You HAVE to believe

[§outh§tar]

I am surprised at your response. Stunned.

Personally, I intuitively discard a person who often, in public says about themselves, "I am good. I am trustworthy. I am honest."
Those who truly are good, trustworthy and honest do not talk about it often, and in public.
I believe one should beware of people who profess themselves to be good people.

I should be the one stunned at your response. Perhaps in this light anyone who claims to be "one with the Father" and makes Himself one with the God and claims He is the way, the truth, and the life: we had better be weary of such a fellow. In fact, I don't believe they go about going from city to city claiming they will resurrect in three days and be seen in the clouds from every corner of the earth (although we Copernicans know this to be false).

Besides that, are you really saying you judge people by their words?

No, you haven't. But you have also said how it is impossible to have faith by willing it. This way, salvation seems completely out of reach for you.

This way a person is (genetically/socially/psychologically?) preconditioned to have faith. Habitual churchgoing, habitual Bible reading, habitual praying, habitual congregation with saints of the same feather, all these can make a person have faith. If you made a drunk repent and gave him a Bible, after which you abandoned him claiming God's Spirit would direct his path, he most surely would go back to the bottle sooner or later. That is why you always see Christians doing follow-ups, knocking on doors and so on. They must continue in their indoctrination, make it seem like the church is a stable place, make it seem like a warm smile will always be available, and this, this, is what builds faith.

Could you say that you *want* salvation though?
If you simply ask yourself, without thinking what you should or should not want -- could you say that you want salvation?

I have been thinking about this today. It seems that my heart wants to go back to being a Christian (perhaps because of the indoctrination described above) but my mind says "NO! You will be lying to yourself!" I know in my head I can never go back to Christianity unless something spectacular like what happened to Paul happens to me. After the knowledge I have acquired in my independent, 'unbiased' study, to return to Christianity would be sheer lunacy. And yet in my heart I want that church family, that good feeling when singing praises, that hope I had when I prayed, I just want it back. So I can't really say "yes" or "no". This is something that plagues me and is probably why every other post of mine refers to Christianity (yes I overheard 'vert); I can't let go even if I want to in this head of mine. It is an absurdity; I cannot do what I want. It frustrates me and probably makes me lash out at Christianity more than I should. So it is probably the 'feel good feeling' I am after, but I really don't know. I am both incontent and content with my decision. Curses! Makes you want to scream curses at somebody up there. But then you fear.

You give yourself no positive credit.

See your loop: You cannot trust yourself because you are a depraved sinner. You therefore need an external authority whom you can trust. But since you are a depraved sinner and you cannot trust yourself, you cannot trust your understanding of whatever anyone tells you. So whatever anyone tells you is of no use to you anyway.

So it would take a miracle for you to believe. But if a miracle would happen, you would doubt it -- because you doubt yourself, you would doubt the miracle because you would think you saw wrong, depraved sinner that you are, and unable to trust yourself and your own judgement.

I think I have thought this way for some two or three years. But I don't think that way anymore. What happened, what have I done? I can't say, there is no recipe, no plan. Simply put, I got tired of thinking that way. But you cannot will yourself to become tired of something, it just has to happen.

I want to "snap out of it" but I can't. Which probably explains why the sudden anti-free will surge, eh? It is probably absurd (I use that word a lot don't I?) to try to get rid of a lifetime of indoctrination in a couple of months but Jeezus! There is nothing I can do - I wanted to get away from Christianity; I did (oversimplification). Now what else does my mind want from me? How can I be listening to Christian music and devoting my time to reading refutations of Christian apologetics? Good Lord knows I don't want to and I really don't care anymore but I can't help myself. Which leads to the question of whether it is this same God trying to pull me back in and whether it is ungrateful ol' me resisting and pulling back. I wish there was some way to take pliers and remove the thought of Christianity from my head. Rather than just becoming indifferent to it, I am beginning to loathe it because it won't leave me alone (or I won't leave it alone).

Then tell me what does it take that you would consider someone as trustworthy -- what should this person be like?

I don't think I can trust anyone. Maybe for practical purposes I can trust them up here in my noggin. But in my heart, no. Can't be done. After what Christianity has done to me, don't you think I deserve to be suspicious? I mean good Lord: I was talking to my friends and I told him if I could, I would become a monk FOR LIFE (we are talking celibacy and no cable modems) just to spend time with God. I think it would be pretty hard to trust again after something like that. Even if I wanted to trust someone, I don't think I could. Which brings back the question of if there is indeed any relationship at all between "I will" and "I do". Gosh, I feel angry at nobody just writing right now..

No. You are forgetting something very important. For our reason to work properly, it needs data. Data takes time and energy to gather and analyze it. We only have a limited amount of time and energy. So we, forced by the immediacy of life (for we must eat and all that), act.
Act somehow, even though we know we have not collected all the data that we could or think that we should have.
This lack of data we compensate for with trust. We cannot but trust, whether we are aware of this trust or not.

How much we trust (whether we end up abulic or acting on blind faith) and what we think about our trust, how we evaluate it -- this is what actually is the issue when we are talking about trust. So this is what we ought to talk about.

What about failed trust?

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Well actually, fool me twice - shame on me. I don't aim to expend and devote any energy in some trust network that will probably end up being misguided. If God can disappoint you, how much more human beings?

Besides I don't determine who or what type of things I am predisposed to trusting more than any others. Gullible twat I am. Now that I think of it, what sort of idiotic moron would trust the Bible to be inerrant just because that what he was told? Good Lord! I should laugh at any one today who makes such a fatal blunder.

There's also the part about getting into one of them circles: I trust him because he is trustworthy. Don't you think it is better not to touch it at all. Maybe just a mental trust but nothing devoted or superfluous?

You just said, "God, give me patience, but make it quick!"

Yes well. Patience is like an hourglass. When that hourglass empties itself, patience turns to action. I don't think there's any think wrong with 'reminding' God that the hourglass is running out and when it does I won't have any choice but to act.
Same with a lamp. If the oil was going out and I asked God to refill it for me but He never did guess what? When the light goes out, I am going to find my own way.

You are capable of trust. You just don't see it. Yet.
And you don't trust your trust.

Every irrational thing that you do or believe is not trust yet; but trust defnitely is irrational.

When you tie your shoelaces, you then forget about them, and you *trust* the knot won't become undone. If you wouldn't trust, you'd be checking your shoelaces all the time. Yet when they do become undone, this surprises you, at least a little, doesn't it?

I think it's sheer laziness that makes me not want to check my shoelaces until I feel myself stepping on them but that'll work.

As for being capable of trust, that is quite irrelevant. What I want and what I do don't seem to be coinciding too much. I don't even think I know what I want. Just plenty of assumptions in an endless circle.. round and round and I can't get out.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHETHER YOU WILL END UP IN HELL.

Right now, times may be hard. But you don't know whether you will get to hell or not -- until you actually get there.
If you believe in the Christian explanation of hell, then you will see where you'll come after you die here. But as long as you are alive, you do not know what is going to happen then.

To quote from the most famous verse of all time:

John 3:16
16For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life

The obvious insinuation being He who does not believe will perish. Interestingly enough, I can no more intellectually believe in hell but I still think about it. As paradoxical as an accusation Jenyar made against me the other day of "believing in an atheist god". And Good Lord knows Jenyar has a load of preconceptions about me that he lets loose every now and then.

To have it your way:
NOW, you are not part of "those James is speaking about (with the fanciful extrapolation)".
But ONCE IN THE PAST, you considered yourself to be part of those. It was that time IN THE PAST that you put all your trust in Him. And for THAT TIME IN THE PAST, the verse from James does apply to you.
Let's remind you that you now don't have the faith you had once, and that that "tremendous insult" was directed at that faith that you had once. So that verse from James applies.

I say it doesn't.

Fight me.

It is of consequence to yourself now.
That insult was directed at your "previous state", and your reaction shows (reaction: you felt insulted) that you were (back then) going against that verse in James, you were boasting with your faith.
And you were boasting with your faith, this is the bad thing about it, the bad thing whose consequences we can see *now*.

That you took insult, and the way you took insult, helps us to reconstruct what went on in your past. And what went on back then lead to what is now.

So maybe my ego took a little beating. So what? I tried hard to please (my construction of?) God and then He failed me. And for some reason I feel like a loser even though I don't want to and don't understand why I should. If there is anything more absurdly irrational... How anyone can be said once they become enlightened and yearn to go back to what they abhor is beyond me. Since the God who 'betrayed' me is no more relevant to me, I can't be angry at Him since that would be absurd and pointless. So somehow I think the anger is being directed to me for being daft enough to believe in a farce. That's where my ego comes in. Questioning my faith reminds me of how much I willed so strongly to believe it was all true. I couldn't have been totally misguided in my experience I say; something of it had to be true. But I can't find anyway to justify my delusion.

I trust myself that way.

A dangerous game you play. Worst of all is letting your self down; you can never recover. Better to be indifferent.

I know it hurts.
But don't be cynical.

Just wait till Jenyar reads my response.

Human societies, I think all of them, have the concepts of "good" and "bad", or "good" and "evil". They discern between "right" and "wrong".
The actual contents of these concepts may vary throughout societies, but the fact that these concepts are present testifies of that certain distinction being made between phenomena.

Maybe it's just biological. Maybe..

We cannot use cognitive patterns ad lib, and apply them whenever we find it convenient.

You're just mad because it worked for me

Decisions are made consciously, they just take more time than you are willing to admit at the moment.

I've made my case in the other thread. I'll pound a concession out of you if it's the last thing I do.

You are looking at trust and deciding statically, as if trust were something that can be declared and accepted, just like that.

I know this well; I had "friends" who declared that they are my friends, and then they expected me to think them friends, even though they did nothing that would, in my estimation, justify calling what we had "friendship".

The other option besides mechanically declaring and accepting trust is to not trust at all. And you seem to be wandering between these two extremes -- as if these two extremes (and some unindetifiable in-between) is all there is.
What did we say about the circles of thinking -- and how we can enter a new, bigger circle only after the smaller one cannot accommodate us anymore?

But my circle is my niche.. Think anyway and I'll have to change a whole lot of premises. Mechanically declaring trust doesn't work, but not trusting at all. If I didn't trust anyone, well this wouldn't happen to me again. If I were to find some middle ground in these trust extremes as you say, I don't see how that would solve my problem. I would just have to trust that trusting someone does not end up making me feel like an idiot for not learning from my mistakes. And in so doing, starting a circle that says: I trust because I have to trust. Either way we end in circular reasoning, so can there really be differention between any mode? Similar to what I was asking about why people can accept free will but reject Christianity. They are all circles, each with its own validation within the circle. Except not trusting anyone doesn't feel 'right', but I'll be damned if I know what does.

And you do not believe in forgiveness, or what?

The "theory" of sin is part of Christianity, and the "theory" of forgivenes is also part of that same Christianity. Meaning that you have to apply both the "theory" of sin as well as the "theory" of forgiveness if you want to be true to Christianity.

Let's not forget the theory of predestination, which invalidates the concept of forgiveness. I could apply any combination of theories I wanted as long as I stayed true to the circle's them of unwavering faith. That is the joy of circle life.

It will come. Things take time.

I've waited an awful long time and nothing has come. The hourglass can only drain for so long.

No. What is really troubling you, and I think you can see it, is that "consciously embracing a position" looks as if it were a one-time act.
And it is so: but only if we observe it in retrospection.

The perspective we choose to view things does change the way we see them: whether we observe someting ex post or ex ante makes a difference in what we actually see.

While if we are in the present, we may be *in the process of* "embracing a position", and we are doing it consciously (we can observe that we are weighing arguments), but until we have actually *finished* that process, we can't name it "embracing a postion" at all!

While we are in this process, to us, it is just some shapeless thing that we are in; but what this thing is, we will be able to tell only once it is finished.
What it is we can tell only after we have entered the bigger circle, and this we can do, only when we in fact can.

Because as long as we are in the process, we are in some smaller circle, and we can assume that there will come a bigger one to accomodate us, but until we are so far, we cannot know what that bigger circle is.

You guys keep with the ex post, ex ante thing but I can never understand what you are talking about. If we think about thinking before, after, or during the thinking, we are still thinking so what changes? I am not sure what exactly I am supposed to be getting.

This is what it looks like, yes.

But all this can be explained with your circles theory, or with the "holistic explosion", and it is reasonable to believe that all human knowledge is gained that way.

We will never learn anything but what we know if that is the way it is to be - in the sense that we will be analyzing and critiquing everything through lenses of preconception. That is a slow and painful way to learn anything and we don't have time. Sad thing is we can't change it. We wouldn't even know what to change it to because doing so would involve thinking in circles. How damning is that? We are born into an elevator that only goes down.

This is why I protest when we do not factor God's 'responsibility' into the equation, He has some control (if we are to be honest, full control) over what our predispositions are.

All-knowing does not mean all-controlling-and-exercising-this-control!

If I was omnipotent and omniscient and I created you and you grew up to be a mass murderer, who would you say created you with the traits of a mass murderer? Who created you with the predisposition to killing? Who knew you were going to kill before hand but created you anyway? Would you think I was irrational if I got angry at you nonetheless and tortured you for all time even though I am clearly responsible?

I think this is another cum hoc ergo propter hoc. We must first establish whether we are in any position to assume/know that belief is the precedent for action. For in doing so, we must then concede that action is the precedent for belief, an admission which immerses us in yet another circle.

Technically, this is true. But we do not always start everything from scratch. We do learn and remember things.

And once we have learned and remembered things, this then can function as belief, and if we act on what we have learned and remembered, then this is action.

You do not learn from scratch each morning how to brush your teeth, do you?

I'm supposed to brush my teeth??

But still, that belief came from a prior action. And that prior action came from a belief in a prior action which in turn came from a belief which came from a prior action which came from a belief... bla bla for ever.

Yes we do. Only that "I chose to accept something" is said in hindsight -- this is the factual part.
What is problematic is "I will choose to accept something" -- this is the dogmatic part.

If "I will choose" is problematic, how can we accept "I chose" as factual? Until "I will choose" is resolved, "I chose" too must remain problematic, no?

“ How again did we reach the conclusion that if I want God's grace I will do what I think has to be done? ”

We reached it by insight. ”

Whose insight?

Ours.
(Yes, I know your objection.)

It's madness. Sheer madness. Lunacy it is, that people don't see that thinking like this gets us nowhere - fast. Of all the options, why human beings recieved this one is beyond me.

Who initiated (in the truest sense) that insight?

They "were there", and we, due to holistic causality, "worked on those thougts".

Aah, but press on we must. Who put those thoughts there? Did we have any choice on whether or not we wanted to work on those thoughts?

I think that the way it was, they way you knew it, the way you were taught, it was not sufficient for you -- that's all.
But this doesn't mean all faith and religion is lost and over for you.

There had better be a pretty damn good parlor trick this time around. No resurrections will do it for me. Something out of this world. I'm done with religion. I'm going to find my own answers and then reject them because believing in them will require circularity. Puh-raise Gawd!

"A bad case of misattribution" would be if you were to think that God is that old man with a beard.
But if we have no clear-cut definition of God, then we can also hardly speak of misattributions.

We might not know what He is but we know what He isn't (with respect to the Christian God that is). Apart from that, I have no clue.

See here

And as for Christians who tell you there is no "middle ground":

That would be the Man who claims He is the "Way, the Truth, and the Light[/i]. And also that no one comes to the Father, except through Me. (Does this count as public self-aggrandizement?). Given this, you saying:

Fuck 'em.​

Counts as blasphemy.

Matthew 12
31"Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men

And it seems too like your sin will not be forgiven you even if you beg for forgiveness (is this not a contradiction of the prior statement?). Congrats on buying yourself a one way ticket straight down that elevator. Isn't it nice to know Christianity offers affordable plans?

