Why doesn't God just show himself?

No I do not personally know TheERK. Just from this message board.

We assume that god does things with foresight. He has wisdom. When he created the earth and everything in it he said "he was pleased with his creation" or something like that. How can you be pleased with violent storms that do nothing but cause damage? Yet he created weather to behave in that manner. He also created moving tectonic plates that rub up against eachother and cause violent earthquakes. Couldn't he see that coming when he created the earth? If he didn't create life then violence doesn't mean anything. Nothing is being hurt. It's just energy being expended. But he created us and other lifeforms that suffer from "killer storms" and other natural catastrophies. Did adam and eve have to run from tornadoes and hold onto something when there was a violent earthquake in the garden of eden? Somehow we don't picture the garden of eden as having anything that can cause harm in it. Except that pesky snake satan. Yet he created the nice sunshine and pleasant rain and butterflies that feed and pollinate the plants and other 'nice' things that we give praise to. But nobody praises the so-called 'bad' things.

As an aside...if you colour your hair to hide the grey or wear a whig to hide your baldness or alter your body in any way you are disagreeing with god's design. Even cutting your hair or shaving is telling god that you don't like his creation of hair constantly growing. Yet the hair on other parts of our bodies are programmed to grow just to a certain length. And some of us don't have any hair anywhere on our bodies due to a genetic variation. Go figure.

Getting back to free choice...free choice can exist as long as god doesn't know how we are going to use it. But revelations tells us that god knows how we are going to behave. That some of us will do this and do that and choose evil over good. Yet these people haven't even been born yet. There's something inherently wrong with god's version of free choice if god let's us decide what we want to do and yet he already knows what we are going to do BEFORE we even do it.
 
S.STAR WROTE: Ignorantly assuming that there is actually a such thing as 'freedom', go right ahead..

Could you expound, (without quoting the entire Bible :)). Thanks. pmt
 
MARIO; I will answer this while I am here.

You know what? I spent a good deal of time and thought to my last post to you. I thought that perhaps I could present a bit of different view, but it seems this did not happen. You are still all over the place. As I consider your response, I am left wondering whether you bothered to read what I wrote.

YOU WROTE: We assume that god does things with foresight.

Do we, Mario?

YOU WROTE: He has wisdom. When he created the earth and everything in it he said "he was pleased with his creation" or something like that. How can you be pleased with violent storms that do nothing but cause damage?

Is that truly all that storms do? I do not understand your adversity toward nature.

YOU WROTE: Yet he created weather to behave in that manner. He also created moving tectonic plates that rub up against eachother and cause violent earthquakes. Couldn't he see that coming when he created the earth?

Why are you asking such questions. First, you ask them with preconceived ideas, and secondly, who could answer, without presumption?

YOU WROTE: If he didn't create life then violence doesn't mean anything. Nothing is being hurt. It's just energy being expended.

What do you mean by that? :confused:

YOU WROTE: But he created us and other lifeforms that suffer from "killer storms" and other natural catastrophies.

I believed I addressed this in my last post to you.

YOU WROTE: Did adam and eve have to run from tornadoes and hold onto something when there was a violent earthquake in the garden of eden?

I do not know; did they?

YOU WROTE: Somehow we don't picture the garden of eden as having anything that can cause harm in it. Except that pesky snake satan.

Actually, I do not picture it at all.

YOU WROTE: Yet he created the nice sunshine and pleasant rain and butterflies that feed and pollinate the plants and other 'nice' things that we give praise to.

Again, you are making no sense to me.

YOU WROTE: But nobody praises the so-called 'bad' things.

Since you take the Bible so literally, why not quote: "In all things give thanks?"

YOU WROTE: As an aside...if you colour your hair to hide the grey or wear a whig to hide your baldness or alter your body in any way you are disagreeing with god's design. Even cutting your hair or shaving is telling god that you don't like his creation of hair constantly growing. Yet the hair on other parts of our bodies are programmed to grow just to a certain length. And some of us don't have any hair anywhere on our bodies due to a genetic variation. Go figure.

