Acts of God

[Brutus1964]

Snakelord

When ever people ask a question and demand a simple yes or no answer it is usually because they are trying to trap you. That is an old lawyer trick.

Also if God could just snap his finger and have all creation done in that instant of time it wouldn't have had to take him six days. The days mentioned in the Bible refer to periods of time. What is a day anyway? It is just a measurement of time based on one revolution of the Earth. What is a day to the sun? What is a day to the moon? A day is only relative to the celestial body you happen to be on. What is a day to God? Plus if you take the order of creation that Genesis provides then you would have to believe that the Earth was made before the sun or before the stars. I don't think so. Some things in the Bible are literal but other things are allegorical

 

[SnakeLord]

When ever people ask a question and demand a simple yes or no answer it is usually because they are trying to trap you. That is an old lawyer trick.

I wont deny that, but then it shouldn't be a problem unless you've just so happened to put yourself in a position of contradiction.

Also if God could just snap his finger and have all creation done in that instant of time it wouldn't have had to take him six days.

Then he is vastly inferior to my god.

What is a day anyway? It is just a measurement of time based on one revolution of the Earth. What is a day to the sun? What is a day to the moon? A day is only relative to the celestial body you happen to be on. What is a day to God?

This is all well and good, but it doesn't detract from my statement that if you use the "god method" of determining 'time', Adam actually lived for going on 350 million years. As I said earlier, the least people can do is be consistent. If you were to claim that it took god 7000 years to complete the earth, then you should also state that Adam lived for a few hundred million years, or if adam lived for 900 years then the world took 7 days to complete. That is consistency, and there is no apparent justification for using two completely different measurements.

Plus if you take the order of creation that Genesis provides then you would have to believe that the Earth was made before the sun or before the stars.

That would be a problem for your god?

I don't think so.

Since when did what people 'think' actually matter? Faith brother, faith.. :bugeye:

Some things in the Bible are literal but other things are allegorical

And who is the authority when deciding what is literal and what isn't?

 

[ellion]

Snakelord

Ok as a matter of course God does not interfere with the workings of the Earth. In certain situations he has caused things to happen like the flood. However he did it he used natural means to make it happen.

Have you heard of the "canape" theory? Some speculate that before the flood there was a canape of water vapor that completely encircled the Earth. This made the earth a perfect greenhouse. The flood was caused by the canape condensing and flooding the earth. The remnant of this are the polar ice caps. Scientists say there is enouph water in the polor ice caps that if they melted the water would cover all the dry land. Remember "Water World"? This could also explain why there was never a rainbow before the flood. I wonder if there is any scientific evidence to back that up? We know that places that are frozen now were once lush and green so we know that the Earth was more of a greenhouse before than it is now.

I think that the stories in Genesis actually happened a very long time ago. Much longer than 6000 years ago. Adam and Eve could have been in the garden for thousands of years before they fell. Who knows? Remember that God rested on the seventh day. How long was that seventh day? This period of rest would have been while Adam and Eve were still in the garden. So it could have been for a very long time. Long enough for Dinosaurs to have come and gone perhaps?

brutus i apologize in advance, but i must point this out, it seems you have the most bizarre sunday school conception of god and cosmogenesis.

can i ask you where does god live? is he still at home with his mother and father?

does he make things happen by poking fingers and huffing and puffing?

it beggars believe that someone who seems to have a degree of intelligence can believe that, once upon a time there where two people who lived in their very own garden, with a talking serpent. you even use semi logical arguments to justify this fairytale.

these myths where concocted to illustrate basic concepts, to illiterate slaves and peseants. by adopting them and propogating them as fact and divine revelation your merely putting yourself in the same league as those poor misguided souls.

 

[Brutus1964]

Snakelord

One thing I have learned and keep forgetting in this forum is never lock yourself in absolutes. In other words never say or even imply never.

I don't think I was contradicting myself. I did not say that God never
intevenes. Obviously in some rare cases he does, but as a general rule he does not.

Ellion

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking me. Could you please elaborate and give me some examples?

