subjected to the suffering.

[/ QUOTE ]

The good outcome is that it motivates believers to get off their self-satisfied butts and pass on the good news. I didn't mean hell only affects believers, I meant it is not scary to unbelievers, for the fairly obvious reason that they don't believe in it! I agree that there is no good outcome for those affected. At the risk of sounding trite, I could say there is no good outcome from smoking, either, except that you serve as a warning to others.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As I mentioned to MidGe, there are limitations to God's omnipotence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are these limitations arbitrary? Is what God can and can't do limited to what's convenient for your arguments? Did He create us or not? Did He create the universe or not?

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair questions, to which I don't have answers, I'm afraid. I am not sure what the limitations are to God's omnipotence, except to say that he cannot make 1+1=3, and that he cannot deny his own nature, and a few other unhelpful logical statements. What I can say is that I understand that there are such things as competing goods, and that being omnipotent does not obviously take that away. You may want everyone to be both free and safe, for example, but I don't know how you'd do it (assuming they are real people and you leave them choices).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Nonetheless, my personal opinion is that this is not what was meant. There is plenty of emphasis on the importance of choice, and the results of that choice. I can't tell you why the results of bad choices has to be so bad, but nor can I tell you why we should be entitled to such disproportionate rewards for good choices.

[/ QUOTE ]

This seems like a bad joke. If God created us, how are our choices independent from Him?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, there are some christians who feel that they aren't and that he decided long ago who would choose wisely and who foolishly. Personally I think that is a misreading - God has certainly known forever who would choose foolishly, but the bible is clear that God gives us a choice for which we are responsible. You can claim that there are many (all?) whose choice is constrained by their experience, but the point is that God knows your experience, and your response to it. And he does the judging, not us.

[ QUOTE ]
But it's more than that. People don't make mistakes because they're horrible and evil, more often because they're confused and desperate. Even those who are cruel and sadistic would look, from God's perspective, like schoolyard bullies. And most "evildoers" would simply be children who took a cookie from the jar when they thought Dad wasn't looking. And the nonbelievers are merely stubborn. For this they receive eternal damnation!

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that many of the behaviours we condemn probably look minor from God's perspective. I certainly hope so. God does not condemn sinners, evildoers, bullies, the desperate or confused, or even the horrible. Neither does he find them eternally acceptable in their current state. So he tries to save them by every possible means. In my humble opinion, the axe murderer has as much of God's sympathy as I do, probably more (read the parable of the lost sheep again!).

[ QUOTE ]
You can't explain why it "has to" be so bad? That's all you can say? That's not good enough for me. To me this is unimaginably horrible. If the Christian God were a God of balance, with equal parts cruelty and compassion, heaven might mitigate it (although God would be far from even-handed even then). But for an omnibenevolent God the existence of heaven is irrelevant to the problem. Heaven is to be expected from a compassionate creator, "disproportionate rewards" only make sense. But disproportionate punishments, from a being that is meant to be the embodiment of compassion? That doesn't make any sense at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

These are fine points, and well made, but they are made from a position of (unavoidable) ignorance. We simply do not know what the constraints of eternity are. It may be that hellfire is just a poetic way of describing an eternity of selfishness and isolation, or it may be that hell is just a boogie man to motivate the weak and that God would never actually do it, or it may be that it is eternal agony, made inevitable by direct exposure to God (think of the Total Perspective Vortex in the Hitchhikers Guide), or any number of other alternatives. It would be nice if God had explained why there is undesired punishment for the wicked, but I think his main audience at the time were shocked that the punishment should be undesired, and were repulsed by the notion that God actually wants to save everybody! Plenty of people today have trouble with a God who lets in a repentant <insert victimised minority here>.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't think God is omnibenevolent in the sense of being nice even if it has horrible outcomes.

[/ QUOTE ]

God controls the outcomes.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. God knows the outcomes, but lets us choose.

[ QUOTE ]
Clearly, mercy and justice are in tension.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps, but even in these cases I fail to see how an infinite punishment for a finite crime can ever be considered "just" in the first place.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps that's like asking why you should be punished for the rest of your life for the puny sin of not brushing your teeth. The rot and pain are not punishments per se, they are consequences. It is not 'fair' or 'unfair'.

[ QUOTE ]
There are so many cases where God does not bring about the consequences that he has warned people about, that I don't accept that benevolence plays second fiddle to justice.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't follow you. God threatens a punishment He has no intention of inflicting. To me that's not an indication of mercy, that's simply a lie. God is omniscient; when He makes the warning He knows full well that He won't follow through on it. Perhaps the lie has a higher purpose, but I don't see how it indicates mercy.

[/ QUOTE ]

God makes the threat knowing that people have the choice to respond or not. He knows when he makes the threat that they will respond well. So he makes the threat. Seems logical to me. It is not a lie - they had a choice, and if they had made a poor one, from the evidence of the Bible, he would certainly have done the smiting.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes. I'd say the crucifixion was extreme suffering of the innocent, for the sake of the chosen. And God did indeed tell his son that he was to be brutally dismembered and his stuff given to his brothers. It is hard to believe that such an action was justified, but I do believe it, and thank God for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not analogous. Jesus made the choice to do this, and He has the reward of heaven. However, I agree with you that the entire situation is hard to justify. How, by brutally torturing His favored Son, did God help anyone? That's a real stretch. Redemption through brutality? Makes no sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite so. The redemption does not come from the brutality (which was the choice of some angry locals). The redemption is a free gift from God. It comes with the resurrection, which is why we celebrate Easter, and only commemorate Good Friday. His death helps plenty of people, for loads of reasons, but primarily because it shows them that Jesus was who he said, that he did what he said, and that they can trust what he said. It appears that trust is hard to come by, as the prophets all attested!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Indeed. Note that God was not partial, though: in chapter 25 you read "So Moses said to Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor"".

[/ QUOTE ]

And their children and wives as well? And give their daughters into slavery?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, actually, on several occasions! As I said, I am no OT scholar, but I think you could argue that God was far harder on the Israelites than anyone else around.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The corruption of the Israelites led to drastic action first on them, then in chapter 31 on those doing the corrupting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, those babies were full of corruption.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't you wish baby Hitler had been smitten? He sees the outcomes. We don't.

[ QUOTE ]
A weak justification for mass infanticide and child slavery.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure I'm wrong about the justification - I was just trying to point out that you and I cannot tell what is justified and what is not, because we, unlike him, are not omni3.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And that we are not always going to know why it had to happen, though in some cases like Jesus, we are told.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah yes. Though God appears to be a horrible tyrant, I'm supposed to bow down and worship Him under the assumption that really He's a nice guy. Why is that, again?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because he loves us. The bloke giving you a compulsory vaccination looks like a tyrant, but isn't. The dentist with a drill looks like a tyrant too. Every time we don't understand why we have to suffer, we are ready to blame someone, usually the perpetrator. There is such a thing as tough love, and it is much better than the squishy girly kind you see on TV.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I recommend you reread! All the prophets and apostles spent their lives trying to get the message across, under God's direction. Countless times God sends the message: "all you need to do is trust me". Then he sends Jesus, and plenty of miracles later, folk still won't accept the message.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's all irrelevent when it comes to believing in god. Only if you belive in god would you believe any of it is true.

All you've got is men repeatedly invoking some god concept to propogate their religon, and we already believed in religon.

chez