Are you saying that we should not till the soil, not mow the grass? Do you enjoy being ridiculous?

YOU WROTE: Getting back to free choice...free choice can exist as long as god doesn't know how we are going to use it.

Exactly what do you mean here?

YOU WROTE: But revelations tells us that god knows how we are going to behave. That some of us will do this and do that and choose evil over good. Yet these people haven't even been born yet. There's something inherently wrong with god's version of free choice if god let's us decide what we want to do and yet he already knows what we are going to do BEFORE we even do it.
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In the first place, it is Revelation, (singular).

Your argument lacks substance. Is it possible, Mario, that you like attention more than truth. Forgive me if I misjudge you, but, if you are sincere, you need to focus on something. I think you are probably a lot more informed that you seem. I say, you have the same tools, the same resources, and the same world as the rest of us. Much of this you could figure out for yourself.
 
P. M. Thorne said:
S.STAR WROTE: Ignorantly assuming that there is actually a such thing as 'freedom', go right ahead..

Could you expound, (without quoting the entire Bible :)). Thanks. pmt
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:p


Romans 1

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[2] Christ Jesus our Lord.


Thus concluding that there is no such thing as "freedom to do whatever we want", in context of the quote.

Just pointing out that we can't be "free" if we are slaves. Unless there is a such thing as a free slave...
 
Lemming3k said:
Your own words, no randomness, meaning god controls everything, meaning we have no free will to cause randomness therefore he controls all we do including when we sin.
You can stop quoting that same part now as by your own words we have no free will to sin and arnt responsible for it.
Also just to keep you thinking, who created sin and evil? If god is the creator of everything he made sin and evil, so yes he is responsible as he didnt need to create them.
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Here's what my Encyclopaedia Britannica has to say about "free will" :cool:


in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints . Free will is denied by those who espouse any of various forms of determinism. Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt, on revealed religion, and on the universal supposition of responsibility for personal actions that underlies the concepts of law, reward, punishment, and incentive. In theology, the existence of free will must be reconciled with God's omniscience and goodness (in allowing man to choose badly), and with divine grace, which allegedly is necessary for any meritorious act. A prominent feature of modern Existentialism is the concept of a radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing freedom of choice. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, speaks of the individual “condemned to be free” even though his situation may be wholly determined.


This is what the 1599 Geneva Study Bible commentary says:

Proverbs

16:33 The lot is cast into the lap; but its whole disposing [is] p from the LORD.

(p) So that there is nothing that ought to be attributed to fortune: for all things are determined in the counsel of God which will come to pass.

Consequently, since your "ability" comes from God, you ought to realize that the outcomes of your actions should not be attributed to "fortune", or "free will" but rather to the divine mercy and grace.


This is what the Encyclopaedia Britannica says about "sin", to answer your question.

Theologians divide sin into “actual” and “original.” Actual sin is sin in the ordinary sense of the word and consists of evil acts, whether of thought, word, or deed. Original sin (the term can be misleading) is the morally vitiated condition in which one finds oneself at birth as a member of a sinful race. In Genesis 3, this is depicted as an inherited consequence of the first human sin, i.e., that of Adam. Theologians differ as to the interpretation of this narrative, but it is agreed that original sin, however mysterious its origin and nature may be, arises from human beings having come into the world not as isolated individuals but as members of a corporate race inheriting both good and evil features from its past history.

Actual sin is subdivided, on the basis of its gravity, into mortal and venial. This distinction is often difficult to apply but can hardly be avoided. A mortal sin is a deliberate turning away from God; it is a sin in a grave matter that is committed in full knowledge and with the full consent of the sinner's will, and until it is repented it cuts the sinner off from God's sanctifying grace. A venial sin usually involves a less important matter and is committed with less self-awareness of wrongdoing. While a venial sin weakens the sinner's union with God, it is not a deliberate turning from him and so does not wholly block the inflow of sanctifying grace.


