A question for the believers....

[Kassiana]

this is why I say that it only makes sense that Jesus wouldn't be in heaven but would insist on going to hell to comfort the damned.

FYI, Karen, the Chinese Goddess Kuan Yin is said to have done so, and transformed most of Chinese Hell into heaven. The God of Chinese Hell had to free her from it so he could keep a little of his kingdom, and the legend has it that the part she transformed remains to this day because he's afraid she'll come back!

Now that's a Goddess I can understand. No need to believe in her first, no need to call on her, just goes there and changes hell into heaven for all people whether they recognize her for it or not.

 

[stingray61]

Don't worry Karen you're not making me angry I see what you're saying but I see a flaw there.

"But the notion that one must spend eternity away from God because they disagree with God (for whatever reason) tells me that God abandons his children. God is therefore presented as a harsh, neglectful parent to his children who perhaps need him (her?) most. Such a God is passive-aggressive and selfish and unwilling to accept the complexities of the world which he himself created, the complexities of life that human parents have to deal with every day."



God never abandons us, we abandon God. The Bible says this several times.

I know we will be judged on more than just what we've done or didn't do. God will look at everything, even the complexities of the world, and how living here has affected us, and make the decision. As humans and not gods we can never really understand exactly what it is that God will see in us to determine where we go.

I'm sorry but that's about as far as I can personally go in trying to explain things. All I can do is recommend that you read the Bible, and pray. Alot. Talk to several different pastors, preachers, etc.. until you get the answer you seek, and make the decision you feel most comfortable about.

 

[stingray61]

Concerning God's potential Moral Status:

I think we're making a skewed version of the God-as-a-parent analogy. We're saying that...

A) Parents love their children, look out for them, and in their knowing what's best, dictate rules for the children to live by.
B) God loves his children, looks out for them, and in His knowing what's best, dictates rules for the children to live by.

...and then we're saying...

A') Parents, upon being confronted with a disobedient child, will love them still and nurture a correction or at least resolution of the problem--not cast them out.


But we also see many parents that basically abandon the disobedient child forever.


B') God, upon being confronted with a disobedient child, will love them still and will cast them out and not nurture correction or resolution.

As far as I know God does try to correct our disobedience by sending the Bible and His son to us.

...and then we conclude things like...

c1) Humans must be morally superior to God.
c2) God is unworthy of worship.
c3) Belief in such a God can't be healthy.

Here's a few problems with the conventional parent analogy (obviously, all of these work within the thought experiment presuming God's existence):

1) Not all parents are in favor of accepting the reckless, dangerous, or immoral into the fold. You'll find that there are cultures that favor a sort of familial excommunication when a child (that comes of age) chooses actions that aren't in congress with the family. This isn't a new thing. It may be a practice that has become less popular, but at the least we can say that some people act just like our analgous-God with regard to errant children. Which leads us to...
2) People are very dissimilar to God with regards to morality. I think we don't accept the parent/God analogy firmly enough, only referring to it loosely. For instance, if we accept that we are to God what children are to parents, then we are accepting that we are as blind, lost, unlearned, morally infantile, and intellectually light as children with regards to God. A child finds his parent to be obscene and grotesque in their seemingly arbitrary decision to deny the child a toy at the mall, he rants and fumes and pouts--believing himself equal to the parent with regards to toy decisions. The parent must be mean. They must obviously want to hurt him and be horrible to him. The child doesn't understand bills and budgets and $200 toys not being the sort of things that gets bought on a whim.


If the child has a "normal outlook" on life then eventually they will come to understand why their own parents did what they did, and accept it (if the parents were decent and not abusive) especially if they have children of their own.


If we are the children, in the analogy, and children that never grow to be "parents" (as we will never become God), then we must accept that Godly-decisions are as beyond our understanding as the parent's toy-choice was to the child and His decisions are categorically better than our own ill-informed and selfish ones.

Children do grow to be parents, however Godly decision are still beyond us.


3) If we hold that God is the arbiter of right and wrong (which is easy, common, hardly new), then in no possible way is our "understanding" of ethics superior. If God creates the universe and establishes that murder is wrong, punishable by torment in Hell... then that outcome is not up to moral second-guessing by murderers who say "well, then God's a bastard because I'm just murdering and if He's going to send me to Hell because of it then I'm not giving him worship". Similarly, if God establishes that lack of belief in God, in the heart of man, and divorce from the Holy Spirit (best way I can describe what God requires of people) is wrong, and similarly punished, then resentment of that doesn't make the resenter "morally superior". It makes them preferential to some other outcome. Preference is hardly ethics.

