(07-07-2023, 05:31 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: People who don't believe in God are quick to cut you down for even mentioning him. They claim it's your right to worship or whatever, but mention his name and let the unraveling begin. They'll treat you as worthless and stupid for believing. They hate you under their skin but won't admit it and they don't even know why. For people who don't believe, they sure do take religion personally.
I'm a non-believer, but I also don't hate anyone who believes. I find religion interesting and I do like to try to understand the context/original intentions behind the scripture in the Bible. However, what I do hate is when people assert that the Bible needs to be used to legislate other peoples lives or they cherry-pick the Bible to find a reason to justify their disdain towards other people. That is the group of people that I get upset with.
(07-07-2023, 06:24 PM)Lucidus Wrote: Thank you for the response.
First, can I ask if you're familiar with apocalyptic literary styles or any of the academic theologians / Biblical scholars that believe Revelation to be purely symbolic and metaphorical? I ask because you seem to have a very literalist view. If I'm mistaken, please let me know. Knowing your views on that will help me address your post with a clearer understanding of how you interpret it.
(07-08-2023, 02:42 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: I know this quote is not intended for me, but wanted to respond. I believe the Bible is full of metaphors because authors of the books feared repercussions, so they wrote metaphoricaly. Although I understand, it unfortunately does more damage than good if taken literally. Too much is lost metaphorically, and also in translation and interpretation.
(07-08-2023, 12:11 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: I'm a non-believer, but I also don't hate anyone who believes. I find religion interesting and I do like to try to understand the context/original intentions behind the scripture in the Bible. However, what I do hate is when people assert that the Bible needs to be used to legislate other peoples lives or they cherry-pick the Bible to find a reason to justify their disdain towards other people. That is the group of people that I get upset with.
Religion is a strange thing.
I believe that respect for neighbors, tolerance, personal accountability, and a general faith in things that are good will all improve your day-to-day life significantly.
I also believe that finding a group of people with similar views is a good way to be accountable to agreed upon beliefs. This can occur through organic social pressure or through not-so-organic dogmatic rules that are enforced a bit more literally.
People need a compass, and for most, religion is a decent baseline.
The problem comes with, you guessed it: people. People will always act in their own interests at any time they think there's nobody looking. Perception of a dedication to benevolent rules needs to be maintained, but only when one is being perceived. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. When a religion establishes it's deity, or it's god, the god is rarely seen by anyone other than the leaders, icons, or salesmen. Everyone else just has to have faith and follow all the rules until they are good enough for the god to reveal himself or you just die. It worked for Tom Cruise once he paid enough money. In the end, even thing a believer has ever been told about god came out of another person's mouth. If they say otherwise, they are liars or hallucinating.
Admit it or not, but you're a talking monkey just like the rest of us (not you specifically), and everything you've ever seen or been told about god came from another talking monkey. What's worse, we don't live super long, so you're hearing all of this from other morons who haven't seen all that much more than you have in the grand scheme of things, meaning that they're relying on the same word of mouth that you are for most of their testimony.
America is founded on individualism, which flies directly in the face of religion. In this country, your goal is to separate people from their money by hook or by crook, shame them for being non-rich, then brag about it to your simp followers. Sure, there's a compulsory appearance of charity to maintain, but it's mostly about greed on a malignant level. Too often religion, mainly Christianity, has been used as the launderer of all things gained in the name of greed at the expense of the many. It keeps the millions and millions who have jack shit from killing the dozens and dozens who have obscene amounts of everything.
An aside, I would say that religion as the control method is eroding a bit. It's less prevalent, even though it's still significant. I feel like social media and the cult of celebrity for the sake of celebrity is quickly supplanting it. The former PC movement has also evolved into a much more belligerent entity with the "woke" garbage that the right loves to freak out about while simultaneously perpetuating it through culture war masturbation. Even so, as an avid agnostic and person who despises most organized religion, I think we might have been better off with religion as the main control of the not-rich. it was less stupid and required a bit more effort than Youtube short and Tic Tocs.