Obviously sin can't be inherited from God and therefore is a result of man's rebelliousness.
 
Thus concluding that there is no such thing as "freedom to do whatever we want", in context of the quote.
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You conclude according to your bible quotes theres no such thing as freedom, then persist in saying sin is a result of mans rebelliousness, when we do not have such a thing as freedom to do whatever we want, then where does this freedom to rebel come from? No freedom to do whatever we want means no choice to do what we want, so how then do we choose to be rebellious and sin? So therefore by your own bible quotes we do not have that choice.
 
Lemming3K: Stick to your guns. Our freedom is always condition; our choices are always limited; our illusions are that we can be absolutely free, and make whatever choice we desire. Thus, the verse, "There is a way that seems right unto man, but the way is the way of death." I did not look this up, but that is close enough. To me, sin is anything that keeps us from our purpose; that is, that hinders us from knowing our purpose, or performing it...adhering to it, etc. If we avoid having more than we need for health and sustenance, (so that our acquisitions do not consume more energy and time than their worth to us), and if we are moderate in all things, and do what we do, not for reward, but because we love God, our time here will serve us well.

pmt
 
By what means can you tell that you have a choice?
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And by what means can you tell we dont?(without mentioning or quoting from that book by the way as the only argeument you have when you use it is 'it says im right, therefore i am')
I was pointing out your quotes contradict themselves, only one can be correct, we either have choice and freewill to sin or we sin because its gods will, from what most christians say we have freewill but your quotes insist we dont, i feel you must be slightly confused to quote complete opposites and carry on insisting your right, the only proof you have that you are right is the book you constantly quote from, yet, it has also proved you wrong and even according to other christians you are wrong, surely for your religion to work we need the freewill to commit sin free of god? A freewill you insist we dont have.
 
Thankyou for the post P.M. Thorne, you perhaps are correct, i simply believe in freewill and that we are all responsible for our own actions, maybe we are accountable for them one day maybe not, i shall worry about that if it ever comes, i always felt if there was a god he would be compassionate towards everyone regardless of religion so long as they had tried to do whats right/good for the person/people concerned at the points in their life when they were needed.
 
RosaMagika said:
Needless to say, the religious approach is much easier to do and to follow, as with the philosophic approach it is obvious that that needed attitude, too, is a matter of change, and choice. And as soon as someting is a matter of choice, it is also a matter of doubt. Doubt, when applied to basic terms, is counterproductive when it comes to survival, hence doubt is rejected -- hence religious belief is favoured -- that is, by some.
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That's a nice theory, RM, but it's too simplistic. No doubt there are many who like their religion to be an explanantion plus an answer - that holds for the mainstream religions as well as superstitions. But it's escapist.

For those outside religion, its conclusive attribute is doubt and that's why they need cute theories like this to explain it. But for us the decisive element is faith - and it doesn't preclude doubt. Doubt is healthy as long as it doesn't undermine faith in God. Doubt is what makes you look for answers, faith is what makes you look to more than just science to find them. Hope is what makes someone try to save their marriage one more time - statistics show the doubt people have in their ability to save their marriage. One does not replace the other.

So doubt is not rejected, it's made obedient to God. Just like ethical behaviour is 'science made obedient to humanity'. Faith doesn't provide an answer, it provides a direction. Choice does not suffer, and doubt does not disappear.

