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+---- Thread: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered (/Thread-Intermediate-step-to-beginning-of-life-uncovered)
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - oncemoreuntothejimbreech - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 01:42 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have a constant thirst to better understand God's word.
As I mentioned earlier in answer to the "why does God allow bad things" debate: I have studied the Augustinian theodicy (evil because of Freewill and original sin), the Irenaean Theodicy (God creates man incomplete and we grow into completeness), and the Process theory (God just put things into motion and is more of a facilitator). There is also a relatively new theory known as Open Process (The only thing that is perfect is God's love).
Like most here I do not claim to have the answers (and do not necessarily require them); I have what is called faith.
When you don't have a satisfactory answer you choose to believe?
When someone else doesn't have a satisfactory answer to the same question and chose not to believe, does that make them closed minded?
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - bfine32 - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 02:07 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: When you don't have a satisfactory answer you choose to believe?
When someone else doesn't have a satisfactory answer to the same question and chose not to believe, does that make them closed minded?
1. yes
2. To the word of God, yes
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - oncemoreuntothejimbreech - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 02:09 PM)bfine32 Wrote: 1. yes
2. To the word of God, yes
And to those who follow the word of God?
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - WhoDeyWho - 06-16-2015
Quote:I make rules for my kids not because I'm a jerk, but for their own well being. If you look at most of the "sins" they are for a person's well being (either their own or someone else's). Even for their time, the mitzvots were about a person's well being.
How would it be in my child's "best interest" to make a rule I know they will not listen to, then torture them for not listening? I'd be better of just not having kids.
Quote:You're here. That says something.
I could be here strictly to burn in hell. What does that say about him?
Quote:Potentially. And they're just song lyrics, but there's still some thought that the universe is round. Whether it's expanding or not doesn't matter in that regard. Round things expand and still maintain the ability for something to go completely around to the same place. If you did that at the same time, you are everywhere at once.
No comment
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - michaelsean - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 01:57 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Let me try to explain it using connect the dots as an example. Below you have six dots, 2 parallel lines of 3 dots each.
...
...
Let's say you choose (free will) to connect the first dot of each parallel line to each other . . .
...
I..
Let's say at the time the two points are connected is the future and God knows your choice. Because God has seen the future, when you make your choice you won't/can't choose any other option because that would alter the future which God knows happens. The point you choose is predetermined to God because he knows what you're going to choose. You don't have knowledge of the future so to you your choice is free will.
Now let's back up to Creation. You aren't born, yet. You have yet to have the chance to exercise your free will to choose which two dots you will connect. Before you choose the first dot, God already knows which dot you picked second eliminating other possibilities before you make your first choice.
God also knows which dot you will choose as your first dot before you're born. All the dots God knows you didn't pick first are eliminated as possibilities. When it is time for you to choose (free will) you can't/won't pick any dot but the specific dot God knows you will pick first.
God knows how all the dots of you life are connected from the first dot to the last. The last dot is Heaven or Hell. Before you're born, God knows if you will go to Heaven or Hell. So every time you exercise free will to make a choice it brings you one dot closer to the same, predetermined outcome.
Is that free will?
I understand what you are saying, but you are attributing the predestination to knowledge. What if God can know, but chooses not to? Are you still predestined? (Predestined may not be the right word as that implies an active participation.) If I have a vision of tomorrow and see you will go to McDonalds have I robbed you of your free will by learning that? It's going to happen whether I know it or not.
But we are arguing the Christian God here, and I don't find that to be accurate either. I don't believe in hell and I don't think Heaven is like we hear described. I think God may just be the sum total of us all, but I like to think there is still a central self-aware aspect of God, and we just exist in different planes in different forms. We may come here many times to experience many different things. The reason I mention this is so people know the "free will" thing is a philosophical argument for me, and not necessarily based on how I think things are.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - Benton - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 02:34 PM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: How would it be in my child's "best interest" to make a rule I know they will not listen to, then torture them for not listening? I'd be better of just not having kids.
I could be here strictly to burn in hell. What does that say about him?
No comment
1- I tell my kids not to drive a car or I'll punish them. If they don't listen, the result is they could a- get hurt, or b- not get hurt. I do it for their own well being because I care about them.Because I don't want option A to happen. What good is a hollow threat of punishment?
2- I have no idea what your place in the universe is. There's only two who know that – you and Him. But you alone (within the constraints of physics) have the power to decide what that role is. Good guy, bad guy, baker, candle stick maker, whatever.
Personally, I subscribe to the belief that God put things in motion, but he didn't go around deciding what I was going to have for lunch today. Free will, he left that up to me. Yes, He knew what I was going to eat (omniscient), but He didn't make that decision for me (omnipotent). His plan is on a bigger scale than that.
