The nature of God

[Xev]

Raithaire:

Self-control is the root of all strength. Self-control is your will. Other than that I agree with you.

Someday, I will explain how I mean self control and self overcoming and self fulfillment at the same time. Right now I am tired.

Jenyar:

You are your own slave, because you are ruled by your own will. You have submitted yourself to yourself, so to speak.

I am my Will, silly.

Can you do something that you won't do? Not even under hypnosis.

Umm, that is so logically fucked that I'm not even going to comment.

Some serial killers only kill because they can, and they aren't bound to any will, not even their own. Can anybody justify that kind of freedom?

Yes. I can. Because I have my beast under control while adopted.

God doesn't ask submission to spoil your freedom, He asks that you acknowledge that you belong to Him and not to yourself, and He is the only one who can ensure complete freedom - even from death.

That's nice hun. Is God going to whip me if I disobey?

Is He cute?

Honestly.

 

[Jenyar]

J:Can you do something that you won't do? Not even under hypnosis.
X:Umm, that is so logically fucked that I'm not even going to comment.

No need to get abusive. If you aren't bound to your will, you can believe the unbelievable, and not be limited by what you can reason or explain yourself. If you are bound by your will, there are certain things that you won't do, not under any circumstances.

What am I missing?

 

[Xev]

Jenyar:

No need to get abusive. If you aren't bound to your will, you can believe the unbelievable, and not be limited by what you can reason or explain yourself. If you are bound by your will, there are certain things that you won't do, not under any circumstances.

What am I missing?

You're getting into silly little logic games. Might as well ask what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistable force.

I AM my Will. Geddit? It is mine to control.

 

[Jenyar]

Have you ever been drunk?

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by Jenyar
Can you do something that you won't do? Not even under hypnosis.

Interesting question, let's examine it. Won't is a contraction of "will not". So the question is: Can you do something that you will not (to) do? I would have to say the answer is yes. People do things all the time that they did not will to do. We tend to call them mistakes. For instance; few people desire to crash their cars but they do so through error (usually in judging speed, distance, road conditions, or in making an erroneous assumption of another drivers intent). One might cause another's death in such an accident despite that killing is strictly prohibited by the driver's ethics and beliefs.

If you aren't bound to your will, you can believe the unbelievable, and not be limited by what you can reason or explain yourself.

People willfully believe the unbelievable all the time. In fact, believing the unbelievable requires often requires a definite act of will. For example; the abused wife who continues to believe that her husband does love her and will change despite every indication that this is not true. To believe that the person that is beating the shit out of you actually loves you requires a definite act of will. People are very prone to willfully deceiving themselves.

If you are bound by your will, there are certain things that you won't do, not under any circumstances.

This has more to do with a constant state of ethics and belief than with will. Except through accident or error you cannot act without will and then such actions are not willful (as I went into above).

Have you ever been drunk?

Drunk people still act by will. The reason they do so many stupid things that they would not normally do is because alcohol screws the mental processes all to hell and tremendously increases the chance that they person makes bad decisions and willfully act upon them... it also tremendously increases the chance of accident and error.

~Raithere

 

[Jenyar]

Raithere - I understand what you mean, but I didn't have 'mistake' or 'error' in mind. I'm fully aware that you can mean to do one thing and end up doing another.

I mean it more in the sense of, say, bungee jumping without knowing whether the cord is tied or not (if you knew, it would fall under the realm of 'courage', or even 'faith' in the cord). Will you jump in spite of 'not willing' to jump?

If you're drunk you might. It's beause reasoning becomes difficult, as you say, but it probably depends a lot on how drunk - you might as well lose your balance and just fall over. I like the way you say they still willfully act, but just on bad judgement. (I still can't believe that some drunks actually manage to get away in court by pleading to drunkenness as a mitigating circumstance!)

 

[Xev]

Jenyar:

Have you ever been drunk?

Are you offering to buy for me? Thanks!

Hey, here's a novel idea - why don't you actually reply to my rebuttels, rather than coming up with more silly arguments for me to rebut?

I think that's the general form of a debate, you know? Most debates go something like

A: X is true.
B: X is not true because Y.
A: Y does not disprove X because of Z.
B: Wow Xev, you are great and wonderfull. May I give you my bank account and credit card information?

Ours has gone something like:

God owns you.
No, I am free and there is no God, btw.
No, you're not free.
Yes, I am because X, Y and Z.
No, you're not. You're not, you're not, you're not.

Like some escapee from Monty Python's argument clinic.

I mean it more in the sense of, say, bungee jumping without knowing whether the cord is tied or not (if you knew, it would fall under the realm of 'courage', or even 'faith' in the cord). Will you jump in spite of 'not willing' to jump?