Murder, and sin in general, isn't up to second guessing, moral or otherwise. We second guess because we think we know it all, and we think God is mean. In truth we know very little and God isn't mean.

 

[stingray61]

Well said Karen.

I loathed the movie Passion of The Christ or whatever the hell it was called. It concentrated on Christ's death and not on his life.

It concentrated on Christs death because Mel Gibson wanted to show us what Christ went through for us. That's my opinon anyway and I might be wrong but I can't ask Mel.

If they wanted to make a movie about him, it should have been The Sermon on The Mound. That's where the important stuff is.

The most influential book I ever read on religion was The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. A collection of letters from a senior devil to a nephew tempting his first human.


Did you know that one of the parade ground drills in Hell is turning into an angel of light?


Where did that information come from?

And that all the deadly sins work many ways other than the stereotypes we think of?

One of the major problems with organised religion is that it often causes people to fall to the deadly sins. So many become prideful of their belief or become wrathful towards others not of their 'faith', or become avaricious of the power God apparently grants his believers.

That's my biggest beef with organised religion, many people who believe think that by believing it becomes impossible to do evil. And that of course, is exactly the moment you fall.

I agree with the last two paragraphs. We are still humans and suseptible to sin, saved or not, and anyone that thinks otherwise is in my book fooling themselves. Christ chastized even the so called religious leaders for being prideful and disowning those that they felt weren't worthy.

 

[stingray61]

FYI, Karen, the Chinese Goddess Kuan Yin is said to have done so, and transformed most of Chinese Hell into heaven. The God of Chinese Hell had to free her from it so he could keep a little of his kingdom, and the legend has it that the part she transformed remains to this day because he's afraid she'll come back!

Now that's a Goddess I can understand. No need to believe in her first, no need to call on her, just goes there and changes hell into heaven for all people whether they recognize her for it or not.

Do the Chinese still believe that there are several levels of hell and each person goes to one level or the other based on their "sins"?

 

[stingray61]

Sting: Personally I wouldn't tell my child, either believe in me and do as I say or I'm gonna never come near you again and on top of that I'm gonna toss you into what amounts to a lava flow forever.
--Then you're far better than the God portrayed in the Bible. That's exactly what he's going to do to anyone who doesn't call him Jesus.


Well, Thanks for the compliment but I have to say that I'm only human and i have no idea how God will judge us and by that I mean based on what exactly. I know we will be judged based on our belief but I don't know about everything else we will be judged on.

Sting: That would tell me that you do not in fact believe in the one true God
--I believe in many true Gods, whether you agree with me or not.


LOL ok.

Sting: you do not in fact believe in ... The Bible as being The Word of God
--Amen! The Bible is not the word of any God! That should be obvious IMO. It's the words of flawed, frail, vengeful men who got God incredibly wrong.

Sting: you don't believe in God the way The Bible tells us too.
--That doesn't mean I don't believe in any Gods at all, though. You were, far as I could tell, accusing me of being an atheist. I'm not.

No I wasn't accusing you of being an atheist though I can see how you might think that. I meant exactly what I said, you don't believe in God the way the Bible tells us too. That's not to say you don't believe in a god or gods.

Sting: Women should marry their rapists?
--Yep. Since you believe the OT is also the word of your God (Jesus) then you have to believe at one time he believed it was okay to do the following to a woman who was raped: Deuteronomy 22:28-29 If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.


Yeah that's a tough one. All I can say is those laws no longer apply because Jesus died on the cross. I'll speak to my pastor and a few tohers and get back to you on that.


Excuse it away all you'd like, but the fact remains that even if "Jesus" later repudiated this cruelty, he helped perpetuate it from the beginning.

Sting: Can you please show me where it is you got your information on what the "gods" want from you?
--Divine revelation.


So your god or gods came to you somehow and told you all this?
If so then I can't refute it. I can however say that according to the Bible I believe in you weren't visited by gods you were visited by satan and he is misleading you.

Sting: The Bible doesn't agree with you
--Good. Far as I'm concerned, there's no better way of showing I'm right.


LOL if a person comes to you and says they don't agree with you does that automatically show that you are right? You could be lying or you could in fact be wrong. Here is a bad example but it makes the point. If you get into a car accident and you say someone rammed your car but others don't believe you does that make you right? Only if you aren't lying.
I suppose what I should have said is that in this case your beliefs don't agree with the Bible.

Sting: You have a choice to believe or not.
--Okay. Believe in Allah for five minutes. Hey, you have a choice! You can go back to believing in Jesus afterward. But believe in Allah for those full five minutes as a sold-out Muslim would. I dare you.