But that's just my opinion.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - Ben Richards - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 10:54 AM)Benton Wrote: Genesis wasn't meant to be taken literally.
Tell that to the massive amount of turds pointing to the bible whenever same sex marriage and other hot button topics arise.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - WhoDeyWho - 06-16-2015
Quote:1- I tell my kids not to drive a car or I'll punish them. If they don't listen, the result is they could a- get hurt, or b- not get hurt. I do it for their own well being because I care about them.Because I don't want option A to happen. What good is a hollow threat of punishment?
What good is punishment when you know it won't have any impact on your child's behavior?
If God was the parent, he knows you are going to drive the car regardless and has already set up death as the punishment for doing it.
Consequently he is sentencing you to death before he even gives you the warning.
That's the difference. And that is what doesn't make any sense to me.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - oncemoreuntothejimbreech - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 02:51 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I understand what you are saying, but you are attributing the predestination to knowledge. What if God can know, but chooses not to? Are you still predestined? (Predestined may not be the right word as that implies an active participation.) If I have a vision of tomorrow and see you will go to McDonalds have I robbed you of your free will by learning that? It's going to happen whether I know it or not.
I don't mean to attribute the predestination to the knowledge of the future, rather using the knowledge to explain the predestination. In my example if God chose not to know, the dots would still be connected the same and the outcome unchanged. And man would still believe he is exercising free will at every decision point unaware he is connecting the dots in the same manner as if God chose to know. God's plan is responsible for the outcomes, not the knowledge of the plan.
Quote:But we are arguing the Christian God here, and I don't find that to be accurate either. I don't believe in hell and I don't think Heaven is like we hear described. I think God may just be the sum total of us all, but I like to think there is still a central self-aware aspect of God, and we just exist in different planes in different forms. We may come here many times to experience many different things. The reason I mention this is so people know the "free will" thing is a philosophical argument for me, and not necessarily based on how I think things are.
I think similarly. I can't rule out the possibility of a Creator and accept it is possible. I reject the notion a Creator rational enough to create the universe is as irrational as He is depicted in the Bible.
For me, I would be more inclined to accept the God from Life of Pi (it is more important just to believe rather than get caught up in the details and differences of individual religions) than the God of the Bible.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - Ben Richards - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 03:28 PM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: Consequently he is sentencing you to death before he even gives you the warning.
That's the difference. And that is what doesn't make any sense to me.
Maybe it didn't initiate 'human' consciousness.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - Benton - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 03:23 PM)Ben Richards Wrote: Tell that to the massive amount of turds pointing to the bible whenever same sex marriage and other hot button topics arise.
There's also a lot of folks who use the same book for arguing the opposite. The same can be said on just about any debate.
But I think (hope?) the number of people who take Genesis as literal is very, very small in the whole number of Christians.
(06-16-2015, 03:28 PM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: What good is punishment when you know it won't have any impact on your child's behavior?
If God was the parent, he knows you are going to drive the car regardless and has already set up death as the punishment for doing it.
Consequently he is sentencing you to death before he even gives you the warning.
That's the difference. And that is what doesn't make any sense to me.
Like I said earlier, I say things to my kids knowing it's a futile effort. I try anyway because I love them. Any parent who believes their kid is going to do everything they say — with or without a threat — is not logical. Kids are people. Smaller, but they think they know best. You just expect they're going to break your rules. You just have to hope the learn from them.
Which is pretty much what absolution is.
And, again, He isn't. He created everything. It's my choice whether or not to follow what He says. To take that further with my personal belief and not just what they say from a pulpit, like I've said before in this thread — everything happened at once. To you and I, we're somewhere in the middle because that's our perception of it. The universe began around 10 billion years, plus or minus a few billion. At some point it will stop. Linearly, we're in a very small dot along that timeline. I just don't think it's linear.
In other words, to Him, He created you at the same time as He created everything else. You making choices takes a hundred years, give or take, if you're lucky. To Him, that hundred years doesn't mean what it means to you, it's a different concept of time. And that's completerly a guess on my part.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - WhoDeyWho - 06-16-2015
Quote:Like I said earlier, I say things to my kids knowing it's a futile effort. I try anyway because I love them. Any parent who believes their kid is going to do everything they say — with or without a threat — is not logical. Kids are people. Smaller, but they think they know best. You just expect they're going to break your rules. You just have to hope the learn from them.
If you knew your kid was going to go to a party on a particular evening and overdose on heroine, would you do more than just tell them not to do drugs?
Something tells me you wouldn't settle for your "futile" words with that knowledge. If indeed you would, what does that say about you as a parent? What good would "hoping" do you when you are privy to knowledge that tells you exactly the danger that is about to befall your kid? This is exactly the type of knowledge are "father" (God) supposedly has regarding us (his children).