How could you willingly jump if you weren't willing to jump?

DUDE! Come ON!

To believe that the person that is beating the shit out of you actually loves you requires a definite act of will.

*Xev giggles and decides to harass Raithaire*

Drunk people still act by will. The reason they do so many stupid things that they would not normally do is because alcohol screws the mental processes all to hell and tremendously increases the chance that they person makes bad decisions and willfully act upon them... it also tremendously increases the chance of accident and error.

One could almost say that their will is changed. Mostly they have the will to conform, socially, and not do dumbarsed things like photocopy their ass.

But drunk, and they are free from that will and subject to another.

 

[Jenyar]

Xev, it's because I don't disagree with you (really, I don't). You are free, you've proven that (not that you had to). But free of what?

My argument does prove a point: you can't be free of free will - it's a somethingy... a contradiction. You can't unwill a will, or will an unwill (*my head is spinning*).

God is over and above all this. He does exist, and He wants to be credited as your creator. The fact that you don't, does prove that you're free, but in the same way that eating the fruit in Eden freed Adam and Eve - i.e. they "chose" death as an option. They didn't have to, but they did. You don't have to, and I'm trying to tell you that.

 

[Xev]

Jenyar:

Xev, it's because I don't disagree with you (really, I don't). You are free, you've proven that (not that you had to). But free of what?

Well, of your "master", for one.
Of society, that one's being worked on.
Of my own fears and past, that's coming along....ummm....crappily. Don't wanna go here.

My argument does prove a point: you can't be free of free will - it's a somethingy... a contradiction. You can't unwill a will, or will an unwill (*my head is spinning*).

Drink. Lots. Of. Booze.

God is over and above all this. He does exist, and He wants to be credited as your creator. The fact that you don't, does prove that you're free, but in the same way that eating the fruit in Eden freed Adam and Eve - i.e. they "chose" death as an option. They didn't have to, but they did. You don't have to, and I'm trying to tell you that.

He'll have to fight my parents for status as my "creator", now won't He?

All snideness aside, honey, (Xev, stop it!) - is there any evidence that your God exists?

I mean, come on, there is absolutely no evidence that He even fucking exists and yet I should credit Him with creating me?

B/W, if He created me, He is one incompetent son of a bitch.

 

[Jenyar]

He created your parents as well... but I don't want to trace your genealogy - do you resent your parents, too? I'd like to know if something happened that made you blame God. Atheism could be like a silence-fit.

 

[Jenyar]

This thread is becoming to personal to be constructive.

I have a philosophical question, sort of related to my post in the Cloning topic. If Adam and Eve had eternal life, and they didn't need food in order to survive, what would be the effect of eating? Could it have caused hunger? Hasn't everything become some kind of hunger ever since?

That would also give meaning to the following:
Rev.7:16 -
Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.
John 4:14 -
...but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
John 6:35 -
Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

 

[Xev]

Jenyar:

He created your parents as well... but I don't want to trace your genealogy

No, their parents created them. Ad infinitum until you have the first humans.

- do you resent your parents, too? I'd like to know if something happened that made you blame God. Atheism could be like a silence-fit.

You're an uncouth and dishonourable little one, aren't you?

 

[Voodoo Child]

If Adam and Eve had eternal life, and they didn't need food in order to survive

You mean they lived outside the laws of physics? You mean God equipped them with an unnecessary digestive tract, anus and glands to make salivary amylase just for the hell of it?

God is over and above all this. He does exist, and He wants to be credited as your creator.

Of course, he modified the world to hide this. He created a fossil record, Pb/Pb ischron dating and provided naturalistic explanations and evidence just to hide this.

The fact that you don't, does prove that you're free, but in the same way that eating the fruit in Eden freed Adam and Eve

Er, determinism, hello? You yourself attribute Xev's atheism to parental influence.

 

[Xev]

Er, determinism, hello? You yourself attribute Xev's atheism to parental influence.

Nah, he's just a coward without the balls to diss me so he picks on me parents.

That's okay though, 'cause my dad could beat his dad up.

 

[tony1]

*Originally posted by Xev
Like I said, I'm hardly immune to suicide. But I don't think I'll have demons trying to talk me into it.*

Do you think everyone who commits suicide has a well-thought-out, reasoned plan to do so?
It is pretty much demons suggesting it.

*I have, Tony, neither God nor master. Niether "owns" me.*

Strong words from someone who is unaware of what's going on around her.
I understand that is how you wish things were, however, they're not.

*I only surrender dominion when I fucking well feel like it*

I get the subtle hint there, but you surrender dominion pretty much all of the time.