As an interesting sidenote, if God (Jesus) will forgive every sin and blasphemy commited against Him, then How is it that God (the Spirit) will not forgive any sin and blasphemy commited against Him? The paradox can only be reconciled if we admit that either Jesus or the Spirit has to be God, the other cannot. Hmm..

Those people don't care about *you*, they only care about propagating what they think Christianity is, and you are merely an object in their play.
They give you no credit whatsoever, they undermine the faith that you do have, and they treat you as if you were an uncapable mindless thing.
It's not worth to be an object in someone's play.

Isn't that the point of not trusting anyone?

If one SIMPLY DOESN'T BELIEVE in God ("simply doesn't believe" -- I couldn't find another phrase for that), but cannot identify reasons for that unbelief, or has reasons that have nothing to do with God -- then I think this person is still elligible for God's grace.

Even if we are to discuss independent of Christian theology, I don't know how you arrived at that supposition.

By experience.

These mysterious answers aren't helping you know.

I am saying hat things take time. Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime sometimes. Years.
And blessed are those who persevere.

You, on the other hand, seem to be viewing your faith as a school test, that actually has a school frame -- a something that is to be studied for a week or two, and then absolved, and then you have the grade written in your report, and that's it.
On top of it, you want to be the one who writes your own test, and grades it (as if you were the teacher), and then, somehow, you are to put yourself into the role of the student and solve the test.

In other words, you are assuming you already are in that bigger circle, while you, at the same time, see that you are still in the smaller one.

I am in the bigger circle. I have to be. All this time and no progress would be.. a waste of time. And we don't have time. I have abandoned faith anyway.. it did not serve me in the long run. I will look for a new master in indifference.

Alright.
Please answer the question:
If you sin, does that mean God is not helping you?
If God indeed were as Christianity says He is (good, just, loving), would this mean that you would not sin? ”

No. I want you to answer those questions as *you* see fit, don't give me some Bible quotes.

If the God of Christianity is true, then I cannot have sinned. For the reasons I have demonstrated earlier where He fashions my predispositions to certain faults and indeed, my sinful nature. This nullifies any free will objection (never understood those). So if I sin, you could say God is responsible.

No. You are allowing for only these options:
Either
1. God does it all, and we are puppets.
2. We do it all, but then God has his fun punishing us.

If 1, then we could also have no knowledge of God -- as entities, in order to be puppets, do not know they are puppets, and so for them, there is also no puppetmaster: it is the puppets who think it is only them and nobody else.

2 is just negativistic wishful thinking.

Note that 1 and 2 can be mixed up though, into a hellish brew called relativism.

1)We forget that God is omnipotent. He can create us to think we are free when we are really not.
2)iI've shown why it is true. He made me sinful; He punishes me for being sinful.

relativism isn't that bad once you get used to thinking like that.

No. Your reading is a possible reading, certainly, but I think you are going into extremes. The way I read that passage, it says, "You can't rule over circumstances. [Sometimes it looks like you can. But this should not make you presumptuous.]"

Conservative interpretations are no fun.

No.
Omniscient does not mean all-controlling-and-exercising-this-control!

If God knew beforehand that I was going to finish this post at 1:41 AM but for some reason, I finished it at 1:43, then either God is not omniscient or He is not omniscient. Don't see any other way out of this one.

Well it's actually, gasp: 1:43 AM (I swear I had no idea). I am dead tired after responding to this long post of yours; the vitriol wore off the tireder I got until I just started arguing for arguing's sake. Sheesh. Adios. Both of you tagteaming lil' ole' me is no fun.

 

[water]

Also, if Jesus has paid the debt for my sins, why do I need forgiveness?
/.../
Excellent. Now please explain to me who created me with those faults.
/.../
And for the second part, please explain to me who created me knowing very well I would succumb to those faults and yet will still torment me in hell for my failure to overcome these faults?

Your argument is only possible because you are taking the position that, in effect, there is no you.

If there is no you, then all there is are your sins (that are pre-planned anyway) and Jesus' payment for them -- indeed, why should forgiveness be needed then?!

I have been waiting an awfully long time for God to reveal/manifest Himself "in my heart" but nothing has happened so far. Will He blame me then?

I think you are suffering under a dire performance anxiety, and it is directed both at you yourself and others whom you hope to perform.

 

[water]

I should be the one stunned at your response. Perhaps in this light anyone who claims to be "one with the Father" and makes Himself one with the God and claims He is the way, the truth, and the life: we had better be weary of such a fellow. In fact, I don't believe they go about going from city to city claiming they will resurrect in three days and be seen in the clouds from every corner of the earth (although we Copernicans know this to be false).

Besides that, are you really saying you judge people by their words?

Yes. By *certain* words.
There are things one should not say about oneself to just anyone.

This way a person is (genetically/socially/psychologically?) preconditioned to have faith. Habitual churchgoing, habitual Bible reading, habitual praying, habitual congregation with saints of the same feather, all these can make a person have faith.

That's just it!!
What faith is created by that?!
A habit, a mechanical repetition -- not a living faith!

If you made a drunk repent and gave him a Bible, after which you abandoned him claiming God's Spirit would direct his path, he most surely would go back to the bottle sooner or later. That is why you always see Christians doing follow-ups, knocking on doors and so on. They must continue in their indoctrination, make it seem like the church is a stable place, make it seem like a warm smile will always be available, and this, this, is what builds faith.

... Or it merely strengthens the habit.

I have been thinking about this today. It seems that my heart wants to go back to being a Christian (perhaps because of the indoctrination described above) but my mind says "NO! You will be lying to yourself!" I know in my head I can never go back to Christianity unless something spectacular like what happened to Paul happens to me. After the knowledge I have acquired in my independent, 'unbiased' study, to return to Christianity would be sheer lunacy. And yet in my heart I want that church family, that good feeling when singing praises, that hope I had when I prayed, I just want it back. So I can't really say "yes" or "no". This is something that plagues me and is probably why every other post of mine refers to Christianity (yes I overheard 'vert); I can't let go even if I want to in this head of mine. It is an absurdity; I cannot do what I want. It frustrates me and probably makes me lash out at Christianity more than I should. So it is probably the 'feel good feeling' I am after, but I really don't know. I am both incontent and content with my decision. Curses! Makes you want to scream curses at somebody up there. But then you fear.

This is understandable. You want the "feel good feeling", and the way you were brought up, you have become to connect it to (your kind of) Christianity, and (your kind of) Christianity alone -- as if (your kind of) Christianity had the ultimate monopoly over that "feel good feeling".

It should be logically understandable that no earthly institution can hold such monopoly.

I want to "snap out of it" but I can't. Which probably explains why the sudden anti-free will surge, eh?

No, I don't think it can be "snapped out of".
Yes, and it explains the sudden anti-free will surge.

It is probably absurd (I use that word a lot don't I?) to try to get rid of a lifetime of indoctrination in a couple of months but Jeezus! There is nothing I can do - I wanted to get away from Christianity; I did (oversimplification). Now what else does my mind want from me? How can I be listening to Christian music and devoting my time to reading refutations of Christian apologetics? Good Lord knows I don't want to and I really don't care anymore but I can't help myself. Which leads to the question of whether it is this same God trying to pull me back in and whether it is ungrateful ol' me resisting and pulling back. I wish there was some way to take pliers and remove the thought of Christianity from my head. Rather than just becoming indifferent to it, I am beginning to loathe it because it won't leave me alone (or I won't leave it alone).

I think it is now time to separate between

your experience of Christianity so far

and

your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

Up until your deconversion, the two were one the same to you. You did not separate them.

But as you studied, you began to see that your experience of Christianity so far is *not* what your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

So you took the first step and abandoned your experience of Christianity so far, abandoned it because it was not reliable, not logical, full of contradictions and so on. Which is understandable.

But, at that first stage, along with abandoning your experience of Christianity so far, you also abanadoned your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like -- as at that early point of your deconversion, the two were still one and the same.

So now, you are left with guilt and doubt.
I think that if you consider this dichotomy I presented above, it should be of help to you.

What ought to be abandoned as the ultimate measurement of faith is your experience of Christianity so far.
But this should not be at the cost of also abandoning your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

See, it's not nearly as bad as it may look.

I don't think I can trust anyone. Maybe for practical purposes I can trust them up here in my noggin. But in my heart, no. Can't be done.

Just because something isn't here yet does not mean that it couldn't be or that it couldn't come.

After what Christianity has done to me, don't you think I deserve to be suspicious?

I understand that you are suspicious, definitely. I was too.

I mean good Lord: I was talking to my friends and I told him if I could, I would become a monk FOR LIFE (we are talking celibacy and no cable modems) just to spend time with God.

I will be so bold as to say that your wishes back then were bound by your experience of Christianity so far -- and I dare say that you weren't so much trying to please God, but that you were much more trying to please fellow believers. As to you, it seemed, or was so for a matter of fact, that their love for you depended on you "wanting to please God". So by going to extremes like wanting to become a monk, you were trying to both buy and justify their love for you, and you were also trying to both buy and justify God's love for you. After all, it has been implanted into you that "God will love you if you obey Him".
This is just my theory so far, but it seems plausible.

I think it would be pretty hard to trust again after something like that. Even if I wanted to trust someone, I don't think I could. Which brings back the question of if there is indeed any relationship at all between "I will" and "I do".

What is more of a problem: You trusting other people -- or you being afraid that other people would not find you trustworthy?

What about failed trust?

If a failed trust turned out to have such horrid consequences, it is in place to ask why this is so. It is most likely because in that relationship of trust, more was invested than was actually named. If your whole identity and self-worth depended on trusting certain people and those people trusting you in return, then, when they broke your trust, they also broke your identity and self-worth. This is definitely a great defeat for a person.

Like when we're young and we fall in love, and when the relationship ends, we feel it is the end of the world and we think there is no hope for us anymore, just death. This is because we have invested all our identity into that relationship, we have defined ourselves by that relationship, we felt we are nothing without it. And when such a relationship ends, we feel like we have lost ourselves indeed.

Ask yourself: Will I die if you die?
(That "you" is just any person you can think of.)
Even though you might want to answer "yes" -- you know that you won't die, even though your friends leave you or don't trust you anymore, or you can't trust them anymore.

Well actually, fool me twice - shame on me. I don't aim to expend and devote any energy in some trust network that will probably end up being misguided. If God can disappoint you, how much more human beings?

If you, in advance, doubt that something could work out fine -- then don't be surprised if it indeed does not work out fine.

Also, what disappointed you was the God of your experience of Christianity so far.
This is the only God you know, the only God you know is the God of your experience of Christianity so far. Your knowledge of God is biased, and stained, with the specific experience of Christianity you've had so far.
So to blame God for all that, is, to me, not fair.

And thirdly, as far as trust between people is concerned: I'm afraid you have too high expectations. Not too high because humans are fallible beings. But too high because you expect more from that trust than can actually be achieved in a relationship of trust. I'm afraid your identity and self-worth depend on others too much.

Besides I don't determine who or what type of things I am predisposed to trusting more than any others. Gullible twat I am.

Trust what seems to be reasonable to trust; trust what you now find reasonable to trust.
I think this is as good as it gets.

There's also the part about getting into one of them circles: I trust him because he is trustworthy. Don't you think it is better not to touch it at all. Maybe just a mental trust but nothing devoted or superfluous?

We don't trust "just like that". We trust what we have some reason to trust.
Noone can neither expect nor demand you to trust.

And as for trusting God "because He is trustworthy" -- I think this might be out of your reach right now (even though you were used to just the opposite), it is defnitely out of my reach now.
I used to be very down because of that. But then I figured it is better that I now do what I think I should do that I at the same time I know that I *can* do. In the eyes of some religionists, this may not be much -- but I am being true to myself.

Yes well. Patience is like an hourglass. When that hourglass empties itself, patience turns to action. I don't think there's any think wrong with 'reminding' God that the hourglass is running out and when it does I won't have any choice but to act.
Same with a lamp. If the oil was going out and I asked God to refill it for me but He never did guess what? When the light goes out, I am going to find my own way.

It is just that you do not know how much sand is there in the hourglass, or how much oil is there in the lamp.

As for being capable of trust, that is quite irrelevant. What I want and what I do don't seem to be coinciding too much. I don't even think I know what I want. Just plenty of assumptions in an endless circle.. round and round and I can't get out.

Then maybe you want the wrong things.
Or you want the right things but you are not getting at them the right way.

It all may seem like an endless circle to you now -- but to an outside observer like me, it doesn't. You have changed a lot since you came here.

To quote from the most famous verse of all time:

John 3:16
16For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life

The obvious insinuation being He who does not believe will perish.

And that first part For God so loved the world went right past you ...

Interestingly enough, I can no more intellectually believe in hell but I still think about it. As paradoxical as an accusation Jenyar made against me the other day of "believing in an atheist god". And Good Lord knows Jenyar has a load of preconceptions about me that he lets loose every now and then.

You have been saying "Good Lord" a lot lately!

I too think that you are currently believing in an "atheist god". The way you speak about God lately, you are describing a stern and unforgiving parent that couldn't care less for you.

I say it doesn't.

Fight me.

Hah!
You saw in the next paragraph that I made my point, and you agreed, albeit with hesitation.

So maybe my ego took a little beating. So what?

So everything.
Everytime our "ego takes a little beating" we are angry and we want to fight back. But sometimes we see that the other party, the one who beat our ego, had a good point.

I tried hard to please (my construction of?) God and then He failed me.

Exactly. As I said before, what you had was a certain construction of God, based on your experience of Christianity so far, and you have seen that that experience is not all there is, neither is it reliable. Thus also a construct of God based on such an experience is not likely to be reliable, or be all there is.
No wonder that "God failed you".

And for some reason I feel like a loser even though I don't want to and don't understand why I should.

Well, you feel like a loser in comparison to your old self: You are not pleasing that old construct of God anymore; but you also don't have a new relationship with God yet. So it feels like you are "doing nothing" -- you definitely end up feeling like a loser. Which doesn't necessarily make you one.

Since the God who 'betrayed' me is no more relevant to me, I can't be angry at Him since that would be absurd and pointless.

Yes.

So somehow I think the anger is being directed to me for being daft enough to believe in a farce.

I can understand how it feels this way now, yes.

That's where my ego comes in. Questioning my faith reminds me of how much I willed so strongly to believe it was all true.

So now, in hindsight, you think that you have ***willed*** yourself to believe?
This is odd, coming from you.

I couldn't have been totally misguided in my experience I say; something of it had to be true. But I can't find anyway to justify my delusion.

Not all of your experience was bad, this is definitely true. And your experience, whatever it was, is certainly good for something -- even if it is to show you what you should *not do*.

As for delusions: If one wants to *justify* what he himself thinks a *delusion* -- then this is madness!


I think that what you really need is to accept that all that time in the past was not lost, it was not in vain, and it was not a bad time.

I trust myself that way.

A dangerous game you play. Worst of all is letting your self down; you can never recover. Better to be indifferent.

I can not be indifferent to myself, not anymore. There was a time when I was. But I became ill, physically ill, about 6 months of 24/7 headache and nausea. This is a practical lesson that taught me how important it is to take care of myself.

As for letting yourself down: How can that be? One can let oneself down only if one assumes to be more than one actually is.

I know it hurts.
But don't be cynical.

Just wait till Jenyar reads my response.

And then what?

Human societies, I think all of them, have the concepts of "good" and "bad", or "good" and "evil". They discern between "right" and "wrong".
The actual contents of these concepts may vary throughout societies, but the fact that these concepts are present testifies of that certain distinction being made between phenomena.

Maybe it's just biological. Maybe..

There is no such thing as "just biological". Sometimes, we only have a biological explanation for something, but this doesn't mean that no other is possible.