I can't because I already made a choice to believe in the God of the Bible. To believe in another god, if Allah is in fact a different god, then I would have to dis-believe in the God of the Bible even if only for five minutes and that is something I refuse to do. satan even believes in God, that doesn't mean satan likes him. It also doesn't mean I will always like or agree with what God says or commands but that in turn doesn't mean I won't follow His commands.

Sting: I have a really hard time understanding why it's so hard for people to believe in God and follow His word.
--Me too, the only word the Gods have given us: this earth itself. The Bible is clearly not the word of a God.

I'm not trying to make you switch to my side or anything like that. As a Christian I have an obligation to myself and to Christ to show you what the Bible says, the rest is up to you and Christ.

 

[KarenAM]

1) Not all parents are in favor of accepting the reckless, dangerous, or immoral into the fold. You'll find that there are cultures that favor a sort of familial excommunication when a child (that comes of age) chooses actions that aren't in congress with the family. This isn't a new thing. It may be a practice that has become less popular, but at the least we can say that some people act just like our analgous-God with regard to errant children. Which leads us to...

But remember, Joe, that God is supposed to be the ideal parent. Now, I'll grant that in Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture obedience to the father is considered normal and proper, and that might go a long way towards explaining why God is so often portrayed as a tyrant in those religions. But if God is supposed to be the ideal, free of human failings, even as each of those three religions decries tyranny.

Second, the loving parent may cut off a truly dangerous child, but remember the prodigal son: that child is welcomed back into the fold with love. So why is hell portrayed as eternal? Were one to argue that hell is a temporary condition from which the damned may redeem themselves, it might make sense. But it is specifically stated that it is forever. This is a God of judgment, not of love.

2) People are very dissimilar to God with regards to morality. I think we don't accept the parent/God analogy firmly enough, only referring to it loosely. For instance, if we accept that we are to God what children are to parents, then we are accepting that we are as blind, lost, unlearned, morally infantile, and intellectually light as children with regards to God. A child finds his parent to be obscene and grotesque in their seemingly arbitrary decision to deny the child a toy at the mall, he rants and fumes and pouts--believing himself equal to the parent with regards to toy decisions. The parent must be mean. They must obviously want to hurt him and be horrible to him. The child doesn't understand bills and budgets and $200 toys not being the sort of things that gets bought on a whim. If we are the children, in the analogy, and children that never grow to be "parents" (as we will never become God), then we must accept that Godly-decisions are as beyond our understanding as the parent's toy-choice was to the child and His decisions are categorically better than our own ill-informed and selfish ones.

This doesn't work either, as it assumes that God operates under a different set of moral standards than humans do, even as God is proclaimed as being so good that he cannot even be in the presence of sin. Remember the line from Genesis, that we are "like" God in our ability to distinguish good and evil. So why should God be exempt from rules pertaining to good and evil?

And we're not talking about toys here; we're talking about murder. By the logic you propose, God can punish us for murder in the harshest possible terms but when he himself commits murder (as the Bible clearly states he has done; witness the first-born of Egypt) he is somehow free not only of responsibility but also of guilt, and anyone who questions him on this is condemned to eternal suffering without even an explanation. If a parent tells a child not to commit a crime and then does it themselves, they have no moral grounds for expecting that child to behave morally.

3) If we hold that God is the arbiter of right and wrong (which is easy, common, hardly new), then in no possible way is our "understanding" of ethics superior. If God creates the universe and establishes that murder is wrong, punishable by torment in Hell... then that outcome is not up to moral second-guessing by murderers who say "well, then God's a bastard because I'm just murdering and if He's going to send me to Hell because of it then I'm not giving him worship". Similarly, if God establishes that lack of belief in God, in the heart of man, and divorce from the Holy Spirit (best way I can describe what God requires of people) is wrong, and similarly punished, then resentment of that doesn't make the resenter "morally superior". It makes them preferential to some other outcome. Preference is hardly ethics.

But if God is himself a murderer, violating his own moral code, he loses the right to make moral judgments. What remains, in this view, is simply a powerful tyrant who, like many powerful tyrants throughout history, have decreed that their opinions constitute morality even though those moral rules don't apply to them.

The bottom line is this: morality is not easy, and it carries with it a great deal of responsibility. God claims to be moral, and yet Judeo-Christian theology clearly shows him as immoral by his own standards. God is supposed to be more than just the arbriter of right and wrong; he's supposed to be the best example of right. He isn't supposed to be a dictator who can do whatever the hell he wants to just because he's powerful. Protecting and supporting the weak and downtrodden is what Moses and Jesus and Muhammad were supposed to be all about, but they can't do this if the God they represent fails to follow his own moral rules.

Even a child may be critical of a hypocrite.

