Hi, I was just in Oklahoma so hope all is well there.
You've defined free will interestingly, in such a way as to make it obviously repugnant. I would agree that that kind of "free will" would be reprehensible if you would agree that there may be some other type of "free will" that is intellectually defensible, honorable, and "kind".
If you don't see the need to know, you cannot frame your beliefs as you would desire, and reality makes us "have to" do things we don't desire, then what are love, kindness, and responsibility at all? If everything is equally forced and no free will and responsibility exists, what makes one being or action more kind or loving than another?
If someone believes in one of these strawman gods as you describe, patient theologians say to that person, "your god is too small". Is it possible that there does exist a greater arbiter of these moral standards than we ourselves? If the only beings able to judge what is right are we fallible folk and the imaginary, impotent deities we are accused of constructing, why do we believe in right at all?
(Edit: originally said, less clearly, "impotent deities we construct".)
Sure, anything's possible, however, that's just moving the goal posts... My concept is simple... If you love someone, you don't hand them something that will fuck them up if you know it will. What are friends for if they're not looking out for you? But this deity? Combine that with the fallacy that our beliefs are completely ours alone and yet somehow judgement is passed down on this one attribute alone....
Maybe I didn't move any goalposts because I didn't plant them in a faulty location to start with, maybe that was somebody else in your life. If someone teaches you a fallacious deity, reject the teaching while still loving the person. As the OP said, the text of the Bible was fully thought-out as written, even though people have built contradictory theologies from it claiming to be faithful.
I believe in a God who is so wise He knows how to give free will as a good gift that does not ruin the people he created it for. I have thought out the consequences of this God, such as that provision must be made for those who reject Him and His gift, and that the determinism you describe must also be reconciled. I can share the winsome, merciful logic of such a God, for those interested.
This forum rests squarely on principles such as the fact that certain sexual deviancies are moral crimes and that it is just and right to punish them by due process of law. This necessitates a transcendent, Absolute Law by which it can be determined what constitutes crime worthy of punishment, and this Absolute must be more unimpeachable and supreme than our Constitution. Otherwise we have no standard for judging what true Love is. So if you believe in Love, believe that it is powerful enough not to abandon you or anyone who seeks to befriend it, but that it also knows how to judge justly. I believe that this kind of Love is also a Person you can get to know better.
You believe giving something to someone they cannot handle and will only hurt themself with is good. I disagree... This is the fundamental difference between you and me and your "all-loving" deity.
He's not worthy of my endorsement. It really is that simple.
If a deity worthy of endorsement exists, he is greater than what you or I know him to be, because he knows what he is better than we do. You don't need to take my word for it, but the nature of life is that you either prepare to meet the deity he knows himself to be, or prepare to hope that nihilism is true. If you do neither, you're not doing the basic preparation the Great Awakening calls for.
You also don't have to endorse my take on free will. But how is it that you know so soundly and surely that people cannot handle free will and will only hurt themselves with it, or that that is a Biblical teaching? Question your assumptions, because you wouldn't want to reject a God Who Is just because I or somebody taught him to you wrong. Thank you.
'28, I thought I was affirming and edifying you, I love the CMB data. I don't understand why you charge me with idolatry, unless perhaps you meant it to apply to OkieBowhunter. If you can inform me better what Yahweh is and why my view of him is inaccurate, that helps. I pretty much affirm everything but your first sentence, and your second sentence seems to agree with my quoted sentence.
I really have no care for evidence of the Bible or against. I simply cannot agree that the god of the bible is good. Rape kids, murder, do all the worst things out there, but don't believe in the guy? GASP his ego just can't handle that. All the other stuff is forgivable.
Hi, I was just in Oklahoma so hope all is well there. You've defined free will interestingly, in such a way as to make it obviously repugnant. I would agree that that kind of "free will" would be reprehensible if you would agree that there may be some other type of "free will" that is intellectually defensible, honorable, and "kind". If you don't see the need to know, you cannot frame your beliefs as you would desire, and reality makes us "have to" do things we don't desire, then what are love, kindness, and responsibility at all? If everything is equally forced and no free will and responsibility exists, what makes one being or action more kind or loving than another? If someone believes in one of these strawman gods as you describe, patient theologians say to that person, "your god is too small". Is it possible that there does exist a greater arbiter of these moral standards than we ourselves? If the only beings able to judge what is right are we fallible folk and the imaginary, impotent deities we are accused of constructing, why do we believe in right at all? (Edit: originally said, less clearly, "impotent deities we construct".)
Sure, anything's possible, however, that's just moving the goal posts... My concept is simple... If you love someone, you don't hand them something that will fuck them up if you know it will. What are friends for if they're not looking out for you? But this deity? Combine that with the fallacy that our beliefs are completely ours alone and yet somehow judgement is passed down on this one attribute alone....
Well, it's all just a little under-thought out.
Maybe I didn't move any goalposts because I didn't plant them in a faulty location to start with, maybe that was somebody else in your life. If someone teaches you a fallacious deity, reject the teaching while still loving the person. As the OP said, the text of the Bible was fully thought-out as written, even though people have built contradictory theologies from it claiming to be faithful.
I believe in a God who is so wise He knows how to give free will as a good gift that does not ruin the people he created it for. I have thought out the consequences of this God, such as that provision must be made for those who reject Him and His gift, and that the determinism you describe must also be reconciled. I can share the winsome, merciful logic of such a God, for those interested.
This forum rests squarely on principles such as the fact that certain sexual deviancies are moral crimes and that it is just and right to punish them by due process of law. This necessitates a transcendent, Absolute Law by which it can be determined what constitutes crime worthy of punishment, and this Absolute must be more unimpeachable and supreme than our Constitution. Otherwise we have no standard for judging what true Love is. So if you believe in Love, believe that it is powerful enough not to abandon you or anyone who seeks to befriend it, but that it also knows how to judge justly. I believe that this kind of Love is also a Person you can get to know better.
You believe giving something to someone they cannot handle and will only hurt themself with is good. I disagree... This is the fundamental difference between you and me and your "all-loving" deity.
He's not worthy of my endorsement. It really is that simple.
If a deity worthy of endorsement exists, he is greater than what you or I know him to be, because he knows what he is better than we do. You don't need to take my word for it, but the nature of life is that you either prepare to meet the deity he knows himself to be, or prepare to hope that nihilism is true. If you do neither, you're not doing the basic preparation the Great Awakening calls for.
You also don't have to endorse my take on free will. But how is it that you know so soundly and surely that people cannot handle free will and will only hurt themselves with it, or that that is a Biblical teaching? Question your assumptions, because you wouldn't want to reject a God Who Is just because I or somebody taught him to you wrong. Thank you.
'28, I thought I was affirming and edifying you, I love the CMB data. I don't understand why you charge me with idolatry, unless perhaps you meant it to apply to OkieBowhunter. If you can inform me better what Yahweh is and why my view of him is inaccurate, that helps. I pretty much affirm everything but your first sentence, and your second sentence seems to agree with my quoted sentence.
I really have no care for evidence of the Bible or against. I simply cannot agree that the god of the bible is good. Rape kids, murder, do all the worst things out there, but don't believe in the guy? GASP his ego just can't handle that. All the other stuff is forgivable.
No thanks.