I've made my case in the other thread. I'll pound a concession out of you if it's the last thing I do.

Try me.

But my circle is my niche.. Think anyway and I'll have to change a whole lot of premises. Mechanically declaring trust doesn't work, but not trusting at all. If I didn't trust anyone, well this wouldn't happen to me again. If I were to find some middle ground in these trust extremes as you say, I don't see how that would solve my problem. I would just have to trust that trusting someone does not end up making me feel like an idiot for not learning from my mistakes.

Exactly. I think this is something very good that you have suggested here!

And in so doing, starting a circle that says: I trust because I have to trust.

Don't beat yourself down right away.
We trust because we trust, yes. But *where* we direct that trust, and how much we put into it -- this is what should concern us.

Either way we end in circular reasoning, so can there really be differention between any mode?

Yes. The difference is in what we invest in that trust.

I've waited an awful long time and nothing has come. The hourglass can only drain for so long.

That's the thing: You WAITED. I think this is what is wrong.

You guys keep with the ex post, ex ante thing but I can never understand what you are talking about. If we think about thinking before, after, or during the thinking, we are still thinking so what changes? I am not sure what exactly I am supposed to be getting.

What you are supposed to be getting is that

A: what you think about something that is yet to happen

is NOT the same as

B: what you think about this thing once it has happened.

Your expectation of something is rarely (or usually never) the same as your experience of it.

But all this can be explained with your circles theory, or with the "holistic explosion", and it is reasonable to believe that all human knowledge is gained that way.

We will never learn anything but what we know if that is the way it is to be - in the sense that we will be analyzing and critiquing everything through lenses of preconception. That is a slow and painful way to learn anything and we don't have time. Sad thing is we can't change it. We wouldn't even know what to change it to because doing so would involve thinking in circles.

I think there is a misunderstanding.
Please go to the Gödel thread and read my replies to you and Gendy.

If I was omnipotent and omniscient and I created you and you grew up to be a mass murderer, who would you say created you with the traits of a mass murderer? Who created you with the predisposition to killing? Who knew you were going to kill before hand but created you anyway? Would you think I was irrational if I got angry at you nonetheless and tortured you for all time even though I am clearly responsible?

Yes, but the question is: If you were omnipotent and omniscient and loving -- would you create me to be a mass murderer?

But still, that belief came from a prior action. And that prior action came from a belief in a prior action which in turn came from a belief which came from a prior action which came from a belief... bla bla for ever.

Actually, no bla bla for ever.

For an individual, it is the immediate social circle he grows up in that determine his *intial* beliefs.
(Surely, that social circle was determined by theone before and all that, but eventually, thinking in terms of evolution, we do see that that line stops somewhere, and this somewhere is not "for ever".)

Yes we do. Only that "I chose to accept something" is said in hindsight -- this is the factual part.
What is problematic is "I will choose to accept something" -- this is the dogmatic part.

If "I will choose" is problematic, how can we accept "I chose" as factual? Until "I will choose" is resolved, "I chose" too must remain problematic, no?

This is being addressed in the other thread.

It's madness. Sheer madness. Lunacy it is, that people don't see that thinking like this gets us nowhere - fast. Of all the options, why human beings recieved this one is beyond me.

In my estimation, it has to do with cognitive systems experiencing themselves as self-referential.

Who initiated (in the truest sense) that insight?

They "were there", and we, due to holistic causality, "worked on those thougts".

Aah, but press on we must. Who put those thoughts there? Did we have any choice on whether or not we wanted to work on those thoughts?

It wasn't our choice that we were born either.
Some things are pre-choice or non-choice. They come "with the package" of being born into this world.

There had better be a pretty damn good parlor trick this time around. No resurrections will do it for me. Something out of this world. I'm done with religion. I'm going to find my own answers and then reject them because believing in them will require circularity. Puh-raise Gawd!

(I quoted this because of the part I highlighted.)

We might not know what He is but we know what He isn't (with respect to the Christian God that is). Apart from that, I have no clue.

Now we're talking!

That would be the Man who claims He is the "Way, the Truth, and the Light[/i]. And also that no one comes to the Father, except through Me. (Does this count as public self-aggrandizement?).

I am told he did some extraordinarily things. So I don't put him in the same drawer with politicians.

Given this, you saying:

Fuck 'em.

Counts as blasphemy.

Matthew 12
31"Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men

And it seems too like your sin will not be forgiven you even if you beg for forgiveness (is this not a contradiction of the prior statement?). Congrats on buying yourself a one way ticket straight down that elevator. Isn't it nice to know Christianity offers affordable plans?

How on earth does me saying "fuck 'em" count as blasphemy?!

Those people don't care about *you*, they only care about propagating what they think Christianity is, and you are merely an object in their play.
They give you no credit whatsoever, they undermine the faith that you do have, and they treat you as if you were an uncapable mindless thing.
It's not worth to be an object in someone's play.

Isn't that the point of not trusting anyone?

Do you really think that *all* people are like the ones I described above?

By experience.

These mysterious answers aren't helping you know.

What is so mysterious about experience?

I am in the bigger circle.

No, you aren't. There is always (so we assume, at least for now) a bigger circle than the one you are currently in.

I have to be. All this time and no progress would be.. a waste of time. And we don't have time.

No? We don't have time? And what do you have to do? What spiritual deadlines do you have?

I have abandoned faith anyway.. it did not serve me in the long run. I will look for a new master in indifference.

And you are, like, 60 years old, or what?
You can't speak of "the long run", not yet.
*grin grin*

If the God of Christianity is true, then I cannot have sinned. For the reasons I have demonstrated earlier where He fashions my predispositions to certain faults and indeed, my sinful nature. This nullifies any free will objection (never understood those). So if I sin, you could say God is responsible.

This goes only if you claim that there is no you.

1)We forget that God is omnipotent. He can create us to think we are free when we are really not.

So? It's not like we know what God knows.

relativism isn't that bad once you get used to thinking like that.

Take a sharp knife and cut your finger. Then relativize and say that it doesn't bleed and hurt, relativize and say that maybe there is no wound.

Conservative interpretations are no fun.

Ah.

If God knew beforehand that I was going to finish this post at 1:41 AM but for some reason, I finished it at 1:43, then either God is not omniscient or He is not omniscient. Don't see any other way out of this one.

You do not know what God knows. As long as you don't know what God knows, you will have free will, even if, sub specie aeternitatis, this free will is just an illusion.

Both of you tagteaming lil' ole' me is no fun.

Why do you think that we are talking to you?

 

[§outh§tar]

Your argument is only possible because you are taking the position that, in effect, there is no you.

If there is no you, then all there is are your sins (that are pre-planned anyway) and Jesus' payment for them -- indeed, why should forgiveness be needed then?!

That's my question. I am not saying there is no 'me' per se, but rather the 'me' is different from what we conventionally think.

I think you are suffering under a dire performance anxiety, and it is directed both at you yourself and others whom you hope to perform.

I looked up 'performance anxiety' on google but only came up with sexual impotence sites(???). If you could explain what that is to a layman and how you came by that too.

 

[water]

That's my question. I am not saying there is no 'me' per se, but rather the 'me' is different from what we conventionally think.

We'll see that in the "Can we think?" thread.

I think you are suffering under a dire performance anxiety, and it is directed both at you yourself and others whom you hope to perform.

I looked up 'performance anxiety' on google but only came up with sexual impotence sites(???). If you could explain what that is to a layman and how you came by that too.

Uh.
That's not what I meant. Those modern people revert everything to sex, as if sex were all there is!


I think you have too high expectations for yourself in regards to your faith, and this puts you under a lot of stress. And it is this stress then that hinders you in doing even the things that you could do.

Something like the student who is so afraid that he won't do well at a test that this fear hinders him from showing what he actually knows, and then does worse.

I came to this by learning how quickly you expect results both from yourself and from God. If it were only that, I would say you are only very impatient.
But you have also said how you think yourself daft for having believed for so long what you have believed, that Christianity and the people who you once trusted betrayed you. Because of this, I excluded a "simple impatience".

It seems that you were brought up this way, to have high religious expectations regarding your faith ("what one's faith must look like in order to call it strong faith"). You were expected to do and think more than you (or anyone) could do and think. For a long time, you were able to keep up with those expectations, but slowly, you began to fail to keep up with them, and felt like compensating for them -- by, for example, wanting to become a monk or a missionary. This was the extreme that you couldn't handle anymore, and eventually, you "gave in".

This is just my theory for now, though.

 

[Jenyar]

Besides which either Paul is a schizophrenic or you are just plain lying because according to him it was God who "blinded" Israel:

Romans 11:7-
Isaiah 29:10- (which he calls prophetic confirmation of this in v8)
Isaiah 6:9-10 (Which is described in the NT as prophetic confirmation of this)
Matthew 13:14-, Mark 4:12-, Luke 8:10-, John 12:40

So is it "God did not deceive her. Her own pride deceived her."
or is it "God has given them a spirit of stupor... to this very day"

Somebody here is not telling the truth.

Or somebody is missing it...

God's very revelation has caused their blindness. Not because it's impossible for them to see, or out of some whimsical vindictiveness on God's account, but because their pride and prejudice made it impossible for them to accept. After the "blanket statements" out of Isaiah, John 12:42 still says: Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. Why wasn't God's blinding conclusive? Because the same thing that blinds also makes it possible to see. The same sun that melts wax, hardens clay (Origen). Rejection of God might become permanent...

An Old Testament equivalent would be Deut. 29:3-4:

With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders. But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.​

Yet to blame God is the last reaction this is supposed to evoke. The same events that shock some into belief, have shocked them into disbelief. What could bring this about but their own preconceptions and prejudices -- what they expected to see, and expected God to do? And when God contradicts these, they rather believe themselves than Him.

Faith is not an 'entity' but God is? I'd be happy if you could demonstrate the reasoning behind that for me preferably without resting citing Bible verses as "proof".

Try having faith in faith, or loving love. Faith cannot will, it has no conscience, it's unable to receive anything or give anything. There's a clear phenomological difference, even in just the concepts.

But then again, it is possible to make an idol out of faith, to worship it as some kind of independent entity worthy of your best efforts.

Besides, I thought election was based on predestination (Romans 9:18; Romans 8:20, 29-, especially Ephesians 1:4-5, 11, 2:8, James 1:17, especially 2 Timothy 1:8) So again I ask, is election "based on" faith, or predestination?

I can only refer you back to my earlier answers. Our election is made effective by faith -- crystallized by our own choices, you might say. We do not know the mind of God, and to say you have been excluded is only to exclude yourself. Christ has been given as the certainty of God's election, but nobody can force you to accept it as a certainty -- we have "only" God's word for it...

Can you please cite your source for this information? I didn't know Paul was aware of the gospels.

Of course not the gospels in the form we know them; they hadn't been written yet. But Paul relies on a gospel tradition that is much earlier than the ones we have today:

1 Cor. 11:23-25 The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”​

Here Paul refers to the last supper, as recorded in Matthew 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-23 and John 13:21-26. But that's not all:

1 Cor. 15:3-8 ... Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles...​

Here we have the core of the gospels: that Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected. For the scholarly process, see Paul and Oral tradition on this page.

If you could explain just who agreed to this 'contract'? I am not familiar with it.

Oh? So you do not know whether there is a difference between right and wrong? You do not act as if there were more than an arbitrary difference? Our acceptance of God's laws, even if only implicitly, is our signature at the bottom that we understand it. Call it morality, justice or righteousness, but God is the final authority on them, so they're not just "social" contracts. When you enter a country, you automaticaly accept its laws, and it's up to you to familiarize yourself with them (whether you've seen their president personally or not). Of course, it's possible to live a satisfying life as an outlaw, but where you might succeed in escaping human scrutiny, you can't get away from God. Fortunately, He has made his laws mostly self-evident. Unfortunately, many see this as a satisfactory substitute for justice.

Why is faith credited as righteousness? How do you know faith is credited as righteousness? How does Paul know faith is credited as righteousness?

Paul took that doctrine straight out of the Old Testament (or do you think everybody before Christ were lost in their sins?) His argument and reasoning is easy enough to follow.

But, why anything? How do we know anything? Aren't these the problems you are struggling with? As Pilate asked: "What is truth?" SouthStar?

This part was not really necessary as I am familiar with the theology of modern Christianity. But if you could explain why works do not bring any 'reward'? Also, how does Jesus blood satisfy any contract?

You seem to be familiar with the words, but I have seen very little awareness about theology, neither modern nor ancient. If you followed Paul's reasoning, at least, I wouldn't have had to repeat it. Paul's adience might have had different concerns, and a different frame of reference, but if it made sense to them, it shouldn't be so completely incomprehensible to you.

Payment for work isn't a reward, it is a wage -- a due payment regardless of the amount that needed to be done. Our duty -- works -- do not bring about a reward, only God's grace. We cannot earn grace, or it wouldn't be called grace, would it?

"...the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Hebrews 11). Blood is life, and it is our contract with life. Jesus blood is the contract (covenant) of eternal life. Water gives life, but blood is life: "This is the one who came by water and blood–-Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood" (1 John 5:6).

I also quoted Paul on this earlier:

1 Corinthians 11:25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (cf. Matt. 28-27-28)​

If it is true that no one can be saved except through believing in Jesus and the atoning scheme of God, then what happens to all the human beings who never had a chance to receive news of Jesus' atoning death because they lived before his time?

I'm sure the answer will come as no surprise now: their faith was credited as righteousness. Jesus was the fulfilment of God's promises of justice and forgiveness. Of course, not everybody believed in a God who would forgive and show mercy.

Also, if Jesus has paid the debt for my sins, why do I need forgiveness?

That is forgiveness; Jesus was the means of forgiveness.

In similar tone, I too will ask: Why should anyone think a supreme God will punish Himself on a cross before forgiving the sins of mortals? Stupidity?

[This is not a rhetorical question. Please answer it]

You said you were a fundamentalist Christian? You are familiar with the theology? Then where did you get the idea of "God punishing himself", or are you just being facetious?

If Jesus was being punished for sins, then his death wouldn't have been particularly special, would it? He would have died for his own sins, making his "unblemished" sacrifice meaningless. Instead his sacrifice was for the forgiveness of sins:

Ephesians 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace​

Note, "In him...", like blood is "in" somebody, and life is "in" somebody.

Are you saying a Supreme Being will scrutinize the litany of individual moral systems scattered over the earth for 10,000 years and burn the majority of mortals in a hellish fire because they failed to obey them perfectly?

How do you mean "scrutinize the litany", as if God will have to "familiarize himself" with all the laws we thought out. I doubt that God is impressed by our endless litanies -- He scrutinized the heart.

And for the second part: Are you then saying that since they are sinners by default and cannot adhere to these moral systems, the Supreme God of the Universe will torment them in fire?

Can you please explain to me Romans 5:12?

Sinners by default, yes, as we all are according to Romans 5:12, being in exile from Eden and under the curse of death. But why should they not be able to adhere to their own moral systems? Are they not aware of their own moral systems, and aware when they transgress against them? Jesus died for them, too, though they might not know it -- but whether they are saved remains between God and them, and are no better or worse off than us. You should read Romans 2.

Excellent. Now please explain to me who created me with those faults.

God created you with the ability to choose, which you now deny in principle.

And for the second part, please explain to me who created me knowing very well I would succumb to those faults and yet will still torment me in hell for my failure to overcome these faults?

"Succumb to faults"!? You haven't "succumbed to any faults"! This is a remnant of the faith you were so proud of once. Our sins aren't forgiven because we're faultless and perfect! Jesus was that perfect sacrifice so you don't have to be - or think you have to be. Faith means sacrificing your faults, doubts, and all other excuses for not doing God's will and doing what He created you for. And the same is true for that faith: not perfect faith, simple, humble, obedient and persevering faith; Hanging on to the right hope.