 

[KarenAM]

Don't worry Karen you're not making me angry I see what you're saying but I see a flaw there.

Glad to hear it.

God never abandons us, we abandon God. The Bible says this several times.

Yet hell is described as a place without God. How, then, can hell exist if God doesn't abandon us? This confuses me. The real question I am trying to address, though, is why we abandon God. If God's actions are immoral, why should we retain any loyalty to him?

I know we will be judged on more than just what we've done or didn't do. God will look at everything, even the complexities of the world, and how living here has affected us, and make the decision. As humans and not gods we can never really understand exactly what it is that God will see in us to determine where we go.

Yet according to Genesis, we are "like" God, knowing the difference between good and evil. Since the decision to condemn someone to hell for eternity is theoretically based on criteria of being good or evil, how can we argue that God somehow knows more about this than we do? Is the Bible incorrect in this passage?

I'm sorry but that's about as far as I can personally go in trying to explain things. All I can do is recommend that you read the Bible, and pray. Alot. Talk to several different pastors, preachers, etc.. until you get the answer you seek, and make the decision you feel most comfortable about.

I appreciate your candor and your input. I don't claim to understand Christianity or really any religion, and so far Jesus or God haven't chosen to reveal anything to me, despite my requests. My prayers have always been met with silence.

But I do appreciate your trying to help me understand what you believe and why. Even if God isn't listening, it's nice to know you are.

 

[stingray61]

Glad to hear it.



Yet hell is described as a place without God. How, then, can hell exist if God doesn't abandon us? This confuses me. The real question I am trying to address, though, is why we abandon God. If God's actions are immoral, why should we retain any loyalty to him?


What I was trying to convey with this statement is that God doesn't abandon us while we are here on Earth. I have no idea what happens with us and God when we go to hell.


Yet according to Genesis, we are "like" God, knowing the difference between good and evil. Since the decision to condemn someone to hell for eternity is theoretically based on criteria of being good or evil, how can we argue that God somehow knows more about this than we do? Is the Bible incorrect in this passage?


Knowing the difference between good and evil doesn't mean we will always choose good. It's the choice we make concerning which path we will follow that makes the difference.



I appreciate your candor and your input. I don't claim to understand Christianity or really any religion, and so far Jesus or God haven't chosen to reveal anything to me, despite my requests. My prayers have always been met with silence.

LOL if what I say does any good then it's God speaking to you through me. If not then it's all me. Ok that was a joke though someones words here might be from God.
Not getting a prayer answered in the way you think of as "normal" isn't how God works. You may never really know if God answered any of your prayers until judgment day. God answers prayers, just not always in the way that we can understand, and not all of our prayers get answered because we ask for the wrong things or for the wrong reasons. Our prayers don't always get answered in "our" time either but in Gods.

Personally I don't really know if God has ever answered any of my prayers that I pray for me, but I know He has answered my prayers for others.

Heres a little something that might help or at least give you a smile.

A man once prayed to God everyday to let him win the lottery. The man prayed for twenty years with no results. After the man had died and gone to Heaven he asked God why he never answered his prayers to win the lottery. God said....How come you never bought a lottery ticket?

You see what I'm saying? Pray for the right things for the right reasons and God may answer your prayers.

Example; You pray to God to save your child from dying of cancer. One day your child dies and you curse God for not letting your child live. After many years you finally go to Heaven and ask God why your child had to die of cancer. God shows you how your child would grow up and be drinking heavily and crash their car into a bus full of children killing about ten of them. One of those children would have found a cure for cancer had they lived.

Now that's very extreme and I'm pretty sure God doesn't work that way but I hope you see my point. Just because we don't understand why God allows things to happen or prayers to go un-answered doesn't mean it isn't the best thing for everyone concerned. Even your child in my story might be saved and go to Heaven, then you can say what's a few years of life here compared to an eternity in Heaven.

I think when we go to Heaven we will know how our lives affected others. We will see how something we did changed someone elses life for the better or for the worse. If that child in my story died and went to Heaven then they would see how many lives they saved by dying and they would see why. Do you think that child would be upset about that?



But I do appreciate your trying to help me understand what you believe and why. Even if God isn't listening, it's nice to know you are.


God IS listening, perhaps you aren't yet able to hear the answers.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by KarenAM
But remember, Joe, that God is supposed to be the ideal parent. Now, I'll grant that in Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture obedience to the father is considered normal and proper, and that might go a long way towards explaining why God is so often portrayed as a tyrant in those religions. But if God is supposed to be the ideal, free of human failings, even as each of those three religions decries tyranny.