*3: Fuck self control. Fuck restraint. My Will is strong enough to unleash what I am.*

Oh oh, Xev's "unleashing" again.
The only thing that you can "unleash" at this time is your servitude to things beyond your control.
IOW, the only thing you can "unleash" is being leashed.
Contradictory, no?
Yes.

*However, to call me a slave to anything is - ludicrous. I belong to myself because I can break the hold of anything that does enslave me.*

Let me see you break the hold of the grave.

*I am not free. I will be someday or I will die in the process.*

You live in New Hampshire?

*Originally posted by Raithere
They had eaten the apple and God was looking for them but instead of hiding they faced him and admitted what they had done. At which point God delcares them his *true* children.*

If they'd done that, we wouldn't be in the pickle we're in.

That IS the gospel in a nutshell.
Admit you're wrong, and move on.

To be one of God's true children, that is what you need to do.

*Originally posted by Xev
Right now I am tired.*

What's this?
Mastered by fatigue?
I thought you were in charge.

*B/W, if He created me, He is one incompetent son of a bitch.*

You're a blob of mud.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
(Genesis 2:7, KJV).

*Originally posted by Voodoo Child
He created a fossil record, Pb/Pb ischron dating and provided naturalistic explanations and evidence just to hide this.*

Your teachers provided all the naturalistic explanations.
The fossil record proves the flood, and actually bears no resemblance to the "geologic column" fantasy invented by the evos.
Nothing is hidden it's all out in the open.

 

[Xev]

Tony:

Do you think everyone who commits suicide has a well-thought-out, reasoned plan to do so?
It is pretty much demons suggesting it.

Oh, ah.....okay.

*I only surrender dominion when I fucking well feel like it*

I get the subtle hint there, but you surrender dominion pretty much all of the time.

I was actually not referring to sadomasochism. Really. I honestly do think about things besides sex.

Like....umm....no, that would be about sex.

Oh oh, Xev's "unleashing" again.
The only thing that you can "unleash" at this time is your servitude to things beyond your control.
IOW, the only thing you can "unleash" is being leashed.
Contradictory, no?
Yes.

Servitude to what things? The weather? Y'all keep asserting that I am in servitude to something or other, and yet you provide no evidence.

You know what happens when we assert too much?

What's this?
Mastered by fatigue?
I thought you were in charge.

Naw, just lazy and a bit confused.

You're a blob of mud.

Gee thanks Tony. But He still did a damn shoddy job.

 

[Jenyar]

Sorry Xev. All I was saying is that no-one grows up with a tabula rasa.

OK, I see I'm not allowed the same hypothetical freedom as everybody else. Adam & Eve were allowed to eat all the other fruit, so I guess my conjecture doesn't have merit. As a metaphor for something else, it could still work, though. After all, the tree was supposed to be the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That doesn't sound to me like any fruit tree I know of... so it seems more likely to me it was a "fruit of knowledge" - knowledge of the earth - maybe science? I'm just thinking while I write, here. The other
"tree" contained the knowledge of eternal life. The fact that we're still looking for that one means the first one must have existed in some form or another. We're still hungry...

*edit*I'd like to add something. I'm not a evolutionist or creationist. I don't know whether neanderthals and ape-men lived before or after Adam&Eve, and it doesn't make much difference to me. To me it seems more likely that humans were a separate species that simply survived because we were more fit to adapt. Since we are the 'most fit to adapt', we'll probably outlive all the other species on earth (except maybe cockroaches). Some hard-liners say dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't fit on Noah's ark. That one's for you, Xev

 

[Xev]

Jenyar:
Does your refusal to address any of my points constitute a declaration of surrender?

 

[Jenyar]

I admit, I have lost your point somewhere. Do you mean the point that you have no master? You have no god - what does it help to dispute that? I can't convince you that there is a God: even that supposes that you want to believe in Him. Godlessness is the result of trusting so much in science and knowledge that God becomes invisible. The "way in" IS NOT though science.

It's not a completely misplaced trust, so I can't say anything more about it either. Science and knowledge will outlive all of us, and our children will have to learn everything all over again anyway. Knowledge only grows if you believe those before you, and even then should be questioned all over again. It's a cycle that never ends.

God is different. I can't explain it, just testify to it. If you want to know more about God, and respect my opinion, feel free to ask, but I can't prove Him to you. Belief is itself a gift.

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by tony1
If they'd done that, we wouldn't be in the pickle we're in.
That IS the gospel in a nutshell.

So, as I accept full responsibility for all my actions, I guess that means that I'll be going to heaven.

Admit you're wrong, and move on.

Where, exactly, am I wrong and why?

~Raithere