Oh no! I was definitely a hardcore fundamentalist Christian who eat, breathed, and saw God's handiwork in every nook and cranny of every nook and cranny with no doubts. If I had any doubts, they were in whether or not I was pleasing God as best as I could (1 John 3:20), not in (the Christian) God Himself.

You certainly exercised some profound willpower there. No wonder you burned out. Don't you ever wonder about the way your immense effort to please God turned out only to convince you that you cannot please Him at all?

1 John 3:20 (I presume you mean v. 21) is noted -- you were doing your best -- but were you aware of 1 Corinthians 4:4, "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent"? Exercising love gives us the confidence of doing God's will, but confidence alone cannot sustain your faith.

I have been waiting an awfully long time for God to reveal/manifest Himself "in my heart" but nothing has happened so far. Will He blame me then?

No.

 

[§outh§tar]

Or somebody is missing it...

God's very revelation has caused their blindness. Not because it's impossible for them to see, or out of some whimsical vindictiveness on God's account, but because their pride and prejudice made it impossible for them to accept. After the "blanket statements" out of Isaiah, John 12:42 still says: Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. Why wasn't God's blinding conclusive? Because the same thing that blinds also makes it possible to see. The same sun that melts wax, hardens clay (Origen). Rejection of God might become permanent...

An Old Testament equivalent would be Deut. 29:3-4:

With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders. But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.​

Yet to blame God is the last reaction this is supposed to evoke. The same events that shock some into belief, have shocked them into disbelief. What could bring this about but their own preconceptions and prejudices -- what they expected to see, and expected God to do? And when God contradicts these, they rather believe themselves than Him.

You made a good point but then left it too quickly. Who created them with certain preconceptions? And secondly and more importantly, who placed them in specific environments from birth where these normative preconceptions could be fostered? And also, were they then expected to abandon the "preconceptions and prejudices" of Judaism (or whatever sect) for the preconceptions and prejudices of Christianity? For all you have done, you are still blaming the clay for hardening and the wax for melting (which is absurd) but I leave you to explain that.

You cunningly sidestepped the point but here it is again: God willed them to be blinded to His new revelation. God's revelation did not "cause" their blindness. I don't know how you can read such fancy interpretations into a verses such as, "God has given them a spirit of stupor... to this very day".
Looking at Jesus' words in Matthew, He says the prophecy in Isaiah of blindness is fulfilled "Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them." And you still blame the clay for hardening? Since you even brought up hardening, do you STILL want to blame them in view of Romans 9:18? And as for why God's binding was not conclusive, we find the answer in Romans 11:5, and so it is obviously NOT they and their "preconceptions and prejudices" that are to blame. Even if they were, we can only say it is because "whom He wills He hardens".

In fact, I don't know of any place in the Bible where it is said that God's revelation caused the blindness of the Hebrews, if you could show me some verses.

Faith is not an 'entity' but God is? I'd be happy if you could demonstrate the reasoning behind that for me preferably without resting citing Bible verses as "proof".

Try having faith in faith, or loving love. Faith cannot will, it has no conscience, it's unable to receive anything or give anything. There's a clear phenomological difference, even in just the concepts.

But then again, it is possible to make an idol out of faith, to worship it as some kind of independent entity worthy of your best efforts.

Utterly ignores my question, so if you could again readress it in your response.

God can will, but faith cannot? And how do you know this?

I can only refer you back to my earlier answers. Our election is made effective by faith -- crystallized by our own choices, you might say. We do not know the mind of God, and to say you have been excluded is only to exclude yourself. Christ has been given as the certainty of God's election, but nobody can force you to accept it as a certainty -- we have "only" God's word for it...

You miss the bigger question once again. If it is based on faith, then God cannot harden whom He wills. Esau could then have had faith, Pharoah could have had faith.. But we see clearly from Scripture that this is not so, they didn't even HAVE a chance of redemption and this Paul admits indifferently. Paul even anticipates the reader's outcry:

Romans 19You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"

And this is the question I ask you.

Of course not the gospels in the form we know them; they hadn't been written yet. But Paul relies on a gospel tradition that is much earlier than the ones we have today:

1 Cor. 11:23-25 The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”​

Here Paul refers to the last supper, as recorded in Matthew 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-23 and John 13:21-26. But that's not all:

1 Cor. 15:3-8 ... Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles...​

Here we have the core of the gospels: that Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected. For the scholarly process, see Paul and Oral tradition on this page.

Many good points raised in there but I think you should take note of the context first.

Where in the Scriptures does it say Jesus died for our sins, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day? (15:3)

It is also very good that you note Paul is operating on hearsay, and as the rest of that article shows, "those figures are always filtered through lenses of usage." He is also operating on the belief that he had a vision of Jesus (although he never even saw Him to have recognized His features).

Paul is also known for contradicting the same Jesus you claim he knew. There is evident polarization between Matthew 5:19 and Galatians 2:15? Is this not the same inspired Paul who told his audience (believers?) in Corinth and Thessalonica that the Lord was coming to whisk them away with angels?

Oh? So you do not know whether there is a difference between right and wrong? You do not act as if there were more than an arbitrary difference? Our acceptance of God's laws, even if only implicitly, is our signature at the bottom that we understand it. Call it morality, justice or righteousness, but God is the final authority on them, so they're not just "social" contracts. When you enter a country, you automaticaly accept its laws, and it's up to you to familiarize yourself with them (whether you've seen their president personally or not). Of course, it's possible to live a satisfying life as an outlaw, but where you might succeed in escaping human scrutiny, you can't get away from God. Fortunately, He has made his laws mostly self-evident. Unfortunately, many see this as a satisfactory substitute for justice.

Unfortunately for you, this has nothing to do with my question and I am unsure how this response even relates to any word at all in it. There was nothing in the question about me not knowing the difference between 'right' and 'wrong'. I neither claimed to know or not know the difference. It is you and your dualisms that are doing the fanciful interpolation.

Either way we look at it, that is a sad defense. When you enter a country, you enter it willingly and thus it may be said that you accept its laws implicitly. So again, did anyone willingly accept God's laws or did He force them on us, in which case it is not a 'contract'.

I am also not sure how God is the final authority on justice, morality, and righteousness. Can you explain your reasoning behind saying so?

Paul took that doctrine straight out of the Old Testament (or do you think everybody before Christ were lost in their sins?) His argument and reasoning is easy enough to follow.

But, why anything? How do we know anything? Aren't these the problems you are struggling with? As Pilate asked: "What is truth?" SouthStar?

I never claimed to see anything in dualist terms. Again, that is you speaking, not me. And you never showed me Paul's "argument and reasoning" (so what was the point of the response), but your next statements are even more amusing.

You seem to be familiar with the words, but I have seen very little awareness about theology, neither modern nor ancient.

Yes. Absolutely. Poor me, an ignorant buffoon inaware of theology, "neither modern nor ancient." Please Jenyar, teach me since you obviously know more.

Payment for work isn't a reward, it is a wage -- a due payment regardless of the amount that needed to be done. Our duty -- works -- do not bring about a reward, only God's grace. We cannot earn grace, or it wouldn't be called grace, would it?

"...the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Hebrews 11). Blood is life, and it is our contract with life. Jesus blood is the contract (covenant) of eternal life. Water gives life, but blood is life: "This is the one who came by water and blood–-Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood" (1 John 5:6).

I also quoted Paul on this earlier:

1 Corinthians 11:25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (cf. Matt. 28-27-28)​

After that personal attack, I would have expected something more intelligent but again, you do not even address my question. I wonder if quoting Bible verses that say Jesus came by water and blood has anything to do with my question. I might as well quote from the Koran in order to disprove the New Testament. You could have at least added the Johannine Comma to add weight to your point.

I am also at a loss as to how 1 Corinthians 11:25 has anything to do with my question. Did you even read the question?

"We cannot earn grace, or it wouldn't be called grace, would it?" is the crux of your earlier argument.

That statement annuls faith. If faith cannot be earned, then Romans 4:5 is false. If work earns pay then does faith not earn grace? And yet you say this is not so. If grace cannot be earned then faith is OBVIOUSLY of no consequence. This is an inescapable conclusion. Too bad I am the one who is unaware of theology, neither modern nor ancient. Better read the question for the first time to see what I was asking.

If it is true that no one can be saved except through believing in Jesus and the atoning scheme of God, then what happens to all the human beings who never had a chance to receive news of Jesus' atoning death because they lived before his time?

I'm sure the answer will come as no surprise now: their faith was credited as righteousness. Jesus was the fulfilment of God's promises of justice and forgiveness. Of course, not everybody believed in a God who would forgive and show mercy.

The answer still comes as a surprise considering you utterly failed to answer my previous question, but moving on:

The people in all the earth before Christ's coming, who did they have to have faith in before being found righteous? The Hebrew God? I am quite sure other cultures too had Deities, who like the Israelites, required some appeasement (mostly in the form of sacrifice) in order to show mercy. Saying God might be fine to you in this day and age, but back then, WHICH GOD?

It is obvious everyone did not believe in the same thing. To everyone, their God(s) was self-evident. Did they simply have to have faith in their brand of God, or did they have to somehow believe in the Hebrew God in order to be justified?

Also, if Jesus has paid the debt for my sins, why do I need forgiveness?

That is forgiveness; Jesus was the means of forgiveness.

So now that Jesus has paid for my sins, does that mean I don't need faith? The point to be made here being: whether or not I believe Jesus died for my sins does not change the fact that Jesus still died for my sins. Why is faith then still a requirement for God to justify someone whose sins have already been paid for?

You said you were a fundamentalist Christian? You are familiar with the theology? Then where did you get the idea of "God punishing himself", or are you just being facetious?

If Jesus was being punished for sins, then his death wouldn't have been particularly special, would it? He would have died for his own sins, making his "unblemished" sacrifice meaningless. Instead his sacrifice was for the forgiveness of sins:

Ephesians 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace​

Note, "In him...", like blood is "in" somebody, and life is "in" somebody.

Interesting points made again but you didn't see what I was getting at.

Consider this:
You punched me in the face as hard as you can. In my anger, I stabbed myself in the eye with a pen in order to forgive you. I obviously didn't do anything wrong and sacrificing my eye has nothing to with your redemption.

Now put that analogy on a grander scale. We are an ant and God is a T-Rex. Imagine we bit the planet and the T-Rex killed itself in order to forgive us.

The points being: Obviously the T-Rex is far too great for our puny bite to be of any consequence. And even more importantly, killing itself in no way atones for the pain we caused it.

In this light, why would God take His own life on the cross for something He didn't do, as that has no bearing on our redemption.

How do you mean "scrutinize the litany", as if God will have to "familiarize himself" with all the laws we thought out. I doubt that God is impressed by our endless litanies -- He scrutinized the heart.

If we are to take your response as being correct, Ghandi, a man who did not believe in Jesus, will surely be in heaven by now from what we can tell. No?

Sinners by default, yes, as we all are according to Romans 5:12, being in exile from Eden and under the curse of death. But why should they not be able to adhere to their own moral systems? Are they not aware of their own moral systems, and aware when they transgress against them? Jesus died for them, too, though they might not know it -- but whether they are saved remains between God and them, and are no better or worse off than us. You should read Romans 2.

That wasn't what I was trying to imply. If they are sinners by default, then no matter how much 'good works' they try to do, they have still fallen short of the glory of God. Will they then be tormented regardless because they were sinners by birth? Is this not the same stupidity evidenced in people who are hated because of their skin color inherited by birth?

And so we ask again: Who created them sinners by birth since they obviously did not choose to be so? Who created people a certain skin color by birth since they obviously did not choose to be so?

Will he still find fault with them after it is the very same He who hardened them?

Excellent. Now please explain to me who created me with those faults.

God created you with the ability to choose, which you now deny in principle.

Can you tell me how to choose (since you claim to be able to)? Or are you just assuming you can?

"Succumb to faults"!? You haven't "succumbed to any faults"! This is a remnant of the faith you were so proud of once. Our sins aren't forgiven because we're faultless and perfect! Jesus was that perfect sacrifice so you don't have to be - or think you have to be. Faith means sacrificing your faults, doubts, and all other excuses for not doing God's will and doing what He created you for. And the same is true for that faith: not perfect faith, simple, humble, obedient and persevering faith; Hanging on to the right hope.

Here comes the mistake once again of claiming I was "proud" of my faith. I wasn't proud of myself when I was a Christian so please find some better accusation. I was of the same mind as Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:9-10. The operative word being 'was'. Maybe now I might look back and it may seem like I am proudly defending my faith, but that does not mean I am/was proud of my faith.

You also like to simplify things. If we are to take what you say as true, then anyone in any culture, who humbly, simply, obediently, and persistently believes in their God/Gods is justified. We know that is not true; there is more involved.

What you are asking amounts to: Ignore your doubts and believe, no matter the evidence or circumstance.

If only it were that simple. Sometime, you should try imagining the sky is made out of Corn Flakes and see whether you can truly believe that. Your objection to this request will probably be the same as mine to yours.

19You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault?

You certainly exercised some profound willpower there. No wonder you burned out. Don't you ever wonder about the way your immense effort to please God turned out only to convince you that you cannot please Him at all?

1 John 3:20 (I presume you mean v. 21) is noted -- you were doing your best -- but were you aware of 1 Corinthians 4:4, "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent"? Exercising love gives us the confidence of doing God's will, but confidence alone cannot sustain your faith.

What can?

No.

Good.

 

[§outh§tar]

Yes. By *certain* words.
There are things one should not say about oneself to just anyone.

Words mean nothing. What I say may not reflect what I feel, or I may not even know what I feel.

I am a pretty good person.

Saying that has no bearing on reality. What I think I am and what I really am are different.

That's just it!!
What faith is created by that?!
A habit, a mechanical repetition -- not a living faith!

... Or it merely strengthens the habit.

What is a living faith? And if we have this faith, who/what do we place our trust in? All things can only be trusted at face value

Habit breeds faith. 'faith' is unfounded hope. Pavlov's dogs believed the ring of a bell meant they were going to get food. This belief was founded on hope; there was no guarantee they were going to get food. The same for expecting the light to turn on, expecting the sun to rise, all because it has happened consistently.

Aside from habit, we can then say there is no faith, for such faith is unfounded hope. Same thing with this God who does not answer. Each time we knock, we can only hope.

If Pavlov decided to ring the bell and ignore the dogs everytime they came running, they would lose interest fast.

This is understandable. You want the "feel good feeling", and the way you were brought up, you have become to connect it to (your kind of) Christianity, and (your kind of) Christianity alone -- as if (your kind of) Christianity had the ultimate monopoly over that "feel good feeling".

It should be logically understandable that no earthly institution can hold such monopoly.

Because the bell did not serve my hope anymore, I will hate all bells. No norm should shackle man. No complacency, NO faith. Trust no one and no one disapopints you.

If you trust a person, then that person has the monopoly over you. You don't want that, do you?

No, I don't think it can be "snapped out of".
Yes, and it explains the sudden anti-free will surge.

Are you saying performance anxiety can't be fixed?

I think it is now time to separate between

your experience of Christianity so far

and

your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

Up until your deconversion, the two were one the same to you. You did not separate them.

But as you studied, you began to see that your experience of Christianity so far is *not* what your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

So you took the first step and abandoned your experience of Christianity so far, abandoned it because it was not reliable, not logical, full of contradictions and so on. Which is understandable.

But, at that first stage, along with abandoning your experience of Christianity so far, you also abanadoned your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like -- as at that early point of your deconversion, the two were still one and the same.

So now, you are left with guilt and doubt.
I think that if you consider this dichotomy I presented above, it should be of help to you.