I don't know that God is supposed to be the "ideal parent". As I said, the whole "parent analogy" isn't well represented, nor well substantiated Biblically aside from words like "father". That's a long way of saying "I can't recall any part of the Bible proclaiming him the ideal of human parents". I think God is supposed to be the ideal God. I think that is the only standard we can reasonably judge him.

Second, the loving parent may cut off a truly dangerous child, but remember the prodigal son: that child is welcomed back into the fold with love. So why is hell portrayed as eternal? Were one to argue that hell is a temporary condition from which the damned may redeem themselves, it might make sense. But it is specifically stated that it is forever. This is a God of judgment, not of love.

Again, this is why people's insistance about using parent analogies aren't very productice. By nature, God is very much unlike a parent in the sense that we intend to use the word. God has responsibilities very, very much unlike a parent.

This doesn't work either, as it assumes that God operates under a different set of moral standards than humans do, even as God is proclaimed as being so good that he cannot even be in the presence of sin. Remember the line from Genesis, that we are "like" God in our ability to distinguish good and evil. So why should God be exempt from rules pertaining to good and evil?

The maker of rules is under a different obligation than those born into them. If God is the arbiter of morality, then God isn't subject to morality... humans would be subject to morality. You ask why should God be exempt from rules pertaining to ethical norms... simply put, if God creates the ethical norms, then God is already exempt by nature.

And we're not talking about toys here; we're talking about murder. By the logic you propose, God can punish us for murder in the harshest possible terms but when he himself commits murder (as the Bible clearly states he has done; witness the first-born of Egypt) he is somehow free not only of responsibility but also of guilt, and anyone who questions him on this is condemned to eternal suffering without even an explanation. If a parent tells a child not to commit a crime and then does it themselves, they have no moral grounds for expecting that child to behave morally.

It may be that God didn't commit murder. There is a difference between killling (natural and necessary) and murder (unnatural and unnecessary). There is no moral legislation for killing, but the commandment does state that "thou shalt not murder" (closest translation). If God sanctions the killing of a person or people, it wouldn't be murder as it would be a part of natural metaphysic and a necessary condition of the universe (Given that God is the one ordering the execution). So, no... God doesn't commit murder, in such a case. As a matter of fact, given that, it wouldn't be meaningful at all to accuse God of murder. Perhaps allowing death, but that's hardly a moral issue.

The closest "parent-like" analogy I can give you is... let's say the parent has a cupcake. They tell the kid not to eat the cupcake as it isn't their place to eat the cupcake (thou shalt not murder, as it isn't your place to arbitrate the killing of others). Then the parent eats the cupcake. That isn't hypocrisy. The parent owns the cupcake, its their right to eat the cupcake and not the child's. Similarly, it's God's right and not ours to determine the end of life.... thus, we have a commandment against it, and as its his job it's not unethical for Him to do it.

But if God is himself a murderer, violating his own moral code, he loses the right to make moral judgments. What remains, in this view, is simply a powerful tyrant who, like many powerful tyrants throughout history, have decreed that their opinions constitute morality even though those moral rules don't apply to them.

I can think of no place where God violates His own moral code. Again, if God is the arbiter of moral coding, He can't violate it (sort of like "As all I do is the only authority necessary for the rules, if I break a rule it was because I did... but my doing is the authority for rules, so I can't meaningfully ever break one"). You use the "tyrrannical ruler" example, and that's been done before, but there is still a fundamental difference in the responsibility and relative place of a person to ethics and God to ethics.

It's just not sufficiently analogous to a "ruler" of any type really. It's actually more analogous to the programmer of a video game than a ruler.

The bottom line is this: morality is not easy, and it carries with it a great deal of responsibility. God claims to be moral, and yet Judeo-Christian theology clearly shows him as immoral by his own standards. God is supposed to be more than just the arbriter of right and wrong; he's supposed to be the best example of right. He isn't supposed to be a dictator who can do whatever the hell he wants to just because he's powerful. Protecting and supporting the weak and downtrodden is what Moses and Jesus and Muhammad were supposed to be all about, but they can't do this if the God they represent fails to follow his own moral rules.

I don't think God truly claims to be moral (as a matter of fact, I don't think that phrase actually has any meaning, sort of like asking if the guy who made "Risk" did so morally, not fairly, but ethically; it may not be a qualifier that has meaning)... I think it's more like God explaning His place formally.

As such, I don't think "Judeo-Christian theology" (I'm not entirely sure what that is) shows God to be immoral. I think it shows God to be above the distinction by virtue of His metaphysical position.

Moses was about fullfilling God's mandates. Jesus was the fullfillment of one of God's convenants with the world. Muhammad was the enacting of agency. You say God fails to follow His own rules... but you can't show me where. For all the faults of the Bible (and I admit it has many, many, many), the character of God doesn't lack for adherance to His own standards.