 

[ellion]

i dont think it matters to be honest, even i where to give any examples, you would still be held captive to the fear of that unmerciful, vengeful, punitive god that has been grown in the garden of your soul.

 

[Brutus1964]

i dont think it matters to be honest, even i where to give any examples, you would still be held captive to the fear of that unmerciful, vengeful, punitive god that has been grown in the garden of your soul.

Ellion

Sciforums is about discussions. If you don't wish to discuss something then don't bring things up. That being said I am interested in answering and discussing your original questions.

 

[water]

A proof for the non existence of a personal God concerned with the wellbeing of an insignificant speck of vainglorious hypocrites in a godforsaken part of the universe.

Nothing too personal.

I love you too!

Why do you think I said that?

 

[ellion]

Ellion

Sciforums is about discussions. If you don't wish to discuss something then don't bring things up. That being said I am interested in answering and discussing your original questions.

its just the way you speak of god like he (i'll adopt your terminology) is not a part of us, like he just made the universe as a project, and now he is standing back and selecting which bits of his creation he wants to 'save' for the next project. you speak of god like he is not the very substance we are made of, the very air that we breathe, the thoughts that we think, the love that we feel.
your god 'interferes' with nature rather than being everything that nature is.
your god tests us to see how we behave instead of knowing full well who and what every individual in his creation is.

i may be wrong in thinking that is how you see things please let tell me if you see things differently.

 

[Silas]

Ellion, you've just basically said, "You talk as if your personal belief system is totally different from my personal belief system!" as if your belief system is self-evidently true and Brutus's is self-evidently false. No metaphysical system of belief is self-evidently true (or false), they can only be accepted or rejected by the individual.

 

[ellion]

Ellion, you've just basically said, "You talk as if your personal belief system is totally different from my personal belief system!" as if your belief system is self-evidently true and Brutus's is self-evidently false. No metaphysical system of belief is self-evidently true (or false), they can only be accepted or rejected by the individual.

i know his perception of reality is differrent to mine. i was asking if i understood him correctly.

 

[SnakeLord]

Obviously in some rare cases he does, but as a general rule he does not.

Ok, that's fair. The point of which is what makes you assume these cases are "rare", and that he doesn't generally?

In the case of the tsunami, is it because he hasn't owned up to doing it, or is there something else that would point to it as not being done by him?

 

[Brutus1964]

its just the way you speak of god like he (i'll adopt your terminology) is not a part of us, like he just made the universe as a project, and now he is standing back and selecting which bits of his creation he wants to 'save' for the next project. you speak of god like he is not the very substance we are made of, the very air that we breathe, the thoughts that we think, the love that we feel.
your god 'interferes' with nature rather than being everything that nature is.
your god tests us to see how we behave instead of knowing full well who and what every individual in his creation is.

i may be wrong in thinking that is how you see things please let tell me if you see things differently.

Ellion

The God you describe does not seem like a sentient being at all but just a force of nature.

To me God is an actual living being that looks just like us in form. He is not everywhere but his influence is. He is a personal God that devotes his entire being to his children. He is 100% selfless. He is not interested in being worshiped for his sake but for ours. He wants to give his children everything he has. God is not nature itself but he created it and set it all in motion. He put us here to give us physical mortal bodies so we can learn the difference between good and evil, pleasure and pain, joy and sadness. All of these things we must experience for ourselves to truly understand and appreciate what we have. How we react to what he has given us will determine our ultimate glory. He will reward all of his children even down to the worst of us with incomprehensible gifts. Only those who have a perfect knowledge of God and still reject him will receive no glory. We have a literal Godly heritage. We are literally his children, and like any good father he wants his children to inherit all the things he now has. That is the God that I worship.

 

[ellion]

Ellion

The God you describe does not seem like a sentient being at all but just a force of nature.