What ought to be abandoned as the ultimate measurement of faith is your experience of Christianity so far.
But this should not be at the cost of also abandoning your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

See, it's not nearly as bad as it may look.

I don't know what a belief in God should/could be like. :-(

I have had only one standard. I don't know where the new standard should be, if there should be one. I don't know that a belief in God is necessary, or that He/She/It exists or even cares about me, I don't know anything about God in fact. I just feel that God exists. So where do I start? And DON'T say "You can start by trusting". I don't know WHO to trust or why to trust or how to trust. How can any truth be determined this way? How can I be satisfied knowing that I dont' know?
I can only make assumptions and pretend they are truth but that doesn't make them any less unfounded. Everytime time I go to sleep I can assume I will wake up. But I don't know I will. I am back to square one.

I don't think I can trust anyone. Maybe for practical purposes I can trust them up here in my noggin. But in my heart, no. Can't be done.

Just because something isn't here yet does not mean that it couldn't be or that it couldn't come.

How long will I wait? Will I salivate even unto my deathbed waiting for that bell to ring? You are asking me to do what I did before: I ask God for -x-. God does not give me -x-. The Bible says who am I to be impatient with God and His inscrutable ways. I keep waiting. I go back to step one.

The cycle continues. Therefore it is quite necessary to know how long. Very necessary.

I understand that you are suspicious, definitely. I was too.

How did you get over it? How long did it take? Were you Christian too?

I will be so bold as to say that your wishes back then were bound by your experience of Christianity so far -- and I dare say that you weren't so much trying to please God, but that you were much more trying to please fellow believers. As to you, it seemed, or was so for a matter of fact, that their love for you depended on you "wanting to please God". So by going to extremes like wanting to become a monk, you were trying to both buy and justify their love for you, and you were also trying to both buy and justify God's love for you. After all, it has been implanted into you that "God will love you if you obey Him".
This is just my theory so far, but it seems plausible.

Very bold, but probably true. I probably fooled myself into thinking I was doing it for God and God alone. Do you see why I can't trust myself?

What is more of a problem: You trusting other people -- or you being afraid that other people would not find you trustworthy?

The second one. They might be disappointed in me. I disappoint myself.

Better then to never forge a trust in the first place.

How do I fix it? I know it's bad and I am conscious of it but I don't know how..

Ask yourself: Will I die if you die?
(That "you" is just any person you can think of.)

I can't take that chance. Safer and wiser to never find out.

Haha, my cowardice.

Have you ever seen a man who knows he is in a pit but cannot get himself out? Too proud to ask for help and yet he wants more than anything to be helped. He cannot get himself out and so he will stay.

If you, in advance, doubt that something could work out fine -- then don't be surprised if it indeed does not work out fine.

You want positive thinking? How do I think positively? Just will it?

I try, but I don't know how to. Something is not working. I don't think I can. I don't have free will to stop doubting.

Also, what disappointed you was the God of your experience of Christianity so far.
This is the only God you know, the only God you know is the God of your experience of Christianity so far. Your knowledge of God is biased, and stained, with the specific experience of Christianity you've had so far.
So to blame God for all that, is, to me, not fair.

Do you think the God of Christianity is the real God? Are all viewpoints of God not marred from the outsets of Christianity? How can we know God if we mold Him into a caricature? If God left me, is He to blame? Or was the God I worshipped not God?

Will the real God please stand up.

And thirdly, as far as trust between people is concerned: I'm afraid you have too high expectations. Not too high because humans are fallible beings. But too high because you expect more from that trust than can actually be achieved in a relationship of trust. I'm afraid your identity and self-worth depend on others too much.

If I am going to put my trust in somebody, don't I deserve to get something equally grand in return? If not then this trust becomes mere hope.

My identity depends on my environment. This isn't my fault.

It's all about finding who is at fault, who is to blame.

Trust what seems to be reasonable to trust; trust what you now find reasonable to trust.
I think this is as good as it gets.

I thought Christianity and its God were reasonable to trust. Or so I thought.
If I am running and I fall, do I keep running or do I learn from my lesson?

We don't trust "just like that". We trust what we have some reason to trust.
Noone can neither expect nor demand you to trust.

And as for trusting God "because He is trustworthy" -- I think this might be out of your reach right now (even though you were used to just the opposite), it is defnitely out of my reach now.
I used to be very down because of that. But then I figured it is better that I now do what I think I should do that I at the same time I know that I *can* do. In the eyes of some religionists, this may not be much -- but I am being true to myself.

Tell that to Jenyar:
"the same is true for that faith: not perfect faith, simple, humble, obedient and persevering faith; Hanging on to the right hope."

Apparently it is simple to believe humbly and obediently in a religion fine tuned over the millenia. I think we need to help him see the error of his ways, bring him out of his narrow circle. I can't help but feel sorry for him when I think of how limited and narrowed his thinking has been made.

If only I knew what to do to get Christianity out of my head. It's flying around buzzing in every crevice and irritating me. I guess you can't teach and old dog new tricks.

Yes well. Patience is like an hourglass. When that hourglass empties itself, patience turns to action. I don't think there's any think wrong with 'reminding' God that the hourglass is running out and when it does I won't have any choice but to act.
Same with a lamp. If the oil was going out and I asked God to refill it for me but He never did guess what? When the light goes out, I am going to find my own way.

It is just that you do not know how much sand is there in the hourglass, or how much oil is there in the lamp.

It is not wise to wait until the oil runs out or until the sand runs out. After all, we just don't know.

As for being capable of trust, that is quite irrelevant. What I want and what I do don't seem to be coinciding too much. I don't even think I know what I want. Just plenty of assumptions in an endless circle.. round and round and I can't get out.

Then maybe you want the wrong things.
Or you want the right things but you are not getting at them the right way.

It all may seem like an endless circle to you now -- but to an outside observer like me, it doesn't. You have changed a lot since you came here.

The question is, how do I know what the right way is? And PLEEEAASE don't say "trust." I may have changed rapidly but now I feel like I am at a brick wall. Not actually the end of the road, just a wall. I don't know how long it will take to climb over the wall, I am afraid the wall is too high for me. Whether or not I trust in my ability has nothing to do with how tall the wall is. No remedy seems to be in sight for me; I cannot see the top of the wall. Maybe there is another way, walking around it, but I don't know how.

Just an endless circle. I expect after getting over this circle (if I do, what a miracle) there will be greener pastures on the other side. There will be more to discover, more to learn, more happiness, more joy, everything I want. More assumptions and hope. Not faith, hope.

To quote from the most famous verse of all time:

John 3:16
16For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life

The obvious insinuation being He who does not believe will perish.

And that first part For God so loved the world went right past you

You have been saying "Good Lord" a lot lately!

I too think that you are currently believing in an "atheist god". The way you speak about God lately, you are describing a stern and unforgiving parent that couldn't care less for you.

What loving God allows this to happen to me and threatens to burn me if I don't love Him?

God must want me to figure it all out by myself and then give Him the credit and thanks - or else He is going to burn me in Hell. We must never forgive this paradoxical condition given by the 'loving God' who forces all to love Him under the threat of eternal death.

And God help us all if the Lord isn't really good.

Hah!
You saw in the next paragraph that I made my point, and you agreed, albeit with hesitation.

I was only patronizing you.

So everything.
Everytime our "ego takes a little beating" we are angry and we want to fight back. But sometimes we see that the other party, the one who beat our ego, had a good point.

Jenyar has a good point? He has convinced me that Christians are in one of the narrowest circles in all of thinking! I have seldom seen such aloofness to the obvious fact that he is being circular in reasoning. It's like he likes to chase his tail! Oops, forgot we didn't come from monkeys. I was once like that so I understand but I am still amused at how obvious it should be that he is making a HUGE mistake in believing Christianity can be defended intellectually.

Well, you feel like a loser in comparison to your old self: You are not pleasing that old construct of God anymore; but you also don't have a new relationship with God yet. So it feels like you are "doing nothing" -- you definitely end up feeling like a loser. Which doesn't necessarily make you one.

You keep talking like the old God and the new God are different. I used to think Christianity had the only true God and all other believers were deluded fools tricked by Satan and his minions. Now I don't know. Who is this new God and what does He have to offer me?

That's where my ego comes in. Questioning my faith reminds me of how much I willed so strongly to believe it was all true.

So now, in hindsight, you think that you have ***willed*** yourself to believe?
This is odd, coming from you.

That's a different definition of I. This 'I' is being used holistically to refer to what gives me my thoughts and will and so on. I am going to define the 'I' in the other thread. 'I' myself did not will anything to happen.

When I say I willed myself, I mean my my mind wanted to believe it was true. Not me. This might seem like shifting blame but I will hopefully explain myself later on.

Not all of your experience was bad, this is definitely true. And your experience, whatever it was, is certainly good for something -- even if it is to show you what you should *not do*.

As for delusions: If one wants to *justify* what he himself thinks a *delusion* -- then this is madness!


I think that what you really need is to accept that all that time in the past was not lost, it was not in vain, and it was not a bad time.

I lost a good part of my life being delusional. How this can at all be skewed into a positive interpretation is beyond me. I could have made important intellectual strides and would not be stuck in this agony and dissatisfaction.

I can not be indifferent to myself, not anymore. There was a time when I was. But I became ill, physically ill, about 6 months of 24/7 headache and nausea. This is a practical lesson that taught me how important it is to take care of myself.

As for letting yourself down: How can that be? One can let oneself down only if one assumes to be more than one actually is.

In English please.

I let myself down by fooling myself to think something was true. Can there be a greater embarassment and blow? I have to live with myself knowing that I am capable of fooling myself! I know I do not want to fool myself and have never wanted to fool myself so it could certainly not have been me constructing the delusion.

Just wait till Jenyar reads my response.

And then what?

I am asking him the tough questions. Idiotically enough. I know that isn't going to change him a tiny bit but I still hope.

There is no such thing as "just biological". Sometimes, we only have a biological explanation for something, but this doesn't mean that no other is possible.

Everything can be explained in terms of neurons firing away. EVERYTHING. Why the Yankees lost, why the sky looks blue.. Social, economic, political factors all boil down to neurons firing away.

Try me.

You'll be a convert sooner or later. Don't fight the urge.

I would just have to trust that trusting someone does not end up making me feel like an idiot

Exactly. I think this is something very good that you have suggested here!

If only I knew how.

Don't beat yourself down right away.
We trust because we trust, yes. But *where* we direct that trust, and how much we put into it -- this is what should concern us.

But in doing so we ignore that trusting because we trust doesn't make sense. If we don't know why we trust (and must therefore submit to circles), what makes us think we know where to direct that trust and how much to put in to it? That too will be addled with baseless assumption, will it not? And it will all be confined to the poor circle that we trust because we trust.

That's the thing: You WAITED. I think this is what is wrong.

What should I have done?

What you are supposed to be getting is that

A: what you think about something that is yet to happen

is NOT the same as

B: what you think about this thing once it has happened.

Your expectation of something is rarely (or usually never) the same as your experience of it.

Good thing you touched on that.

Pavlov's dog got what they expected (or hoped for). We who are outside their circle know of course that there is no correlation between the ring of the bell and food. We see the correlation as between Pavlov and the dogs getting food. I suspect if we are being observed by higher powers, they see the correlation even more differently.

In the same way, I STRONGLY suspect there is no correlation between to will, and to do. I am in fact convinced completely that I do not have free will.
Our free-will assumptions ex post, like the dogs' assumptions ex post (after the bell rings and they have the food), are non sequitur.
Our free-will assumptions before acting, like the dogs' assumptions the moment the bell rings, are likewise non sequitur.

Yes, but the question is: If you were omnipotent and omniscient and loving -- would you create me to be a mass murderer?

Leave that for Jenyar. In fact, I asked him the same questions before getting to your response. The verse involved is:

Romans 9
17For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

19You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"

This very clearly shows the absurdity of the Christian God. He is the one who hardened Pharoah's heart and yet He is going to burn Pharoah in hell for all of eternity AS IF IT WAS HIS FAULT. It actually makes me angry at Christians who are too stupid to see there is a certain inconsistency here.

Actually, no bla bla for ever.

For an individual, it is the immediate social circle he grows up in that determine his *intial* beliefs.
(Surely, that social circle was determined by theone before and all that, but eventually, thinking in terms of evolution, we do see that that line stops somewhere, and this somewhere is not "for ever".)

There has to be a "forever", otherwise we are just begging for a first cause.

In my estimation, it has to do with cognitive systems experiencing themselves as self-referential.

A.K.A. The greatest and grandest illusion possible.

I'll leave that for the other thread too. I can't help but giggle thinking about how unthinkable it is. But it's true! It's true to a T..

It wasn't our choice that we were born either.
Some things are pre-choice or non-choice. They come "with the package" of being born into this world.

He puts us into a world filled with sin.

Will He still find fault with us?

He creates us to be sinners from birth.

Will He still find fault with us?

There are of course, the implications of this which destroy any notion of free will.

I am told he did some extraordinarily things. So I don't put him in the same drawer with politicians.

Telling people if they don't believe in you they are unpatriotic; telling people if they don't believe in you they are sinners; telling people if they don't listen to you you will lock them up in jail; telling people if they don't believe in you they are going to burn in hell.

I still don't see the difference.

How on earth does me saying "fuck 'em" count as blasphemy?!

Matthew 5:22.

and

Forgive our sins, as we forgive those who trespass gainst us.

and

1 John 3:10 Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

Since "fuck 'em" is probably not loving, we can see from v14 that you "abide in death" and therefore "you are a murderer" (v15), in which case "you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."

Since you have now blasphemed against the Spirit which abides in the saints of God , Matthew 12:31 condemns you without hope of redemption.

Ouch.

hose people don't care about *you*, they only care about propagating what they think Christianity is, and you are merely an object in their play.
They give you no credit whatsoever, they undermine the faith that you do have, and they treat you as if you were an uncapable mindless thing.
It's not worth to be an object in someone's play.

Do you really think that *all* people are like the ones I described above?

Better not to find at all than take the risk. Face value (and peoples words) are no indicators of a person's intentions. People lie at job interviews right through their teeth. People lie in front of the press, in the jury box, in the pulpit. We even lie to ourselves.

Do you think it is still a wise choice to take the risk of trusting someone?

What is so mysterious about experience?

I don't know how by experience you came by this conclusion:
"If one SIMPLY DOESN'T BELIEVE in God ("simply doesn't believe" -- I couldn't find another phrase for that), but cannot identify reasons for that unbelief, or has reasons that have nothing to do with God -- then I think this person is still elligible for God's grace."

No, you aren't. There is always (so we assume, at least for now) a bigger circle than the one you are currently in.

I am in a bigger circle than Christianity. That's a step forward (or maybe backward?)

No? We don't have time? And what do you have to do? What spiritual deadlines do you have?

I don't want to stand in front of the brick wall while everyone is passing by me. I want to move to that bigger circle. I want to climb over people. I don't want to vegetate and hope manna comes out of heaven. I want to be able to do something.

And you are, like, 60 years old, or what?
You can't speak of "the long run", not yet.
*grin grin*

Well I am searching for something that can be useful to me for the rest of my life. No, I am not 60, not even close. Hopefully by then we would have immortality pills..

If the God of Christianity is true, then I cannot have sinned. For the reasons I have demonstrated earlier where He fashions my predispositions to certain faults and indeed, my sinful nature. This nullifies any free will objection (never understood those). So if I sin, you could say God is responsible.

This goes only if you claim that there is no you.

Even if there was a "me", Scripture says He hardens whom He will and shews grace on whom He will. Doesn't sound too much like we have much say in anything.

But of course, there is no "me" as we think of it.

So? It's not like we know what God knows.

Say I am omniscient and omnipotent. I gave you money to go across the street for milk knowing very well you would be skipping and prancing about on the road and would get hit by a car.