Even a child may be critical of a hypocrite.

And a child may be critical of things the child has only infantile understandings of.

Both very possible.

 

[KarenAM]

Nope. You have a fine command of rhetoric, Joe, but you do not persuade. I barely know the Bible and I know places where God is called for violating his own moral code. Abraham argues with him about his moral failings with Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses argues with him over his moral failings at Sinai. In both cases God contemplates murder and is talked out of it when the prophet points out that murder, especially for God, is unethical.

The maker of rules is under a different obligation than those born into them. If God is the arbiter of morality, then God isn't subject to morality... humans would be subject to morality. You ask why should God be exempt from rules pertaining to ethical norms... simply put, if God creates the ethical norms, then God is already exempt by nature.

This statement is unsupported by either evidence or logic, and without it your entire argument, it seems to me, collapses. Why is the maker of rules exempt from them?

 

[stingray61]

Nope. You have a fine command of rhetoric, Joe, but you do not persuade. I barely know the Bible and I know places where God is called for violating his own moral code. Abraham argues with him about his moral failings with Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses argues with him over his moral failings at Sinai. In both cases God contemplates murder and it talked out of it when the prophet points out that murder, especially for God, is unethical.


Hey there Karen. Can you please look up chapter and verse where these things happen? I will wait. And who is the prophet you speak of?


This statement is unsupported by either evidence or logic, and without it your entire argument, it seems to me, collapses. Why is the maker of rules exempt from them?

 

[stingray61]

Kassiana;

I haven't yet spoken to my pastor but I did some Biblical research regarding your post about Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

This law, as with most of the Old Testament, was for the jewish people. It was given just before the Jews came into the Holy Land from Egypt. YES it's a tough law but God did say "Vengance is mine sayeth the Lord." That law, as with most laws before and since, is mostly about what not to do and why. Laws are written, sometimes before crimes are commited, as a guide for us.

The man would have to marry the woman he raped and take care of her the rest of her life. That isn't to say God said it was ok to rape someone if you marry them afterwards.

I hope that helps clarify it a little. I'll write more when I learn more. In the meantime I suggest you get a study Bible and read it.

 

[Pure]

I see Joe's point, if God is pictured as one issueing commands. In logical terms, he's not the one to whom they are directed. The drill sergeant who yells "Parade Left", does not himself have to go left.

Can God command himself? hmmm.

OTOH, if God is pictured as a lawmaker, then as Karen says, the picture is less clear. Our (US) national lawmakers, can, for instance make laws against organized crimes (racketeering; RICO). Yet they are normally subject to those laws. Likewise, the Justices of the Supreme Court fall under its decisions: If the Supreme Ct upholds the return of runaway slaves (as it once did), then that applies to the justices and any slaves they encounter.

As third possibility is that Moral Law, so called, is contemporaneous with God. That somehow what the Universe 'thinks' is right or wrong is given along with God's existence, and God's directives are then, in accord with the law, in normal cases.

It's certainly true, along the lines Karen suggests that the Bible shows God changing his mind, or 'cooling off'-- "repenting" of his anger, for example. Whether that means the first course of action was immoral is a debatable question; certainly it suggests God found the first course 'sub optimal'!

Yet it will be said that many descriptions of "God" are unlikely to be true, literally. So the 'repentance' of God may be not strictly accurate. After all, the Bible says that God was walking in the Garden of Eden.

To return to the thread topic. An eternal hell presumes eternal wrath it seems to me. God never 'let's it go'-- gives amnesty.
As many have pointed out, eternal hell seems like too nasty a sentence for almost any crime you can imagine. It's fine to say, a some above have done, that persons 'choose' hell or separation from God. Yet that's earthly ignorance, presumably. After a million years of torture, assuming that allows reflection, presumably the person might wish to reconsider. And if there's eternal damnation, God has to deafen his ears to the cries for mercy at that point.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by KarenAM
Nope. You have a fine command of rhetoric, Joe, but you do not persuade. I barely know the Bible and I know places where God is called for violating his own moral code. Abraham argues with him about his moral failings with Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses argues with him over his moral failings at Sinai. In both cases God contemplates murder and is talked out of it when the prophet points out that murder, especially for God, is unethical.

My purpose isn't to persuade.. that's a goal sophists and liars have.

You're mentioning places where a person calls God on God's moral code. That is hardly the same thing as God being in contradiction with his own moral code... sort of like a child pointing out that the parent gets to eat the cupcake (in the cupcake analogy). Yes, they do in fact utter dissatisfaction, but that utterance isn't evidentiary to hypocrisy, it's just a wagging of fingers without all the facts.

