Another idiotic post. Only a cult says "give up everything for God". Churches promote family not tear them down.
My point was two parts. First to point out that all three of these religions are all aiming in the same direction, to impress Yahweh. I get that religions like to differentiate themselves and hence emphasize the differences, but if impressing Yahweh is determinative to getting past the gate, all these religions are trying to do that, so there isn't a logical reason why one would do that better that's been presented here. Its a roll of the faith dice.
Second, in the Pascal's wager scenario, people always assume there is either Yahweh or no God as our only options. Through most of human history there are literally thousands of alternatives. So if your goal in life is to not piss gods off so that you can sneak into heaven, you are best maintaining a rational, non-personal reason for not believing so as to avoid making any particular god mad. All the Yahweh believers are more likely to have thousands of other gods attacking them as they are to have arrived at the one true answer and gain protection. The point of Pascal is to provide a logical game theory for choosing religion, but if you expand the god universe, it really provides the opposite rational.
I have no clue how many Gods are out there. I do know a loving God would never murder or kill his creation.
Very good points, I try to stay out of these conversations because I have come to the opinion that we are more than religious pawns to an egocentric God figure nor are we just evolutionary mistakes just biding our time until we one day die and slip into the ether. There are so many others like me that don't feel the incessant need to take sides on one extreme or another. I personally try to avoid these threads as I get tired of hearing how I'll "burn in hell" for not following a certain religion or how I'm deluded because I may not agree with everything we've been told from a science standpoint.
I am okay with not feeling the need to have everything in this life follow some logical patterns, nor do I need to have someone tell me what I'm to believe. I'm not pushing my theories and opinions off on others and always appreciate the same in return. As always, seems to be the zealots on both sides barking and making the most noise.
There you go again. Failing to mention Islam which is all-encompassing. You're truly intellectually dishonest about this issue. But with you it's all about bashing Christians whenever and however you can. Are you scared to criticize Islam?
5000. Give or take.
It's the same 5000 people (gods) cycling through all the lives.
Hey, eternity is boring otherwise. It's the godly version of video games.
And yes, we keep score.
It's got to be more than that. All those Mormans believe they become gods with their own planet. You got all those Scientology thatens in the volcanos. Then it's my personal belief that man makes his own gods, so that must add up fast. Hinduism alone claims over 300 million gods. Many billions is a conservative guess in my opinion and that's just from us humans. I wouldn't be at all surprised if other life in the universe has many of their own gods.
That's a great twist. The wager doesn't account for the wrong God. SOB.
It's the anthropomorphic issue that's always deterred me. We have this image of God as a "father", but God has no physical limits and certainly wouldn't be victim to the emotions we experience as a consequence of neurotransmitters, hormones, blood sugar, toxicity. We can't possibly be in the image of something like that, we are the expression of our physical limits. We can only have faith in that which we've been taught to believe in no different than reading w/out being taught the alphabet. There is not one chance in hell God would leave eternity in the hands of our capabilities of faith.
It's all an illusion.
Every god lives every life. The torturer who gets sadistic pleasure from the screams of his victims will be each of those victims in due course. The victim will become the victimizer. The rapist will be raped, the rape victim will become the rapist.
It isn't merely that you should treat others how you wish to be treated because that's the decent thing to do. It's also that how you treat others is how you will be treated when you live their lives.
You are losing me here. Do you really believe this? If you get raped in this life, you will become a rapist in the next life? WTF?
I will say, one of the most annoying things I hear over and over again, say after a tragedy like a tornado. "God saved us. We prayed while we were hunkered down in the bath tub and the tornado went around our house!"
The fact that the same tornado hit all your neighbors houses and killed them means that God wanted them to die then, right? You can't have it both ways. If there is a sole god and he controls all that occurs in the universe, then he's responsible for babies dying, people suffering, etc, etc.
That's one of the things that just turns me a bit cynical when it comes to religion. How can you overlook that as a believer?
The fact that the same tornado hit all your neighbors houses and killed them means that God wanted them to die then, right? You can't have it both ways. If there is a sole god and he controls all that occurs in the universe, then he's responsible for babies dying, people suffering, etc, etc.
That's one of the things that just turns me a bit cynical when it comes to religion. How can you overlook that as a believer?
I am not aware of the thing to which you are referring. I doubt I would waste the time to become aware of it because it's irrelevant. I would rather have a really good understanding of God's Word than some human construct feebly attempting to discredit it. The world according to Pascal's Wager? Good luck hanging your hat on that.
Christianity isn't about "impressing Yahweh". God knows that no human who ever lived (except Jesus Himself) could measure up to His perfect standards. We can't "impress" Him. The Bible says over & over that man's best efforts are as filthy rags and are absolutely worthless. The payment for sin is death. In the OT sacrificial system, it was the death of a perfect animal that would atone for a particular sin or sins. That 's why He sent Jesus to die as the final sacrifice for our sins. All we have to do is believe & accept that.