Now for some reason you did not get hit by the car. It would only mean that I am not omniscient, and therefore not omnipotent. If I was, you would have been hit by that car, no question about it.

Same thing goes for knowing someone is going to be a murderer, or a thief.

Take a sharp knife and cut your finger. Then relativize and say that it doesn't bleed and hurt, relativize and say that maybe there is no wound.

Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's an illusion. It is impossible to know. I'll talk about this later.

You do not know what God knows. As long as you don't know what God knows, you will have free will, even if, sub specie aeternitatis, this free will is just an illusion.

Using the previous example, we can see that the hypothetical person would not have free will to NOT dance and skip on the road. The driver of the car would NOT have free will to not be driving on that road. Just because the person and the driver think they have free will does not make it true. It only means apart from killing the person, I am also deluding both of them on purpose. Even if I told the person that they were going to get hit by a car on the way, they would not have free will to avoid the accident, otherwise I would not be omniscient.

Therefore in order for God to be omniscient, we cannot have free will on any level.

Why do you think that we are talking to you?

For Jenyar, to defend his faith maybe (it's not working very well).

For you, I really don't know. I am not sure and I hesitate to speculate and sound like an idiot. You may tell me.

 

[Jenyar]

You made a good point but then left it too quickly. Who created them with certain preconceptions? And secondly and more importantly, who placed them in specific environments from birth where these normative preconceptions could be fostered? And also, were they then expected to abandon the "preconceptions and prejudices" of Judaism (or whatever sect) for the preconceptions and prejudices of Christianity? For all you have done, you are still blaming the clay for hardening and the wax for melting (which is absurd) but I leave you to explain that.

You are arguing completely from a naturalistic, nurtured-by-nature perspective. From such a viewpoint, no, there is no space for God, and you will become whatever life tosses at you. No identity of your own. But people aren't as objective and robotic as your theory would make them -- they do make choices, for instance: what to believe and what not to. These things become preconceptions. This is what hardens if you leave it without working on it, kneading it. Christians are shaped by the same natural forces that shape everybody else. We're not a different breed. But we consider God a transcendental truth -- something that supercedes this reality that would shape us. Someone who gives us the freedom to choose. God asks us: Which nature do you nurture?

The blindness of the Jews only became evident when God did what they would not accept. When God's shiny laws were so wonderful and allpowerful that they could not see -- and therefore accept -- anything greater.

You cunningly sidestepped the point but here it is again: God willed them to be blinded to His new revelation. God's revelation did not "cause" their blindness. I don't know how you can read such fancy interpretations into a verses such as, "God has given them a spirit of stupor... to this very day".

You not-so-cunningly sidestepped my answer, but I'll rephrase it. God's will prevails -- there we agree. But how--how does He make some people blind and others see, and what does God consider blindness and sight? What is the mechanism, and where do we fit into it? In the sacrificial system, blemishes such as blindness and lameness were signs of sin and imperfection, making the sacrifice unacceptable. But these could be healed (as Jesus showed; cf. John 9). What Jesus did was to show that physical limitations were not limitations to God: He forgave "imperfections" as He forgave sins -- according to the faith of the believer. In other words, faith became the "evidence" for or against you, not your limitations or your circumstancial nature. Everybody could gain forgiveness, regardless of disability. In fact, disability only makes God's grace seem that much more visible and miraculous. But faith does not restore the body, God does that.

In 2 Cor. 3, Paul uses the giving of the Law to Moses and the Israelites as explanation. They could not look on the glory of the Law, and it scared them. Moses had to be veiled when he shared God's revelation with them (Ex. 24:29-33).

Looking at Jesus' words in Matthew, He says the prophecy in Isaiah of blindness is fulfilled "Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them." And you still blame the clay for hardening? Since you even brought up hardening, do you STILL want to blame them in view of Romans 9:18? And as for why God's binding was not conclusive, we find the answer in Romans 11:5, and so it is obviously NOT they and their "preconceptions and prejudices" that are to blame. Even if they were, we can only say it is because "whom He wills He hardens".

In fact, I don't know of any place in the Bible where it is said that God's revelation caused the blindness of the Hebrews, if you could show me some verses.

So you admit it's not conclusive? That "and I would heal them" is a promise. But if the seed that would bring healing doesn't fall on good soil, it produces no effect (Parable of the sower, Matthew 13). In John 12 and Acts 28, the same passage shows that some Jews did in fact believe, even though others didn't in spite of even Jesus' miracles. The conclusion is the same: there is no excuse.

Utterly ignores my question, so if you could again readress it in your response.

God can will, but faith cannot? And how do you know this?

Are you saying faith can will? Your current theory is that we have no will. What do you suppose faith does, then?

You miss the bigger question once again. If it is based on faith, then God cannot harden whom He wills. Esau could then have had faith, Pharoah could have had faith.. But we see clearly from Scripture that this is not so, they didn't even HAVE a chance of redemption and this Paul admits indifferently. Paul even anticipates the reader's outcry:

Romans 19You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"

And this is the question I ask you.

And did you read Paul's answer? I assume you did, but could not accept it. He appeals to God's sovereignity, which you do not believe in. Nature has the final say, in your book: the spontanious firing of neurons. That is your god -- whatever causes their firing and therefore the results is your "god", this you can accept, but you will not accept that God can grant us freedom within His will. And it is the exercise of this freedom you must answer for.

Many good points raised in there but I think you should take note of the context first.

Where in the Scriptures does it say Jesus died for our sins, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day? (15:3)

Paul is talking about Jesus as the Christ, therefore in a messianic context, to whom messianic prophecies apply, for instance:

Hosea 6:2
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.​

But since you are not a messianic Jew, and you do not consider Scripture authoritive anyway, I don't know why you even bother to ask.

It is also very good that you note Paul is operating on hearsay, and as the rest of that article shows, "those figures are always filtered through lenses of usage."

You regard every source of information as hearsay, so I'm not sure what your argument is here. Since Paul takes pains to appeal to scripture and tradition here, you picked the wrong passage for such an allegation.

He is also operating on the belief that he had a vision of Jesus (although he never even saw Him to have recognized His features).

Acts 9:5-6 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”​

Paul is also known for contradicting the same Jesus you claim he knew. There is evident polarization between Matthew 5:19 and Galatians 2:15? Is this not the same inspired Paul who told his audience (believers?) in Corinth and Thessalonica that the Lord was coming to whisk them away with angels?

I'm sure everyone would appreciate it if you waged your own argument. After all, you said you didn't know who to trust. How do you justify appealing to other people's arguments? I could understand if you were citing sources to support your own arguments, but what is this?

<table border="1"><tr><td>Matthew 5:19-20
Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.</td><td>Galatians 2:15-16
We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.</td></tr></table>
Please point out the "evident polarization" for us. Jesus says that unless we (gentiles) are more perfect than the experts themselves, we will not be good enough, and Paul says not even Jews could live up to that.

Unfortunately for you, this has nothing to do with my question and I am unsure how this response even relates to any word at all in it. There was nothing in the question about me not knowing the difference between 'right' and 'wrong'. I neither claimed to know or not know the difference. It is you and your dualisms that are doing the fanciful interpolation.

Your question was about our contract with God. Even if you do not claim to know the difference between right and wrong, you still admit the difference exists, don't you? Surely you don't consider murder morally equivalent to charity? But they are, from a pure deterministic perspective (whatever you believe determines it). Where there are no alternatives, nothing is either good or bad -- they simply are. It's not a dilemma that will go away by denying alternatives, whether you choose to call them "dualisms" or not.

Either way we look at it, that is a sad defense. When you enter a country, you enter it willingly and thus it may be said that you accept its laws implicitly. So again, did anyone willingly accept God's laws or did He force them on us, in which case it is not a 'contract'.

*Willingly*? What do you mean by that? Do you mean we choose where to live? And what if we are thrown out of our native country -- exiled -- do you automatially accept the laws of other countries? Or will you be continually surprised at how foreign everything feels -- even resentful of their laws?

I am also not sure how God is the final authority on justice, morality, and righteousness. Can you explain your reasoning behind saying so?

It's axiomatic. God is authority per se, and there is no higher authority than God.

I never claimed to see anything in dualist terms. Again, that is you speaking, not me. And you never showed me Paul's "argument and reasoning" (so what was the point of the response), but your next statements are even more amusing.

Paul's argument was not necessary for my point, it's there in Romans 4 if you want to read it. Your problem lies deeper -- not how I know, or how Paul knows, or even how Abraham knows -- but how anything is known. That was my observation.

Yes. Absolutely. Poor me, an ignorant buffoon inaware of theology, "neither modern nor ancient." Please Jenyar, teach me since you obviously know more.

Your claim was "I am familiar with the theology of modern Christianity". I simply dispute it, considering your own theology.

After that personal attack, I would have expected something more intelligent but again, you do not even address my question. I wonder if quoting Bible verses that say Jesus came by water and blood has anything to do with my question. I might as well quote from the Koran in order to disprove the New Testament. You could have at least added the Johannine Comma to add weight to your point.

I am also at a loss as to how 1 Corinthians 11:25 has anything to do with my question. Did you even read the question?

Your questions were: "...explain why works do not bring any 'reward'? Also, how does Jesus blood satisfy any contract?"

I have answered both question very directly. When a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. Righteousness is not something we can attain, so it must be a gift.

A covenant is a contract with God, and if we perceive conditions to obtain salvation, or ways to breach such a contract, then they can be considered binding. Death signifies a breach of contract, since God promised us life. God reminded us His promise still stands, and Christ's blood is the new covenant by which it is promised -- He fulfilled the conditions of the old covenant, even though it is still very much in force while we are alive. Our compliance or non-compliance is still measured by its standards.

"We cannot earn grace, or it wouldn't be called grace, would it?" is the crux of your earlier argument.

That statement annuls faith. If faith cannot be earned, then Romans 4:5 is false. If work earns pay then does faith not earn grace? And yet you say this is not so. If grace cannot be earned then faith is OBVIOUSLY of no consequence. This is an inescapable conclusion. Too bad I am the one who is unaware of theology, neither modern nor ancient. Better read the question for the first time to see what I was asking.

It does not annul faith. If you had followed Paul's argument into Romans 5:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.​

Faith does not earn grace, it is the acceptance of it. God's grace is given freely, but even an omnipotent God cannot give you something you won't accept. Our works are simply the expression of that faith, in answer to grace. This faith is not just an idea we grab out of mid-air, we have it through Jesus Christ, by believing in his life, words and resurrection.

The people in all the earth before Christ's coming, who did they have to have faith in before being found righteous? The Hebrew God? I am quite sure other cultures too had Deities, who like the Israelites, required some appeasement (mostly in the form of sacrifice) in order to show mercy. Saying God might be fine to you in this day and age, but back then, WHICH GOD?

Good question. Do you know the answer? I trust God's righteousness, and we don't know their circumstances or relationship with God. They won't be punished for ignorance, but that does not make them innocent. However, we are not the judge of them.

It is obvious everyone did not believe in the same thing. To everyone, their God(s) was self-evident. Did they simply have to have faith in their brand of God, or did they have to somehow believe in the Hebrew God in order to be justified?

Again, it seems they all had the concept of God or gods. We read a few times where people from outside of Israel knew and served God: Balaam the prophet (although he ended up betraying God), Melchizedec the priest, Jethro the Midianite (who taught Moses), Rahab the prostitute... it was possible for them to have the right kind of faith God recognizes. The faith Hebrews 11 speaks of.

So now that Jesus has paid for my sins, does that mean I don't need faith? The point to be made here being: whether or not I believe Jesus died for my sins does not change the fact that Jesus still died for my sins. Why is faith then still a requirement for God to justify someone whose sins have already been paid for?

If you don't believe it, how does it affect you? And if it doesn't affect you, you are living as if God never acted, and Jesus never died for you. Then you are still crucifying Christ, not following him. It is only Christ himself that can justify you, not the mere fact of his existence or his death.

Interesting points made again but you didn't see what I was getting at.

Consider this:
You punched me in the face as hard as you can. In my anger, I stabbed myself in the eye with a pen in order to forgive you. I obviously didn't do anything wrong and sacrificing my eye has nothing to with your redemption.

Now put that analogy on a grander scale. We are an ant and God is a T-Rex. Imagine we bit the planet and the T-Rex killed itself in order to forgive us.

The points being: Obviously the T-Rex is far too great for our puny bite to be of any consequence. And even more importantly, killing itself in no way atones for the pain we caused it.

In this light, why would God take His own life on the cross for something He didn't do, as that has no bearing on our redemption.

Look, the analogy is useless because the T-Rex did not give us life, and therefore angering him would not affect our lives. We sinned against God, and with that sin we cannot have a relationship with Him. That would be strictly our loss, but since God loves us He considers it His loss as well. And it's not a "oh, that's too bad" loss; it's the kind of loss a father feels when his only son has been wrongfully sentenced to death. Why would the son insist on dying instead of proving himself innocent? Because he knows that the only innocence that counts is before God, not before people. And that's also the innocence we could not have hoped for and would not have had if God did not forgive our sins on account of Jesus, our mediator.

If we are to take your response as being correct, Ghandi, a man who did not believe in Jesus, will surely be in heaven by now from what we can tell. No?

Do you know Ghandi's heart, or are you judging him by his works? Faith makes a difference, or you would have had no works to judge him by. By some human standards he was worthless -- with no possessions, wealth or material success. Why should we judge him by *your* standards, and how do your standards compare to God's?

That wasn't what I was trying to imply. If they are sinners by default, then no matter how much 'good works' they try to do, they have still fallen short of the glory of God. Will they then be tormented regardless because they were sinners by birth? Is this not the same stupidity evidenced in people who are hated because of their skin color inherited by birth?

And so we ask again: Who created them sinners by birth since they obviously did not choose to be so? Who created people a certain skin color by birth since they obviously did not choose to be so?

Will he still find fault with them after it is the very same He who hardened them?

Probably not, but their actions will decide the issue. God's sovereignity and man's responsibility work together -- and that is also God's grace: that He would not make his decision our prison, but our freedom. As you are becoming increasingly aware: we are our own prisons. There is no indication that God's hardening cannot produce faith, on the contrary. God's will leaves room for our response: Pharaoh could have let Israel go; the Jews could all have accepted Christ.

Can you tell me how to choose (since you claim to be able to)? Or are you just assuming you can?

I choose to believe in God. Any further qualification is unnecessary, because it's just as reasonable (or unreasonable) as not believing in God. God gave me that option, and it would otherwise have been quite impossible. Outside his will, I would have had to accept my fate wherever it came from, and in whatever form. Now I have a choice about life -- I can choose my own birth.

You also like to simplify things. If we are to take what you say as true, then anyone in any culture, who humbly, simply, obediently, and persistently believes in their God/Gods is justified. We know that is not true; there is more involved.

What you are asking amounts to: Ignore your doubts and believe, no matter the evidence or circumstance.

Don't ignore your doubts, not at all -- just don't assign them sovereignity. They aren't greater than God. But if you cannot have faith that He would answer those questions according to His will, you might miss the answers completely.

The evidence is not against God, that is only another kind of faith; a belief based on trusting some arguments and not others, as always. Your faith would be enough if it was humbly, simply, obediently and persistently seeking God, and not justification for whatever philosophy you'd like to hold on to.

But I can only repeat: it's not faith that justifies you, or the search. It's God. Faith is the portal; the ear. It's an evidence-shaped ear, an honest, truth-hearing ear that allows people to tell you the truth and show you what love is. It doesn't listen to slander and inconsistency, but seeks out what is good and profitable for life. It's not so much believing in God as believing God.

If only it were that simple. Sometime, you should try imagining the sky is made out of Corn Flakes and see whether you can truly believe that. Your objection to this request will probably be the same as mine to yours.