As a side note: are you familiar with the field of phenomenology? (this is an excellent site, btw). This is what made me thought to ask you:
"Some phenomenologists maintain that the phenomenological method does not have as a goal to explain the phenomena it describes (see Westphal, 1984). They maintain that explanation, following the behavioral science approach of Hume, Mill, and Hempel, is rooted in being able to discover universal laws which can be used to predict future behavior. It is this sense of explanation which phenomenology does not seek to posit. This does not mean that a phenomenological approach does not aim at understanding and interpretation, for it does. However, it does not seek explanation of a law-governed predictive nature--rather, it seeks to discover motives and intentions in the particular environment of the phenomena under consideration. To put it another way, the stated desire of the phenomenologist is not to find an explanation for a problem as much as to achieve an adequate understanding of it. Phenomenology of Religion​
 
Lemming3k said:
... i always felt if there was a god he would be compassionate towards everyone regardless of religion so long as they had tried to do whats right/good for the person/people concerned at the points in their life when they were needed.
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How hard should they try and what if they fail? Someone quoted Yoda (I'm not sure if it was him though): "Love or do not love, there is no try". If God had to enforce love as we enforce our laws, what happens to people who sin? Should God accept sin unconditionally?

An appeal to sincerity is an appeal to pride. You're saying that you're "good enough". Isn't that for God to decide?
 
Lemming3k said:
... only one can be correct, we either have choice and freewill to sin or we sin because its gods will
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Do you have the freedom to kill someone? Can you answer that question using the same criteria above?
 
Again that last quote is in context with previous quotes, that doesnt mean i believe what he quoted to be correct, you yourself already said he is wrong and we do have a degree of freewill.
But to answer your question, i stand by what i said, we all have the freedom to do what we want, that doesnt make it right but the freedom is there, as you would put it we have the freedom to sin.
 
How hard should they try and what if they fail? Someone quoted Yoda (I'm not sure if it was him though): "Love or do not love, there is no try".
If God had to enforce love as we enforce our laws, what happens to people who sin? Should God accept sin unconditionally?
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Yes i believe your correct that is a yoda quote, but anyways, as they have free will and there may or may not be a god to punish them it is up to the individual how hard they try(its up to them if they are good or bad(kind or unkind) in the first place), its not about if they succeed or fail its about if they have the good intentions and are willing to try and help someone or do what is right, i didnt mention sin or what god should accept as i dont believe in god, im simply saying if there is a god he should be compassionate towards those who do good regardless of if they are muslim, christian, atheist etc, as opposed to religious views that only people of that religion can be good.
An appeal to sincerity is an appeal to pride. You're saying that you're "good enough". Isn't that for God to decide?
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Where did i say i decide anything or whos good enough? Im saying IF there is a god (a true loving god) he will show compassion to people of all religions for their good deeds, regardless of their religious belief, is peace and love(especially where gods concerned) all about what god you believe in or what you do and how you treat people?
 
No, it's not. But it does matter what the standards are. God does not exclude people on the basis of affiliation, after all, but on whether they know Him or not. That knowledge is expressed as love, but can still be denied nontheless.
 
Jenyar,

I was talking about "explanation" + "evaluation/attitude", not about explanation and "answer".

What you quoted from that site doesn't seem to say anything signifficantly different from what I think.

What you call "direction" is the same as what I mean by "evaluation" or "attitude".


No, it's not. But it does matter what the standards are. God does not exclude people on the basis of affiliation, after all, but on whether they know Him or not. That knowledge is expressed as love, but can still be denied nontheless.
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What are you saying? That Lemming3k and I will be excluded -- because even though we may love, we deny God?
 
Jenyar said:
Do you want to be included?
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How am I supposed to want to be included into someting I don't know?
The answer is: I don't know, I cannot say. I can neither say that I want to be included/excluded, neither can I say that I don't want to be included/excluded.
 
RosaMagika said:
How am I supposed to want to be included into someting I don't know?
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But we have already established that you do know. You know love, which is the common ground we stand on. If you were outside love you would have wanted to be included in it, no so? And even you're not - wanting to love and be loved is an expression of desire - a desire to experience something that you have no real *knowledge* of, just a rumour, and idea, an ideal, a vague reflection of it in a mirror or a book - but still something more *real* in comparison than anything else.
 
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