I know God, as all true believers do, but He is infinite in wisdom & scope. So no one can completely know the mind of God. Believers who study His Word & talk to him in prayer know His mind to the extent that He intends humans to know it.
Sounds fine to me, but then why question another's ability to know the same? Maybe you and PCB were talking to different gods? PCB claimed to know what a loving god would do. I assume you talk to Yahweh, correct? Do you accept that there are other gods in existence now or in the past as the Bible supports? I understand you wouldn't want to worship them in contradiction to Yahweh's laws, but do you acknowledge their existence?
OK, well I'd still call faith pretty impressive, so my contention stands that all 3 of the Abrahamic religions are aimed at impressing Yahweh. They all have different emphases on how best to do that and what the rewards might mean, but the aim for each is the same.
The Bible does not support "other gods". It acknowledges that sinful man creates false "gods" and "worships" them instead of Him. Back in OT times, a false god was often an actual idol, often made of wood, stone, or precious metal. Today, idols are more likely to be things like money, human relationships, material possessions, careers....all things which are not bad in themselves, but are often used to attempt to replace God as the most important thing in one's life.
That is what the Bible means by other "gods". Not a real, legitimate divine being.
It sounds like you're saying he told you directly. Is that the case? I ask because you mentioned you know him in a direct sense.
Its my understanding this isn't correct. For some time during old testament periods the Israelites worshiped Yahweh as the main god but not the only god in their pantheon. For some time after that he was thought to be the only god for Israel, but not the only god in existence as other nations had their own gods looking after them. Monotheism then eventually developed to the point where the view was Yahweh was the only god in existence for all.
Research it, you can find passages in the OT that supports this evolution in thinking. Evolution you might expect if humans were in charge of god, not so much if Yahweh was actually in charge from the beginning however.
Christians understand that the Bible is the authentic Word of God. He used human hands to write it, but it is His Word.
I do know Him. All true believers know Him. Anyone can know Him the same way. They simply have to choose to.
It is correct.
If you remember, the Israelites were punished time & again for their refusing to recognize God as the one true God. For centuries, until Christ came, there was a continual cycle of sin/apostasy...punishment...repentance; sin...punishment...repentance. Even today (in fact, especially today), that cycle marks the human condition.
Any "changes" or "evolution in thinking" were the reflections of man's refusal to acknowledge God, not reality itself. The young Israeli nation, trying to establish itself in the land that God promised them as their inheritance, repeatedly had trouble with "other gods" because it failed to completely obliterate the pagan peoples around them in the promised land as God had commanded them to. They were therefore vulnerable to those people's influences, including worshipping other "gods". In fact, one of the many reasons God wanted those people wiped out was because of their worshipping "gods" that were not only not real, but because their worship required heinous things such as child sacrifice (see "Molech", "Chemosh", and "Asherah" for examples). This idolatry and false worship never really went away; it just took on different forms as time went on.
"monotheism", implying that "polytheism" is an alternate choice, is a human construct...the choice to believe in either one God or many "gods" doesn't mean that the choice is real or valid. I can choose to believe in gravity or not; my "choice" has no bearing on whether or not gravity is real.
When do you think the inspiration occurred? At the writing or at the editing? Do you allow for the possibility that this supernatural dictation might have produced some errors or is the Bible perfect in your view?
Do you think the Koran and/or the Book of Mormon was also inspired? I assume you're a mainline Christian so probably not, but is there a logical reason not to assume they are if you think the practice is pretty ordinary in terms of how god communicates.
OK, so you are saying that what I'm interpreting as an evolution in thinking over time are really just errors in the inspired text? Do you see the problem there?
Moses wrote the first five books; Joshua was mostly written by Joshua; Samuel wrote many of the OT books. Many prophets--both major & minor--foretold Israel's (both the northern & southern kingdoms) punishment many years before it happened. They also foretold the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ--in every minute detail--centuries before His time. Four of Jesus' disciples wrote the gospels. Paul wrote many of the epistles in his letters to the Gentile churches. John the Revelator wrote Revelation. So the inspiration took place before and during the writing. Mistakes? The Bible is perfect in what it teaches. Some details, such as referring to bats as birds or whales as fish, are what they are. So it was clear that "human hands" were used. But it is not a book of taxonomy or nomenclature. It is ultimately God telling people who He is & how (and through Whom) they can come to know Him & be saved.
I don't know if you would appreciate a Christians position--or deepest sentiments--regarding the Koran or Book of Mormon.
So God punished the Israelites because they failed to exterminate the indigenous peoples. Got it.
I've never actually heard someone say the bible is perfect. That's interesting.
So as a Christian, must you believe and adhere to everything laid out in the bible?
If a husband or wife commits adultery, they must die? If people worship a false God they must be killed?