(07-08-2023, 02:42 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: I know this quote is not intended for me, but wanted to respond. I believe the Bible is full of metaphors because authors of the books feared repercussions, so they wrote metaphoricaly. Although I understand, it unfortunately does more damage than good if taken literally. Too much is lost metaphorically, and also in translation and interpretation.
Then, by what means do you determine what's true and what's not in the Bible?
(07-07-2023, 06:05 PM)BengalYankee Wrote: If you recall prior to the fall of man, Adam and Eve lived in a perfect, sinless world. They are the only human beings who ever lived on this planet that know what that experience is like. The world we live in now has been corrupted by the influence of sin which has brought every type of problem along with it. I don’t think I need to remind you, just look at the news.
The New Heaven and New Earth will be God resetting and recreating the heavens and the earth, where sin and the effects of sin will no longer be present. You will be able to enjoy the beauty of God’s presence in all of his glory, unhindered by the presence of sin.
The new earth will be free from sin, evil, sickness, suffering, and death. It will be similar to our current earth, but without the curse of sin. It will be earth as God originally intended it to be. It will be Eden restored.
I have a couple of questions:
Do you believe God is omniscient?
Could God have made a world that didn't contain evil, sickness, suffering and death?
(07-07-2023, 04:44 PM)Millhouse Wrote: I've given this quite a bot of thought over the years actually, and have come to the current conclusion.
In many ways, America was great in the 1950s post-Korea until JFK's assassination in November 1963. Booming economy, low crime, strong family nucleus across all races, and last but not least people had way more respect for themselves and each other. Then society in general started to go to shit since JFK which I believe there is a correlation with the massive increase of distrust of government (rightfully so) and the norms of society breaking down. The only thing that kept this era from being the greatest era in American history was the legalized segregation and racism.
In other ways, the 1990s was the last time America was 'great'. It was pre 9-11, pre mass shootings, nation wasn't divided that like it is now. Movies and music of all genres was great, arguably at their peak from Country to Rap to Rock. No cell phones for kids keeping their heads into every waking hour (which I see as a problem with todays youth). It was a time when patience paid off waiting for that nak.. nature pic to slowly download via the 56k modem on AOL. Great times.
As an outsider (but attached to the US), this is what I would say as well: pre 9-11, things were awesome. Then Bush's reign had things start to slip, then once Obama came on board, he had to fix the problems started by W AND had to face ridiculously, dinosauric backlash from his haters, which has only grown from then and has been transferred to the entire party of Obama.
Basically, this reads as, "once someone was elected that almost half the country hated, simply because of his skin colour, that's when things began to devolve to where we are today."
(07-08-2023, 03:12 PM)Lucidus Wrote: Then, by what means do you determine what's true and what's not in the Bible?
I accept what makes sense to me. I can read books and listen to sermons, etc. I take in theories and weigh the possibilities and my heart decides. I don’t understand the entire book, but I embrace that which I do understand.
Quote:Do you believe God is omniscient?
I do.
Quote:Could God have made a world that didn't contain evil, sickness, suffering and death?
I believe he did. Man screwed that up. But that creates larger discussion about evolution vs. creation, which is one of the most exhaustive debates. In respect, I support anyone who doesn’t believe, as long as I’m not a target for believing.
I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use-Galileo Galilie
Of course, Galileo was famously tried and convicted of heresy for using these exact traits so maybe we haven’t really come very far in 400 years
(07-08-2023, 03:12 PM)Lucidus Wrote: Then, by what means do you determine what's true and what's not in the Bible?
I have a couple of questions:
1. Do you believe God is omniscient?
2. Could God have made a world that didn't contain evil, sickness, suffering and death?
1. Yes.
2. He already did, but Adam and Eve sinned which caused evil, sickness suffering, and death, thus my earlier response to future America and the rest of the Earth will one day be Great. But as Governor Cuomo once said America was never that Great.
2. He already did, but Adam and Eve sinned which caused evil, sickness suffering, and death, thus my earlier response to future America and the rest of the Earth will one day be Great. But as Governor Cuomo once said America was never that Great.
Do you disagree with Cuomo?