Reasonably speaking, I don't think we can hold God to our ethics. And God may well not be able to violate His own, having primacy over it.

This statement is unsupported by either evidence or logic, and without it your entire argument, it seems to me, collapses. Why is the maker of rules exempt from them?

Hold on.... hold on... hold on...

My statement is unsupported by logic?

Have you ever studied formal logic?

Now, if you'd have said "I'm not convinced", there'd be nothing more for me to say. If someone just isn't convinced that chocolate is better than vanilla (highly subjective) or that "2+2=4" (highly objective), then they're just not convinced... for better or worse. But how about we be careful about tossing around "not logically supproted" around me? If anything, and if nothing else, I know a thing or two about logic--being an instructor of it and all.

There is nothing in disunity with rational congress about the premising of God being an arbiter of norms and thus being unable to be in contradiction with the objects of His arbitration (that's not even a new argument, it's been around since Hick's theodicy and well before Augustine's ontology).

If there is, I would be absolutely delighted for you to show me where.

 

[stingray61]

I see Joe's point, if God is pictured as one issueing commands. In logical terms, he's not the one to whom they are directed. The drill sergeant who yells "Parade Left", does not himself have to go left.

Can God command himself? hmmm.

OTOH, if God is pictured as a lawmaker, then as Karen says, the picture is less clear. Our (US) national lawmakers, can, for instance make laws against organized crimes (racketeering; RICO). Yet they are normally subject to those laws. Likewise, the Justices of the Supreme Court fall under its decisions: If the Supreme Ct upholds the return of runaway slaves (as it once did), then that applies to the justices and any slaves they encounter.

As third possibility is that Moral Law, so called, is contemporaneous with God. That somehow what the Universe 'thinks' is right or wrong is given along with God's existence, and God's directives are then, in accord with the law, in normal cases.

It's certainly true, along the lines Karen suggests that the Bible shows God changing his mind, or 'cooling off'-- "repenting" of his anger, for example. Whether that means the first course of action was immoral is a debatable question; certainly it suggests God found the first course 'sub optimal'!

Yet it will be said that many descriptions of "God" are unlikely to be true, literally. So the 'repentance' of God may be not strictly accurate. After all, the Bible says that God was walking in the Garden of Eden.

To return to the thread topic. An eternal hell presumes eternal wrath it seems to me. God never 'let's it go'-- gives amnesty.
As many have pointed out, eternal hell seems like too nasty a sentence for almost any crime you can imagine. It's fine to say, a some above have done, that persons 'choose' hell or separation from God. Yet that's earthly ignorance, presumably. After a million years of torture, assuming that allows reflection, presumably the person might wish to reconsider. And if there's eternal damnation, God has to deafen his ears to the cries for mercy at that point.

God is the creator, if He kills someone he isn't held to the same standard as we are. After all He made everyone and He can destroy everyone. Lol then He can always bring them back again.
The Old Testament was for the Jewish peoples, they were a set of laws among many other things, for them to live by. Christ intervened on the behalf of the entire human race so that all may go to Heaven. That is why Christ died. He sacrificed himself, He paid the price for us.

To say that a persons choice is "earthly ignorance" is a mistake. The Bible shows us many times that it is our choice to believe or not, it's our choice to go to Heaven or not. WE HAVE FREE WILL.
Would you rather our going to Heaven or hell be made based on the Old Testament laws, or based on a choice WE decide to make? Me I would rather it be made on a choice I have made. That is the essence of free will. No-where in the Bible that I know of does it say that hell is fun or happy or anything positive. No-where in the Bible does it say that God likes giving us that choice. No-where in the Bible does it say we must choose hell, or that we will agree with the choices we were given.

To believe in Christ is very easy really. Some would say that we are forced to believe in God because our going to hell if we don't is a mean thing to do. I submit that the only people that truly believe that are those that have already chosen to commit sins.
During the time before Christ, all but the Jews that obeyed Gods law were to go to hell. We would have to go to hell because of the sins we commit during our lives and had no-way to be forgiven. Because of Gods love for us He allowed Christ to live like us and die like us so that we could be forgiven of our sins and go to Heaven. Now would you send your child to die to save anyone else? Would you intentionally allow your child to go through the pain Christ went through to save anyone else?
The Bible says that to give your life for another is the greatest thing we can do. The term "Giving your life" doesn't always mean dying for someone as any parent that has sacrificed themselves for their children know. Earthly parents that love their children often go without or have less so that their children can have more. That too is a sacrifice of ourselves for another. Now if we were to do that with everyone we ever met then we would have an idea of what God has done for us. If we all did that for someone then it stands to reason that someone would be doing it for us as well. Imagine what a GREAT world this would be if every single person here were to sacrifice their lives, give up some part of themselves, to make someone elses life better. Every one of us would be happy and content.