Why aren't Christians killing people on a daily basis?
So as a Christian, must you believe and adhere to everything laid out in the bible?
If a husband or wife commits adultery, they must die? If people worship a false God they must be killed?
Why aren't Christians killing people on a daily basis?
OK, I think that makes the most sense too, that the writers were inspired. What then is your take on the works that claimed to be inspired, but were left out of the canon at Nicaea? Do you think works like the Book of Enoch are inspired too? Thats the reason for my question on the other holy books, namely do you think Yahweh was still telling his final story after the Bible writers? If not, do you view these other holy books as just human fiction or delusion or inspired by the devil?
Do the errors in biblical prophesy bother you? You list the fulfillment of prophesy to make your case, so does an error in that line of thinking point to a problem beyond nomenclature? For example when the Bible makes a big deal of the census to get Jesus to Bethlehem and you learn that the census didn't happen and people didn't migrate in that way, are you bothered? How exact should one even expect the Bible to be? I mean do you think Yahweh was basically guiding every word choice and its essentially a perfect transcript of a dictation from the lord or was it more like God told the writer to go write a moral inspirational work and left the details up to the writer? Should we take most of it as literal truth or is it better understood as general parable with guidance, but not absolute facts and laws in your opinion?
In Psalm 82:1 when it talks about God judging among the gods, how should we understand that other then that Yahweh is chief amongst a pantheon of other divine beings? And if we get to change or ignore that passage to make it fit the core theology as understood today, can we do that with any passage?
Thanks for indulging me. I'm a skeptic on this matter, but I find the topic fascinating and would be willing to discuss it when you are in the mood.
In the Old Testament , laws were written in three separate and distinct categories, each with their own purpose & focus. 1.) Ceremonial law....worship, including sacrifices, was to be carried out in a very specific way. Much of this was a reflection of the specific situation of the time. Israel was a young nation, and was to be set apart as holy and different from surrounding nations. In a lawless, pagan world where just about anything went, these laws were instituted to help keep God's people on the right track, so to speak. Obviously, these specific laws ceased their everyday importance when Jesus died & rose from the dead. He fulfilled them in His birth, life, death, and resurrection.
2.) Civil law...again, many of these were attendant to the time in which they were written. These were practical laws, helpful for establishing good habits for everyday living. Two million people moving through the desert and into a hostile land needed to be led in very specific ways.
3.) Moral law... these laws transcend time; they are universal in their application, and they are as relevant today as the day they were written. The Ten Commandments are an example of this.
Lists of commands against sexual sins included exceptionally harsh punishments. Why? God had no tolerance for such acts for the following reasons: 1.) They shatter the mutual commitment of married partners; 2.) they destroy the sanctity of the family; 3.) they twist people's mental well-being; 4.) they spread disease. Sexual sin has always been widely available, esp in Canaan at the time of the Israelites arrival, but the glorification of sex between people who are not married to each other often hides tragedy and deep hurt behind the scenes. The detestable acts that were severely dealt with were very common in the pagan nations of Canaan; their religions were rampant with sex "goddesses", temple prostitution, and the like. The Canaanites' immoral religious practices reflected a decadent culture that tended to corrupt whatever it came into contact with. By contrast, God was building a nation to make a positive impact in the world. He did not want the Israelites to adopt the Canaanites' practices and fall into debauchery. So He prepared the people for what they would face in the Promised Land by commanding them to steer clear of sexual sins. Killing people who were caught in adultery is an example of civil law at the time, and seems extreme by today's standards (it is), but it was necessary in those times when so much was on the line. Today, God still expects those who worship Him to maintain sexual purity in their lives (that truth would be an example of moral law).
I'm not a theologian by trade, so I will be careful here, as I have been in other posts on this. My understanding (indeed, belief) is that God inspired said men to write His truth, but would leave certain details to them. If you take a $100 bill, and tear a corner off of it, or mark on it, it is no longer a perfect piece of paper. But it wasn't intended to be a perfect piece of paper. It was intended to represent one hundred dollars. Which it does.
Psalm 82:1....this Psalm calls the rulers and judges of Israel "gods" and "children of the Most High. They were called gods in this instance because they represented God in executing judgment. It does not mean that they were actually divine beings. Reference to "Heavenly beings" in 82:1 refers to angels.....keep in mind that one-third of the angels aligned themselves with Lucifer, one of the original archangels, and were cast "out of the mountain of God" as a result of their rebellion.
Luke is the only Gospel writer who related the events he recorded to world history. His account was addressed to a predominantly Greek audience that would have been interested in and familiar with the political situation. The census--which did take place, BTW--would have been especially resonant with them. A Roman census (registration) was taken to aid military conscription or tax collection. The Jews didn't have to serve in the military, but they could not avoid paying taxes. Roman emperor Augustus's decree went out in God's perfect timing and according to His perfect plan to bring His Son into the world.