Genuine curiosity about #2. In #1, you say that you believe that God is omniscient. With this point in mind, it nullifies point two, as God created Adam and Eve. With God being omniscient, he created them knowing that Adam and Eve would sin and he also knew what would follow.
Why do you believe he would allow this if you believe his intention was to create a world free from suffering/death etc.?
(07-09-2023, 10:35 AM)KillerGoose Wrote: Genuine curiosity about #2. In #1, you say that you believe that God is omniscient. With this point in mind, it nullifies point two, as God created Adam and Eve. With God being omniscient, he created them knowing that Adam and Eve would sin and he also knew what would follow.
Why do you believe he would allow this if you believe his intention was to create a world free from suffering/death etc.?
Since God is omniscient, He already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin. God created Adam first, and then He created Eve out of Adam’s rib. Not long after God created Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man occurred.
God had told Adam and Eve specifically that they could eat from any fruit of the Garden except the Tree of Knowledge. Through their own temptation and through the temptation of the serpent, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.
After Adam and Eve had eaten from the forbidden fruit, they sinned against God by disobeying Him. God had told them directly not to eat from this tree, yet Adam and Eve decided to take matters into their own hands.
The major temptation to eat the forbidden fruit was the serpent’s words, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”.
The serpent tells Adam and Eve that if they eat the fruit, they “will be like God.” This is the major appeal to Adam and Eve because they wanted to be their own “god.”
Once the Fall of Man occurred, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden permanently, and sin entered the world. Due to sin being in the world, we now have pain, illnesses, and death.
God knew all of this ahead of time, but He still chose to create them. This can cause most of us to question why he would still create them. Even though God knew Adam and Eve would sin, He created them for His glory.
We, as human beings; our purpose is to know God and to make Him known. We were created to worship, serve, and have a relationship with God.
God gave us free will when He created us, which enabled the possibility of sin. We all are given the free choice to do good or to do evil. God didn’t create us as robots who were programmed to do His will. He chose to give us free will to freely choose to worship, love, and know Him.
As human beings, we often think that our purpose is to serve ourselves or “to be all we can be.” This is an erroneous belief because our purpose is to love, worship, and serve the Lord with our whole hearts, mind, body, and soul.
Even though God knew we would sin and disobey Him, He still loves us. Many of us believe we wouldn’t do the same thing as Adam and Eve, yet all of us would do the same thing.
We all have sinned, and we have all disobeyed God. In fact, any act of sin is disobedience toward God. As the Bible tells us, we all sin and fall short of God.
Just as God already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin and disobey Him, He also knew He was going to send His Son to die for the sins of the world. Even though mankind sinned, God still had a plan to save us from ourselves because He loves us.
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” As this Bible passage tells us, God still loves us despite our sinful nature.
This should be extremely impactful for us as God loved us before we ever loved Him. God sees all of our wickedness, and He still loves us.
Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. He did this because He loves us and desires a relationship with Him.
Why would he create sin if he didn't want us to sin? Why give us free will at all if his grand plan involve subservience to his word and glory? That's not the actions of a fair and loving God - those are the actions of a sociopath who gets his fun from watching ants squirm under a magnifying glass on a summer day.
Oh I know - you can't know his plan. Maybe not - but I can see how ridiculous it all is when you put it in black and white words.
Our father, who art in Hell
Unhallowed, be thy name
Cursed be thy sons and daughters
Of our nemesis who are to blame
Thy kingdom come, Nema
(07-09-2023, 02:10 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: I accept what makes sense to me. I can read books and listen to sermons, etc. I take in theories and weigh the possibilities and my heart decides. I don’t understand the entire book, but I embrace that which I do understand.
I do.
I believe he did. Man screwed that up. But that creates larger discussion about evolution vs. creation, which is one of the most exhaustive debates. In respect, I support anyone who doesn’t believe, as long as I’m not a target for believing.
If God is omniscient, as you believe, and created this world in the way did -- then he purposely created a world where sin must exist.
He created beings that he knew would sin.
He created the scenario that allowed them to commit sin.
He found them guilty of the very thing he knew they would do when he created them.
Imagine if scientists created a new humanoid species that they absolutely knew would do horrible things prior to creating them; and then blaming the new species when they do exactly what the scientists knew they would do. Where would you place the ultimate blame in that scenario; the creators or the creation?