To me God is an actual living being that looks just like us in form. He is not everywhere but his influence is. He is a personal God that devotes his entire being to his children. He is 100% selfless. He is not interested in being worshiped for his sake but for ours. He wants to give his children everything he has. God is not nature itself but he created it and set it all in motion. He put us here to give us physical mortal bodies so we can learn the difference between good and evil, pleasure and pain, joy and sadness. All of these things we must experience for ourselves to truly understand and appreciate what we have. How we react to what he has given us will determine our ultimate glory. He will reward all of his children even down to the worst of us with incomprehensible gifts. Only those who have a perfect knowledge of God and still reject him will receive no glory. We have a literal Godly heritage. We are literally his children, and like any good father he wants his children to inherit all the things he now has. That is the God that I worship.

thats a bit clearer know,
can i ask you where god lives. and if your going to say in heaven please give me some inclination as to its where abouts i.e. in the sky, under the ground, parallel dimension, 6 high street.

when you say image of a man does that mean he assumes the image of a man or that is the form to which he was born?

how does he influence natural events such as creation or floods?

 

[Brutus1964]

ellion

If you want my guesses were heaven is I would say it is in another dimension. I believe that Earth was in the same dimension until the fall of Adam. Then the earth was placed in its current position. I see spirit as being a dimension of its own so really we occupy both dimensions but physically we are only here. When we die we leave this dimension but our spirit selves still live on in the spirit dimension.

When I say that God looks like us I mean literally. He doesn't take on that form. That is the form that he is. He has a body of flesh and bone that is perfected and glorified. When you look in the mirror you see the same image that God himself has.

He influences nature because he controls the laws that control them. What he does though is not supernatural in the sense of breaking the laws of physics. He controls and commands them all and they in turn obey him. When Christ turned the water into wine he commanded the atoms in the water to reorganize into the molecules that make up wine. The atoms obeyed him and acted according to their laws.

 

[ellion]

If you want my guesses were heaven is I would say it is in another dimension. I believe that Earth was in the same dimension until the fall of Adam. Then the earth was placed in its current position.

so you dont know for sure where god lives, but you know for sure that he lives there?

I see spirit as being a dimension of its own so really we occupy both dimensions but physically we are only here. When we die we leave this dimension but our spirit selves still live on in the spirit dimension.

When I say that God looks like us I mean literally. He doesn't take on that form. That is the form that he is. He has a body of flesh and bone that is perfected and glorified. When you look in the mirror you see the same image that God himself has.

your saying here that god has a physical body of flesh and lives in a non physical dimension of spirit. was god born into that dimension or did he fall into it?

He influences nature because he controls the laws that control them. What he does though is not supernatural in the sense of breaking the laws of physics. He controls and commands them all and they in turn obey him. When Christ turned the water into wine he commanded the atoms in the water to reorganize into the molecules that make up wine. The atoms obeyed him and acted according to their laws.

so he wills things to happen like with telekinesis or psychokinesis?

 

[everneo]

I think those innocents who die in mass are kept innocent by God till their death. I heard they are found now in certain nice grape yards, orchards up there singing happily ooolalalahhh..

 

[Brutus1964]

ellion

Are you just toying with me now?

 

[Quantum Quack]

Brutus, I must admit I like your honesty. At least you have a clear definition and even a physical one of what God is to you.
Most people I know have this some what vague flimsical definition that is usually riddled with contradictions due to a lack of thorough introspection about such definitions. At least you have it defined, which is much more than most believers.

Of course your definition is just as valid if not more so than most other belief systems including that of an atheist.
Congrads

 

[ellion]

ellion

Are you just toying with me now?

as in playing with you, no. certainly not.
amongst other things, i'm curious to know how your god got into that world where he lives.

 

[Brutus1964]

Ellion

How did God get where he is? Well he was once a man like us and he too went through a similar life on an earth. He did all that was required of Him and he was exalted into the Celestial Kingdom. He and his wife had billions of spirit children that we were apart of. He proposed a plan for us to also achieve what he did. So he created our Earth and put us on it. If we do what is required then we too will be exalted and continue the never ending always existing continuum of the God's. Once you are a God you too will be an eternal being having no beginning and no end. You and your eternal wife will also have spirit children who will also be eligible for Godhood if they follow your commandments.