I don't know about anyone else but I know how good I feel when I've been able to help someone in a manner that was really beneficial to them. I also know how greatful I have felt when someone has helped me in the same way. If we lived the way God has asked us to live, if we truly did unto others as we want done to us, if we were to sacrifice ourselves to help others then we would already be in Heaven. Heaven would be here on Earth.

IMO anyone that would rather live their life solely for themselves is arrogant, and selfish, and not someone I would want to associate with. Anyone that finds it too difficult or too demanding, or too self sacrificing to treat others with love and respect I can do without. They can complain all they want about how treating others as they want to be treated is not free will. They can complain that they think it's immoral for God to send people to hell just because they didn't make the choice to believe in Christ. To me that is the same as saying I don't have to help anyone, and to me that's being selfish, arrogant, rude, and inhumane. It is especially insulting when I myself care enough to sacrifice my life so someone else can have a better life. It's like saying I'm not good enough to be treated that way.

 

[stingray61]

If God can do anything, can God create a rock so big that even He couldn't lift it?

Logically speaking...yes, and no. He is God and can do anything so He should be able to make a rock so big He can't lift. On the other hand He is God and can do anything so He can lift any rock He makes no matter how big.

It's like most things with God. We aren't supposed to know all the answers, we're supposed to follow His word, not blindly but with faith that He will do what's best for us in ANY situation. Even those we can't comprehend.

That's why they call it F-A-I-T-H.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by stingray61
If God can do anything, can God create a rock so big that even He couldn't lift it?

Logically speaking...yes, and no. He is God and can do anything so He should be able to make a rock so big He can't lift. On the other hand He is God and can do anything so He can lift any rock He makes no matter how big.

It's like most things with God. We aren't supposed to know all the answers, we're supposed to follow His word, not blindly but with faith that He will do what's best for us in ANY situation. Even those we can't comprehend.

That's why they call it F-A-I-T-H.

Logically speaking, the answer would be "no". Logic would dictate that God cannot represent a logical contradiction, and if God were to represent a logical contradiction then it would be a situation that we could not concieve of. Given that we could not concieve of it, we couldn't entertain it, talk about it, formalize it in any meaningful way.

Logically speaking, the answer would not be both "yes" and "no.

 

[stingray61]

Logically speaking, the answer would be "no". Logic would dictate that God cannot represent a logical contradiction, and if God were to represent a logical contradiction then it would be a situation that we could not concieve of. Given that we could not concieve of it, we couldn't entertain it, talk about it, formalize it in any meaningful way.

Logically speaking, the answer would not be both "yes" and "no.

Ok good point, however using that same logic couldn't I say that being God, and being able to do anything, God could represent a logical contradiction, and to say He couldn't would be to say He can't do anything/everything and therefore can't be God?

LOL I guess that means God is above logic which is where I'd expect God to be.

By the way this argument is exactly why the question I asked is one Christians aren't supposed to ask. It challeneges their faith too much sometimes, and for some brings God into question. As for me I'm not questioning God but I do like a good puzzle.

 

[SnoopDog]

Anybody dare to say now that I can't create a thread that's more than three pages.

Snoopy

 

[stingray61]

Anybody dare to say now that I can't create a thread that's more than three pages.

Snoopy

Well technically.......it isn't MORE than three pages yet.

 

[SnoopDog]

Well, I don't know your settings but I'm on the fourth already. (I paid high attention to that fact while writing my recent post, )

Snoopy

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by stingray61
Ok good point, however using that same logic couldn't I say that being God, and being able to do anything, God could represent a logical contradiction, and to say He couldn't would be to say He can't do anything/everything and therefore can't be God?

If we were to say that God represented a logical contradiction, we wouldn't be saying anything that could be concievable or meaningful... sort of like saying "the contents of nothing" or "the shape of a round square".

We could utter it (noise and intention), but we wouldn't really be saying anything with substance.

 

[stingray61]

Well, I don't know your settings but I'm on the fourth already. (I paid high attention to that fact while writing my recent post, )

Snoopy

LOL does it still count as four pages if you have your settings set to show five posts per page? I have mine set at forty.

 

[stingray61]

If we were to say that God represented a logical contradiction, we wouldn't be saying anything that could be concievable or meaningful... sort of like saying "the contents of nothing" or "the shape of a round square".

We could utter it (noise and intention), but we wouldn't really be saying anything with substance.

Makes sense thanks for the enlightenment. I'll have to see if I can come up with more questions for you lol.