Based on evidence? Have you actually weighed the evidence for a Corn Flaked sky? The claims aren't the same, and there are different implications for believing them.

You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault?

Because evidently, there still is room for faults -- our faults. If we are still curled up in a small bundle of fear and anguish about whether we may accept forgiveness and love or not, aren't we holding on a bit too tightly to our faults, and letting them paralyze us into thinking God has ordained our situation or set it in stone?

 

[spidergoat]

Sorry, I haven't read this whole thread, but I should follow up on my earlier statement.

I think it is possible to make yourself love something by will, but why would you want to? The fact that you can sincerely believe something just because you think you have to or want to should make us even more doubtful our commonly held beliefs. Christianity instills a lack of faith in one's self to recognize right from wrong, and so forces people to trust in it's dogma. Do they really know what it is they love, or is it an abstract concept that just exists in their own mind? Would this be a perversion of the natural human inclination for romantic love?


----------------------
“ Originally Posted by Ophiolite
It took some doing. Especially the faeces one, but I have to answer 'yes', also. That makes at least two of us. Does this not invalidate your entire argument SouthStar? ”


Not yet.

Care to tell me HOW you did it?"
The same way people can be trained to love strange fetishes, even pain- associate it with pleasure. In this case the pleasure is the feeling of community associated with a church of like minded people.

---------------
Of course, someone who has already made up their minds about it probably cannot trick themselves in this way, so there is little hope for the salvation of hardcore atheists.

 

[Brutus1964]

Simply believing is just the first part of faith. To have faith means you put your trust in God even though you don't have absolute proof of His existence. God put us down here for a very great purpose. We are his children and heirs to all he has. We must prove ourselves worthy of his gift. If you do not meet his standard you will still have your glorious reward. Those that follow him and keep his commandments, repent and strive to the end will be with God forever and receive the fullness of his blessings. So this life is a test to see if we will follow him even though we are out of his presence. What we do in this life will determine the rest of our eternity. God wants us to succeed but he will not force anyone. Every person must find thier own way and decide for themselves. God has given us the tools to do this. He will help us if we just ask.

 

[cole grey]

*jumping out of the way as rocks start flying*

BRUTUS says, "To have faith means you put your full trust in God"

Who really does that fully? This statement appears to be an exaggeration.
Please remove "full" and re-state, or I will be confused. If faith is not accessible to the masses, what's the point of all this? To narrow the gates? BRUTUS, you are talking about "child-like faith", not "faith".

 

[cole grey]

BRUTUS-

Thanks for the picture though, it reminds me I need to get some fresh air.

 

[Brutus1964]

Cole Grey

Ok I removed the word "full".

Christ said " If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

So even a little bit of faith goes a long way.

 

[cole grey]

BRUTUS-

Thanks for the picture though, it reminds me I need to get some fresh air.

 

[fahrenheit 451]

nice picture, but dont think much of faith.
check this out, this explains it better than I could.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=40015

 

[water]

Consider this:
You punched me in the face as hard as you can. In my anger, I stabbed myself in the eye with a pen in order to forgive you. I obviously didn't do anything wrong and sacrificing my eye has nothing to with your redemption.

Now put that analogy on a grander scale. We are an ant and God is a T-Rex. Imagine we bit the planet and the T-Rex killed itself in order to forgive us.

The points being: Obviously the T-Rex is far too great for our puny bite to be of any consequence. And even more importantly, killing itself in no way atones for the pain we caused it.

In this light, why would God take His own life on the cross for something He didn't do, as that has no bearing on our redemption.

Wait, you can't do that and remain faithful to the Bible. It is said that God loves the world, the people. Therefore, He does care what you do to Him, no matter how small you may be in comparison to Him. What you do to Him *is* of consequence, because He has made room for this consequence by loving you.

Of course, personally, one may believe that God doesn't love one or that God doesn't really care. But taking that stance, one cannot argue using biblical arguments.

As soon as one says something like "our puny bite is of no consequence to God", you leave the domain of biblically supported arguments!

Here comes the mistake once again of claiming I was "proud" of my faith. I wasn't proud of myself when I was a Christian so please find some better accusation. I was of the same mind as Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:9-10. The operative word being 'was'. Maybe now I might look back and it may seem like I am proudly defending my faith, but that does not mean I am/was proud of my faith.

You certainly came across as proud. I remember the way you went against me at least once. Oh, the fury!

What you are asking amounts to: Ignore your doubts and believe, no matter the evidence or circumstance.

If anyone says that to you, you can discard that as inconsistent.
Namely, we cannot demand from a person to do something that cannot be done deliberately.

We cannot deliberately admire, respect, have faith, believe, fall in love, doubt, hate etc. -- these are states that are essentially side-products of other cognitive and emotive processes.

In the light of this, I must stress that your motto I WANT TO BELIEVE is also inconsistent. We cannot believe by explicitly wanting to believe. By saying I WANT TO BELIEVE to yourself, you are actually expecting/demanding yourself to do something that cannot be done deliberately. This is one of the reasons why your quest has been so aggravating so far.

Words mean nothing.

!!??!!??!!??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What I say may not reflect what I feel, or I may not even know what I feel.

Why not? Maybe you just aren't used to using language for that, or aren't trusting language for the things it can express.

Saying that has no bearing on reality. What I think I am and what I really am are different.

You are on slippery ground with this.

What is a living faith? And if we have this faith, who/what do we place our trust in?

For starters in that what you see that works no matter what.

All things can only be trusted at face value

I have no idea how you can support that.

Habit breeds faith.

No. I vehemently disagree.
In my opinion, that is a skewed image of faith that you have there.

'faith' is unfounded hope.

No. This is resentment speaking.

Pavlov's dogs believed the ring of a bell meant they were going to get food. This belief was founded on hope; there was no guarantee they were going to get food. The same for expecting the light to turn on, expecting the sun to rise, all because it has happened consistently.

Aside from habit, we can then say there is no faith, for such faith is unfounded hope. Same thing with this God who does not answer. Each time we knock, we can only hope.

If Pavlov decided to ring the bell and ignore the dogs everytime they came running, they would lose interest fast.

This depends on who you think God is.
If you think God is that old man with a beard, and you pray to that old man with a beard and he does not answer -- then you can't blame God for not answering.

Because the bell did not serve my hope anymore, I will hate all bells. No norm should shackle man. No complacency, NO faith. Trust no one and no one disapopints you.

Maybe you are expecting too much from trust.

If you trust a person, then that person has the monopoly over you. You don't want that, do you?

What?!
If you trust someone, this person has monopoly over you?!
Where did you get that?!

If you think that trusting someone comes at the expense of your own worth and self-trust -- then you ought to learn something about trust.

No, I don't think it can be "snapped out of".
Yes, and it explains the sudden anti-free will surge.

Are you saying performance anxiety can't be fixed?

No, I am not saying that it can't be fixed.
But you can't snap out of it. It takes time and effort.

I think it is now time to separate between

your experience of Christianity so far

and

your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

Up until your deconversion, the two were one the same to you. You did not separate them.

But as you studied, you began to see that your experience of Christianity so far is *not* what your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

So you took the first step and abandoned your experience of Christianity so far, abandoned it because it was not reliable, not logical, full of contradictions and so on. Which is understandable.

But, at that first stage, along with abandoning your experience of Christianity so far, you also abanadoned your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like -- as at that early point of your deconversion, the two were still one and the same.

So now, you are left with guilt and doubt.
I think that if you consider this dichotomy I presented above, it should be of help to you.

What ought to be abandoned as the ultimate measurement of faith is your experience of Christianity so far.
But this should not be at the cost of also abandoning your ideal of what a belief in God could be or should be like.

See, it's not nearly as bad as it may look.

I don't know what a belief in God should/could be like. :-(

I have had only one standard.

You have had only that one standard and you saw it wasn't all that good. Alright.

I don't know where the new standard should be, if there should be one. I don't know that a belief in God is necessary, or that He/She/It exists or even cares about me, I don't know anything about God in fact. I just feel that God exists.

Alright. Don't be hasty! It's not like you are indebted to someone, or pressured by some deadline by which you have to make up your mind about God.

So where do I start? And DON'T say "You can start by trusting". I don't know WHO to trust or why to trust or how to trust. How can any truth be determined this way? How can I be satisfied knowing that I dont' know?
I can only make assumptions and pretend they are truth but that doesn't make them any less unfounded. Everytime time I go to sleep I can assume I will wake up. But I don't know I will. I am back to square one.

Don't speed ahead of yourself.
You do know what is good for you, for each day at a time, right? Consistently do that.

How long will I wait? Will I salivate even unto my deathbed waiting for that bell to ring?

Who is saying you should WAIT?!

You are asking me to do what I did before: I ask God for -x-. God does not give me -x-. The Bible says who am I to be impatient with God and His inscrutable ways. I keep waiting. I go back to step one.

No, I am not asking you this!

And secondly, if you don't know who God is or how to address Him -- then how do you know that even if you did ask Him something, that the request came to the right address, so to speak?!

The cycle continues. Therefore it is quite necessary to know how long. Very necessary.

You will have to dismiss this ideology of waiting. You will go mad if you continue to wait.

How did you get over it? How long did it take? Were you Christian too?

I didn't "get over it". I never was a Christian, 2 and a half years back I had an experience with the Mormons, but that's it.

Very bold, but probably true. I probably fooled myself into thinking I was doing it for God and God alone. Do you see why I can't trust myself?

Why couldn't you trust yourself?
When you were 3, you couldn't write or type, but now you can. Should you now not trust yourself with writing and typing, because you couldn't write and type when you were 3?

And saying that you "fooled yourself into thinking you were doing it for God and God alone" is odd to me, considering that you later said that "My identity depends on my environment. This isn't my fault." If you think that the environemnt determined your identity, and with it, your actions -- then how can *you* say that *you* "fooled yourself into something?!

It's is not your fault that you were the way you were -- this much we can agree on.

And if it isn't your fault, you dont' have to take the blame for it.

What is more of a problem: You trusting other people -- or you being afraid that other people would not find you trustworthy?

The second one. They might be disappointed in me. I disappoint myself.

How do you disappoint yourself?

I think that you are setting yourself too high expectations, expectations that cannot be fulfilled. No wonder you end up disappointed. But all you see is the disappointment, not the expectations that lead to it.

Better then to never forge a trust in the first place.

Trust isn't "forged".

How do I fix it? I know it's bad and I am conscious of it but I don't know how..

You are fixing it as we speak.

Ask yourself: Will I die if you die?
(That "you" is just any person you can think of.)

I can't take that chance. Safer and wiser to never find out.

Haha, my cowardice.

Will you die if I die?
No, you won't, SouthStar.

(Unless I undertake some subversive actions to take you with me. But I won't do that.)

Have you ever seen a man who knows he is in a pit but cannot get himself out? Too proud to ask for help and yet he wants more than anything to be helped. He cannot get himself out and so he will stay.

So the man thinks.
The man does speak though, and there are those who can hear, and they come to help, into his pit.

If you, in advance, doubt that something could work out fine -- then don't be surprised if it indeed does not work out fine.

You want positive thinking? How do I think positively? Just will it?

I don't want you to "think positively"; it is an inconsistent demand to say "think positively".
You can, however, keep to what you know is good for you.

I try, but I don't know how to. Something is not working. I don't think I can. I don't have free will to stop doubting.

"Stop doubting" is another inconsistent demand. One shouldn't set oneself inconsistent demands.

Do you think the God of Christianity is the real God? Are all viewpoints of God not marred from the outsets of Christianity? How can we know God if we mold Him into a caricature? If God left me, is He to blame? Or was the God I worshipped not God?

Will the real God please stand up.

To say that "Are all viewpoints of God not marred from the outsets of Christianity? How can we know God if we mold Him into a caricature?" is to start from a comparison that supposes you know both the Christian God and God "as He truly is".

As all the Christian Chrurches and sects and believers constantly argue, it is not clear what exactly is to be the "Christian God", so we have to dismiss this idea of a "Christian God" in the first place.
And as for God "as He truly is" -- neither of us now claims to know that. So we have to dismiss this idea also.
Thus, we can't speak of "marred viewpoints" and "caricatures".

If God left me, is He to blame?

This depends on who you think God is. You have said before that you don't know who God is, so your question is right now unanswerable.

Or was the God I worshipped not God?

We cannot answer this either, for the same reasons as stated above.

And thirdly, as far as trust between people is concerned: I'm afraid you have too high expectations. Not too high because humans are fallible beings. But too high because you expect more from that trust than can actually be achieved in a relationship of trust. I'm afraid your identity and self-worth depend on others too much.

If I am going to put my trust in somebody, don't I deserve to get something equally grand in return? If not then this trust becomes mere hope.

I'll repeat what I said before:
And thirdly, as far as trust between people is concerned: I'm afraid you have too high expectations. Not too high because humans are fallible beings. But too high because you expect more from that trust than can actually be achieved in a relationship of trust. I'm afraid your identity and self-worth depend on others too much.

My identity depends on my environment. This isn't my fault.

Tell me: If you moved to some other place, to some very different environment than the one you were brought up in -- would your identity change completely?

It's all about finding who is at fault, who is to blame.

And then what? Then you will sue your environment for "emotional pains"?

Trust what seems to be reasonable to trust; trust what you now find reasonable to trust.
I think this is as good as it gets.

I thought Christianity and its God were reasonable to trust. Or so I thought.

Were you brought up as Christian? Was it your parents who introduced your (first) religion to you?

Because if it was so, then you were a little child when you started going to church -- and to claim that a 4-year old has thought "I thought Christianity and its God were reasonable to trust. Or so I thought." is unrealistic, to say the least.

If I am running and I fall, do I keep running or do I learn from my lesson?

How many times have you fallen? It looks like this is only your first fall. You haven't even had the chance to start learning from your and other people's mistakes.

Tell that to Jenyar:
"the same is true for that faith: not perfect faith, simple, humble, obedient and persevering faith; Hanging on to the right hope."

Apparently it is simple to believe humbly and obediently in a religion fine tuned over the millenia. I think we need to help him see the error of his ways, bring him out of his narrow circle. I can't help but feel sorry for him when I think of how limited and narrowed his thinking has been made.

He has had a completely different experience of Christianity than you and me. We can't compare those experiences and treat them as if they were the same.

If only I knew what to do to get Christianity out of my head. It's flying around buzzing in every crevice and irritating me. I guess you can't teach and old dog new tricks.

I don't think it is Christianity that is "flying around buzzing in every crevice and irritating you". What is "flying around buzzing in every crevice and irritating you" is what your experience of Christianity has *provoked* in your personality -- but this has nothing in specific to do with Christianity; some other religion or ideology could have provoked the same things.

It is not wise to wait until the oil runs out or until the sand runs out. After all, we just don't know.

Well then, if you yourself see that waiting isn't a good thing -- then what can you do? What do you think you should do?

The question is, how do I know what the right way is?

If it doesn't give you sleepless nights, if it isn't bad for your body, if you can have a moderately clear conscience following that path -- then it likely is the right way.

And PLEEEAASE don't say "trust." I may have changed rapidly but now I feel like I am at a brick wall. Not actually the end of the road, just a wall. I don't know how long it will take to climb over the wall, I am afraid the wall is too high for me. Whether or not I trust in my ability has nothing to do with how tall the wall is. No remedy seems to be in sight for me; I cannot see the top of the wall. Maybe there is another way, walking around it, but I don't know how.

You neither know how tall the wall is, neither do you know your abilities.

Just an endless circle. I expect after getting over this circle (if I do, what a miracle) there will be greener pastures on the other side. There will be more to discover, more to learn, more happiness, more joy, everything I want. More assumptions and hope. Not faith, hope.

Good then!

What loving God allows this to happen to me and threatens to burn me if I don't love Him?