(07-09-2023, 02:03 PM)BengalYankee Wrote: Since God is omniscient, He already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin. God created Adam first, and then He created Eve out of Adam’s rib. Not long after God created Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man occurred.
God had told Adam and Eve specifically that they could eat from any fruit of the Garden except the Tree of Knowledge. Through their own temptation and through the temptation of the serpent, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.
After Adam and Eve had eaten from the forbidden fruit, they sinned against God by disobeying Him. God had told them directly not to eat from this tree, yet Adam and Eve decided to take matters into their own hands.
The major temptation to eat the forbidden fruit was the serpent’s words, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”.
The serpent tells Adam and Eve that if they eat the fruit, they “will be like God.” This is the major appeal to Adam and Eve because they wanted to be their own “god.”
Once the Fall of Man occurred, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden permanently, and sin entered the world. Due to sin being in the world, we now have pain, illnesses, and death.
God knew all of this ahead of time, but He still chose to create them. This can cause most of us to question why he would still create them. Even though God knew Adam and Eve would sin, He created them for His glory.
We, as human beings; our purpose is to know God and to make Him known. We were created to worship, serve, and have a relationship with God.
God gave us free will when He created us, which enabled the possibility of sin. We all are given the free choice to do good or to do evil. God didn’t create us as robots who were programmed to do His will. He chose to give us free will to freely choose to worship, love, and know Him.
As human beings, we often think that our purpose is to serve ourselves or “to be all we can be.” This is an erroneous belief because our purpose is to love, worship, and serve the Lord with our whole hearts, mind, body, and soul.
Even though God knew we would sin and disobey Him, He still loves us. Many of us believe we wouldn’t do the same thing as Adam and Eve, yet all of us would do the same thing.
We all have sinned, and we have all disobeyed God. In fact, any act of sin is disobedience toward God. As the Bible tells us, we all sin and fall short of God.
Just as God already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin and disobey Him, He also knew He was going to send His Son to die for the sins of the world. Even though mankind sinned, God still had a plan to save us from ourselves because He loves us.
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” As this Bible passage tells us, God still loves us despite our sinful nature.
This should be extremely impactful for us as God loved us before we ever loved Him. God sees all of our wickedness, and He still loves us.
Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. He did this because He loves us and desires a relationship with Him.
I find this part unsettling. We are supposed to worship a god who is omniscient and knew that his creations would sin and introduce unfathomable amounts of pain, suffering, and death, but he decided to create us nonetheless for his own glory. His own vanity, so to speak. This is something that I have trouble reconciling.
Another question from a genuine place. The story goes that god created the world in six days. On the sixth day, he created land/animals/and humans. These aren't literal days, but unknown time periods. Why do you think god took so long to create humans (Adam and Eve) and what species of human were they? The oldest known fossils are between 3.5-3.7 billion years old. We have, at least, a few billion years between the creation of man and primitive life. There were millions of lifeforms that were created first that had their own extinction events, evolutions and everything else you can think of.
(07-09-2023, 02:24 PM)Lucidus Wrote: If God is omniscient, as you believe, and created this world in the way did -- then he purposely created a world where sin must exist.
He created beings that he knew would sin.
He created the scenario that allowed them to commit sin.
He found them guilty of the very thing he knew they would do when he created them.
Imagine if scientists created a new humanoid species that they absolutely knew would do horrible things prior to creating them; and then blaming the new species when they do exactly what the scientists knew they would do. Where would you place the ultimate blame in that scenario; the creators or the creation?
Then he killed everyone...except one family. Women, children, babies, fetuses, men, dogs, cats, etc.
All when he knew exactly what was going to happen on Day 1.
So if we were going to be great again when we all follow this god there's nothing we can do because it was all ready preordained.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
(07-09-2023, 02:03 PM)BengalYankee Wrote: Since God is omniscient, He already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin. God created Adam first, and then He created Eve out of Adam’s rib. Not long after God created Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man occurred.
God had told Adam and Eve specifically that they could eat from any fruit of the Garden except the Tree of Knowledge. Through their own temptation and through the temptation of the serpent, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.