God must want me to figure it all out by myself and then give Him the credit and thanks - or else He is going to burn me in Hell. We must never forgive this paradoxical condition given by the 'loving God' who forces all to love Him under the threat of eternal death.

And God help us all if the Lord isn't really good.

I'll just say "huh", for now.

Jenyar has a good point? He has convinced me that Christians are in one of the narrowest circles in all of thinking! I have seldom seen such aloofness to the obvious fact that he is being circular in reasoning. It's like he likes to chase his tail! Oops, forgot we didn't come from monkeys. I was once like that so I understand but I am still amused at how obvious it should be that he is making a HUGE mistake in believing Christianity can be defended intellectually.

*You* are the one who was making the HUGE mistake in believing Christianity can be defended intellectually, not Jenyar.


Have you any idea how cold and loveless you used to be, when you were preaching?! I got the chills reading your posts. You were someone who gave the impression he could and would kill anyone who doesn't agree with him.
I'm not saying this to criticize you, but this is my earliest experience of you.
You were defending Christianity intellectually -- and this is a grave downscaling. You forgot the love part.

You keep talking like the old God and the new God are different.

This is what I can conclude from what you are saying.

I used to think Christianity had the only true God and all other believers were deluded fools tricked by Satan and his minions. Now I don't know. Who is this new God and what does He have to offer me?

You'll have to find out yourself.

I lost a good part of my life being delusional. How this can at all be skewed into a positive interpretation is beyond me.

You have had a good lesson of what is *not* good for you, haven't you?
Lessons in what is not good are more thorough and more lasting than those about what suppesedly is good.

I could have made important intellectual strides and would not be stuck in this agony and dissatisfaction.

Oh, what "important intellectual strides" could you have made?! I'm not saying this to belittle your efforts.
But.
You could also complain, "Oh, shame that I wasn't born into a richer family that could offer me better chances. Oh, shame that I wasn't born with athletic predispositions and so I can't become a world-class athlete. Oh, shame, that I wasn't born with a music talent -- ic ould have been world-famous by now! Cruel fate that took all that to me and gave me a miserable life, stuck in this agony and dissatisfaction!"

You are complaining about things that are out of your reach, you have no credit for them, be they good or bad. So you miight just as well stop complaining.

As for letting yourself down: How can that be? One can let oneself down only if one assumes to be more than one actually is.

In English please.

I let myself down by fooling myself to think something was true.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Can there be a greater embarassment and blow?

Yes: thinking that you must be right, no matter what.

I have to live with myself knowing that I am capable of fooling myself!

So? This is actually to your advanatage. Now you can at least tell when you are fooling yourself, and when you are not fooling yourself.

I know I do not want to fool myself and have never wanted to fool myself so it could certainly not have been me constructing the delusion.

But then it wasn't *you* fooling yourself anyway!! Why the fuss then?!

Just wait till Jenyar reads my response.

And then what?

I am asking him the tough questions. Idiotically enough. I know that isn't going to change him a tiny bit but I still hope.

So you explicitly wish to *change* people?
And you are who? the new Messiah?

There is no such thing as "just biological". Sometimes, we only have a biological explanation for something, but this doesn't mean that no other is possible.

Everything can be explained in terms of neurons firing away. EVERYTHING. Why the Yankees lost, why the sky looks blue.. Social, economic, political factors all boil down to neurons firing away.

So? It's all "neurons firing away", sure. But when you think of the things you have to do in a day, you don't think of those things as "neurons firing away" -- you think of those things as "after work, I have to go to the store" or "I don't like those shoes" or "I don't think what Lizzie said to Millie was right".

You'll be a convert sooner or later. Don't fight the urge.

Hm?

I would just have to trust that trusting someone does not end up making me feel like an idiot

Exactly. I think this is something very good that you have suggested here!

If only I knew how.

For starters, you can tell yourself "I don't have to feel like an idiot if I trust someone".

But in doing so we ignore that trusting because we trust doesn't make sense. If we don't know why we trust (and must therefore submit to circles),

We trust, or life is impossible.

what makes us think we know where to direct that trust and how much to put in to it? That too will be addled with baseless assumption, will it not?

We do learn.

And it will all be confined to the poor circle that we trust because we trust.

If this is all you think about trust, then trust is no good for you, indeed.

That's the thing: You WAITED. I think this is what is wrong.

What should I have done?

As it is, it couldn't have been different than it was, so I won't say what you should have done -- instead of what you have done.
But for the future, you can cinsider whether waiting is a feasible option.

Pavlov's dog got what they expected (or hoped for). We who are outside their circle know of course that there is no correlation between the ring of the bell and food. We see the correlation as between Pavlov and the dogs getting food. I suspect if we are being observed by higher powers, they see the correlation even more differently.

In the same way, I STRONGLY suspect there is no correlation between to will, and to do. I am in fact convinced completely that I do not have free will.
Our free-will assumptions ex post, like the dogs' assumptions ex post (after the bell rings and they have the food), are non sequitur.
Our free-will assumptions before acting, like the dogs' assumptions the moment the bell rings, are likewise non sequitur.

Non sequitur or not: We live and we must live. We decide somehow, even if it is based on what techincally are non-sequiturs.
When we decide, we decide based on our values and preferences -- and you do have values and preferences. Don't forget about them.

Yes, but the question is: If you were omnipotent and omniscient and loving -- would you create me to be a mass murderer?

Leave that for Jenyar. In fact, I asked him the same questions before getting to your response. The verse involved is:

Romans 9
17For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

19You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"

This very clearly shows the absurdity of the Christian God. He is the one who hardened Pharoah's heart and yet He is going to burn Pharoah in hell for all of eternity AS IF IT WAS HIS FAULT. It actually makes me angry at Christians who are too stupid to see there is a certain inconsistency here.

Your understanding and experience of Christianity is not the only understanding and experience of Christianity.

You have a certain interpretation of the Bible that is based on your understanding and your experience of Christianity. And we have seen that your expereince of Christianity is specific in certain ways -- like professing faith in order to buy and justify other people's love.

Actually, no bla bla for ever.

For an individual, it is the immediate social circle he grows up in that determine his *intial* beliefs.
(Surely, that social circle was determined by theone before and all that, but eventually, thinking in terms of evolution, we do see that that line stops somewhere, and this somewhere is not "for ever".)

There has to be a "forever", otherwise we are just begging for a first cause.

Why? As for life, we can always infer a Big Bang as the first cause, problem solved.

How on earth does me saying "fuck 'em" count as blasphemy?!

Matthew 5:22.

and

Forgive our sins, as we forgive those who trespass gainst us.

and

1 John 3:10 Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

Since "fuck 'em" is probably not loving, we can see from v14 that you "abide in death" and therefore "you are a murderer" (v15), in which case "you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."

Since you have now blasphemed against the Spirit which abides in the saints of God , Matthew 12:31 condemns you without hope of redemption.

Ouch.

You are being facetious.

Better not to find at all than take the risk. Face value (and peoples words) are no indicators of a person's intentions.

Sometimes, they indeed aren't.
But why should you want to trust those people?

Do you think it is still a wise choice to take the risk of trusting someone?

Yes.

What is so mysterious about experience?

I don't know how by experience you came by this conclusion:
"If one SIMPLY DOESN'T BELIEVE in God ("simply doesn't believe" -- I couldn't find another phrase for that), but cannot identify reasons for that unbelief, or has reasons that have nothing to do with God -- then I think this person is still elligible for God's grace."

If my experience is that people who have called themselves Christians have harmed me, and they have justified their actions by calling upon their God or considering themselves better than me -- then I say that my experience of Christians is not as they should be according to the Bible. This, I can *identify* as reasons for unbelief. However, these reasons are only temporary, and valid until I forgive those people for being the way they are. I cannot use that negative experience as a *justification* for my unbelief though. If I would justify my unbelief that way, it would mean I am accusing God of something He did not do.

As for identifying reasons for unbelief that have nothing to do with God: If one has been raised into a person with no self-confidence, a someone who has no trust for one's own thoughts and actions -- then such a person will also not believe in an ideology, as they will infinitely doubt their ability to understand anything.

Indeed, to say I came to this "by experience" is a bit of a stretch -- it is my experience though that religionists who don't have certain experience of what mental wrecks people can be, that such religionists like to accuse anyone of deliberate rebellion, even though a person who lacks self-confidence is not even be able of deliberate rebellion.

No, you aren't. There is always (so we assume, at least for now) a bigger circle than the one you are currently in.

I am in a bigger circle than Christianity. That's a step forward (or maybe backward?)

No, you aren't in the bigger circle than Christianity. You are, at best, in the bigger circle than your experience of Christianity so far.

No? We don't have time? And what do you have to do? What spiritual deadlines do you have?

I don't want to stand in front of the brick wall while everyone is passing by me. I want to move to that bigger circle. I want to climb over people. I don't want to vegetate and hope manna comes out of heaven. I want to be able to do something.

EVERYONE IS PASSING BY YOU?
Really?
I think this is one of those sky-high expectations you have.

Even if there was a "me", Scripture says He hardens whom He will and shews grace on whom He will. Doesn't sound too much like we have much say in anything.

But of course, there is no "me" as we think of it.

But *you* do not know whether *you* are hardened or not, *you* do not know whether *you* are shown grace or not!

You don't even know what to think of God! So how could you claim that He has either hardened you, or showed you grace?!

So? It's not like we know what God knows.

Say I am omniscient and omnipotent. I gave you money to go across the street for milk knowing very well you would be skipping and prancing about on the road and would get hit by a car.

Now for some reason you did not get hit by the car. It would only mean that I am not omniscient, and therefore not omnipotent. If I was, you would have been hit by that car, no question about it.

Same thing goes for knowing someone is going to be a murderer, or a thief.

This is fallacious!

If, in this metaphor, you are omnipotent, then nothing can happen "for some reason" without you having power over that!

Therefore in order for God to be omniscient, we cannot have free will on any level.

This is one bloody cop-out.

That thing above is a fallacious argument -- you have put premises into it that actually exclude eachother.

That argument contains these premises:

A1:
P1: God is omniscient and omnipotent.
P2: All things happen according to God's knowledge.
P3: Things can happen.

Per se, each premise is valid. But you cannot put all three into one argument, as P3 is in opposition to what P1 and P2 say.

Why do you think that we are talking to you?

For you, I really don't know. I am not sure and I hesitate to speculate and sound like an idiot. You may tell me.

Only after I posted that post, I realized how provoking my question actually was, for all involved. But I decided to leave it and not edit it.
Why I am talking to you? It is the shock of seeing another person stumble, and I came to do what I can to help.

But I don't know why you feel you sound like and idiot.


* * *

Simply believing is just the first part of faith. To have faith means you put your trust in God even though you don't have absolute proof of His existence. God put us down here for a very great purpose. We are his children and heirs to all he has. We must prove ourselves worthy of his gift. If you do not meet his standard you will still have your glorious reward. Those that follow him and keep his commandments, repent and strive to the end will be with God forever and receive the fullness of his blessings. So this life is a test to see if we will follow him even though we are out of his presence. What we do in this life will determine the rest of our eternity. God wants us to succeed but he will not force anyone. Every person must find thier own way and decide for themselves. God has given us the tools to do this. He will help us if we just ask.

You are arguing from an ex-post position. You are arguing from the position of someone who already has faith.

Someone who does not have faith yet will not gain it following your instructions here.

You need to ponder more carefully about how your faith came about to be.

 

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Funny how trust is being discussed in this thread. I have just finished reading a sad post on another forum from a guy who trusted in people. People he had placed (by his own will) as leaders and teachers in faith. People who He looked up to and sought out wisdom from them in his faith life.

Well He found out that one of them was a believer in a false cult. And that the other teachers and leaders supported him. Well it all ended up with this sad poster being kicked out of the organization. He learned a lesson the hard way.

Never trust people, especially when eternity is concerned. Too many people follow people and get burnt.

All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

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Quote from Southstar

Jenyar has a good point? He has convinced me that Christians are in one of the narrowest circles in all of thinking! I have seldom seen such aloofness to the obvious fact that he is being circular in reasoning. It's like he likes to chase his tail! Oops, forgot we didn't come from monkeys. I was once like that so I understand but I am still amused at how obvious it should be that he is making a HUGE mistake in believing Christianity can be defended intellectually.

Quote from water

*You* are the one who was making the HUGE mistake in believing Christianity can be defended intellectually, not Jenyar.

Well said water Yes Southstar thought that he could defend Christianity using his intellectual abilities and that was his down fall. We do use intellectual points to defend our faith but we do not rely on intellectualism exclusively.

And why does southstar say that he " was once like that "?

southstar is still like that. The only difference is now he is using his intellectual ability to attack and disprove God with the same in your face attitude he had when he was the, "defender of the faith" ,or should i say defender of his faith. What was southstars faith? Maybe it was belief in an "intellectually defendable” god?

All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

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Oh i just had to post this post.

Quote from southstar.

Romans 9
17For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

19You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"

This very clearly shows the absurdity of the Christian God. He is the one who hardened Pharoah's heart and yet He is going to burn Pharoah in hell for all of eternity AS IF IT WAS HIS FAULT. It actually makes me angry at Christians who are too stupid to see there is a certain inconsistency here.

Quote from water

Your understanding and experience of Christianity is not the only understanding and experience of Christianity.

Well said water.

southstar believes in "his intellectual" understanding of scripture. He believed in "his intellectual" understanding of scripture when he was a "defender of the faith" He would not consider that any other understanding country to his understanding was worth merit no matter if it came from an athiest or a believer in God he would attack with "mucho vehemence" anyone who would dare give any view contry to his own view.

southstar has settled on the calvanist view of pre-destination. Maybe he got it from the "fundies" he once had fellowship with or maybe he developed it independently of indoctrination? But wherever he got it from he will still not listen to any other view that runs counter to his "intellectual view".

To put calvinism in simple words:

That all men are made by the power of God to believe in God or to reject God. That no man has true free will. That God from the very start of creation pre selected those who would believe in Him and be saved, and those who would reject Him and be cast into the lake of fire. So God created people to be saved and God created others to burn.

Now that view of God turns Him into some sick megalomaniac psychopath. And that is the view of God that southstar now clings to. It's easier to fight against a sick megalomaniac psychopath then to fight against a loving God. Like all good propagandists the enemy must be demonized before killing the enemy, and all who follow him, can be morally justified.

I have posted before my "understanding" of Gods foreknowledge of all history. Now i will try to put the view that i hold into simple words using Pharaoh as an example.

God knew that Pharaoh would reject His demand to let His people go. even after giving him signs, God already knew Pharaoh’s heart and response before he gave it. If you read the account God did harden Pharaoh’s heart but only after Pharaoh had hardened his own heart against God.

So why would God need to harden someone’s heart if they have already hardened it by themselves?????

Because God had to make it clear to the people both the israelites and the ejyptians that it was He who was freeing these people from Ejypt. For God to carry out all the miraculous signs He had to have Pharaoh’s heart hardened to a completely illogical extent. (to an insane level of resistance to God if you like) Pharaoh was already doomed, for God knew Pharaoh’s whole life even before Pharaoh was born. God chose to use Pharaoh as a sacrificial pawn in His greater plan.

let me quote some scripture that shows what i am talking about:

2 thessalonians 2
7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

God will send then strong delusions to make them believe in the lie????? The lie being the Lawless one. The anti-christ....

WHY......

Because they will not receive the LOVE OF THE TRUTH. The Messiah Jesus..His Word...His loving guidance...The Love of the Truth.

So Pharaoh rejected the will of God so God used Him. Likewise people will reject the Messiah Jesus and God will use them also. But people first rebel/reject BEFORE God hardens their hearts or sends them strong delusions so that they will believe in a lie.

All Praise The Ancient Of Days