After Adam and Eve had eaten from the forbidden fruit, they sinned against God by disobeying Him. God had told them directly not to eat from this tree, yet Adam and Eve decided to take matters into their own hands.
The major temptation to eat the forbidden fruit was the serpent’s words, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”.
The serpent tells Adam and Eve that if they eat the fruit, they “will be like God.” This is the major appeal to Adam and Eve because they wanted to be their own “god.”
You don't find this to be a rather sadistic and capricious game; in any way?
God knew they would sin.
He created them anyway.
They did what they were created to do.
God found them guilty of what he knew they would do.
He punishes them even though they only did what they were created to do.
Why is it that God is exempt from blame, given that he purposely created the entire situation?
Quote:Once the Fall of Man occurred, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden permanently, and sin entered the world. Due to sin being in the world, we now have pain, illnesses, and death.
God knew all of this ahead of time, but He still chose to create them. This can cause most of us to question why he would still create them. Even though God knew Adam and Eve would sin, He created them for His glory.
His glory? This is a rather disturbing notion. God created a species that he knew he would get to continually punish and kill until he offered conditional forgiveness and the threat of eternal damnation?
Quote:We, as human beings; our purpose is to know God and to make Him known. We were created to worship, serve, and have a relationship with God.
God gave us free will when He created us, which enabled the possibility of sin. We all are given the free choice to do good or to do evil. God didn’t create us as robots who were programmed to do His will. He chose to give us free will to freely choose to worship, love, and know Him.
As human beings, we often think that our purpose is to serve ourselves or “to be all we can be.” This is an erroneous belief because our purpose is to love, worship, and serve the Lord with our whole hearts, mind, body, and soul.
What being worthy of worship would ever ask for it, or even desire it?
Quote:Even though God knew we would sin and disobey Him, He still loves us. Many of us believe we wouldn’t do the same thing as Adam and Eve, yet all of us would do the same thing.
We all have sinned, and we have all disobeyed God. In fact, any act of sin is disobedience toward God. As the Bible tells us, we all sin and fall short of God.
Why is it that human beings must accept the blame and responsibility for that which God chose to create? Could God have chosen to create a world in which the garden scenario plays out differently?
Quote:Just as God already knew Adam and Eve were going to sin and disobey Him, He also knew He was going to send His Son to die for the sins of the world. Even though mankind sinned, God still had a plan to save us from ourselves because He loves us.
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” As this Bible passage tells us, God still loves us despite our sinful nature.
This should be extremely impactful for us as God loved us before we ever loved Him. God sees all of our wickedness, and He still loves us.
Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. He did this because He loves us and desires a relationship with Him.
God creates a world with sin.
Then comes in human form to offer a path of forgiveness for the sin he created.
However, he'll only provide salvation to those willing to plead guilty to the crimes hecreated them to commit.
While God is uniquely complicit for the sin, evil and wickedness in the world; he lays the entire blame at the feet of his creation.
(07-09-2023, 02:51 PM)GMDino Wrote: Then he killed everyone...except one family. Women, children, babies, fetuses, men, dogs, cats, etc.
All when he knew exactly what was going to happen on Day 1.
So if we were going to be great again when we all follow this god there's nothing we can do because it was all ready preordained.
Indeed.
I often find it very curious -- for all those that believe this particular version of the story -- as to what metric they used to determine that God was the good character and Satan was the bad. When their actions are compared, they're in no way comparable, in terms of pure evil; at least in terms of the stories as they're told in the Bible.
I often find it very curious -- for all those that believe this particular version of the story -- as to what metric they used to determine that God was the good character and Satan was the bad. When their actions are compared, they're in no way comparable, in terms of pure evil; at least in terms of the stories as they're told in the Bible.
The Bible basically describes Satan as promoting free thought and happiness while God promotes unwavering and unquestioning fealty while spreading misery. Dude even sent his human son to die a HORRIBLE death because...love?
Our father, who art in Hell
Unhallowed, be thy name
Cursed be thy sons and daughters
Of our nemesis who are to blame
Thy kingdom come, Nema
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