Quote:Which is pretty much what absolution is.
What? Drowning the world in a flood or hell?
Quote:And, again, He isn't. He created everything. It's my choice whether or not to follow what He says.
You think you have options, but you can only do what he has already witnessed before you even existed, so you really don't. It's only an illusion. Your life has already played out in his head.
Quote:To take that further with my personal belief and not just what they say from a pulpit, like I've said before in this thread — everything happened at once. To you and I, we're somewhere in the middle because that's our perception of it. The universe began around 10 billion years, plus or minus a few billion. At some point it will stop. Linearly, we're in a very small dot along that timeline. I just don't think it's linear.
No comment.
Quote:In other words, to Him, He created you at the same time as He created everything else. You making choices takes a hundred years, give or take, if you're lucky. To Him, that hundred years doesn't mean what it means to you, it's a different concept of time. And that's completerly a guess on my part.
No comment.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - Benton - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 04:56 PM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: If you knew your kid was going to go to a party on a particular evening and overdose on heroine, would you do more than just tell them not to do drugs?
Something tells me you wouldn't settle for your "futile" words with that knowledge. If indeed you would, what does that say about you as a parent? What good would "hoping" do you when you are privy to knowledge that tells you exactly the danger that is about to befall your kid? This is exactly the type of knowledge are "father" (God) supposedly has regarding us (his children).
What? Drowning the world in a flood or hell?
You think you have options, but you can only do what he has already witnessed before you even existed, so you really don't. It's only an illusion. Your life has already played out in his head.
No comment.
No comment.
I think we're going in circles, so I'm just going to leave it with what I've already said, since I think I'm just saying the same thing (and you are, too) over and over. We disagree on what God is, what time is, what omnipotence vs omniscience is, what free will is, and I'm ok with that. I just don't think either one of us is going to do much to change the other's mind and I don't know any other ways to say what I've already said a half dozen times.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - WhoDeyWho - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 05:09 PM)Benton Wrote: I think we're going in circles, so I'm just going to leave it with what I've already said, since I think I'm just saying the same thing (and you are, too) over and over. We disagree on what God is, what time is, what omnipotence vs omniscience is, what free will is, and I'm ok with that. I just don't think either one of us is going to do much to change the other's mind and I don't know any other ways to say what I've already said a half dozen times.
That's fine. Your concept of time is weird to me. The bible itself sort of takes a linear view of time. There is a "beginning" and "end" to it.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - Benton - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 05:58 PM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: That's fine. Your concept of time is weird to me. The bible itself sort of takes a linear view of time. There is a "beginning" and "end" to it.
Now that is something different. And off topic for this thread, but, yeah, I understand it's not the usual way we think of time. And it doesn't follow some of what we anticipate to be true with some of the more tried and true rules of physics.
As far as linear time and the Bible, it's written as a book, so that accounts for a lot of it. If you had the pages interspersed in random order it would make less sense. You could still follow it, like when you look at those photos where letters are replaced with numbers, but it would take more work.
And while the Bible talks about a beginning and end, it's referring to this physical world we know now, not what else is out there. Which neither religion or science knows anything about. Religions normally talk about some form of afterlife and in science we're discovering more about what makes life, as in we're finding it smaller and more complex all the time.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - rfaulk34 - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 08:30 AM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: No mentions of any supernatural miracles in any of those accounts. You think men coming out of their graves would be of interest to historians.
Easy thing to say, considering there are plenty of things that have happened in this world that you've never heard about.
He sighed deeply and said, "Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it." Mark 8:12
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - rfaulk34 - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 08:35 AM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: Faith is the definition of close mindedness: how can you be reasoned out of something you were never reasoned into?
Christianity is a closed system of beliefs not open to new info.
That's sounds like something a closed-minded person would say. Or one who is ignorant of the topic he's discussing. I want to be sure and point out, i'm not being mean or call you names. I'm talking about the literal definition of 'ignorant'.
The way i live my life has changed and adapted over the years, always based on my belief. It's coming to a deeper and better understanding that has caused this to happen. Choosing a belief in God does not mean that you can never change.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - rfaulk34 - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 09:18 AM)Ben Richards Wrote: You know what is funny about 'faith' and the Christian God? On the first page of that little sci-fi novel it talks about this creator making stuff and then all of a sudden he needs a nap because he is tired or something from all the creating....
So you're meaning to tell me that this all powerful wizard has the ability to make something from nothing, but he still gets weak and tired?
Christians, why is your 'God' lazy and weak? I look forward to your brilliant responses that I won't read.
How cute. Another ignorant reply. God was setting an example for mankind.
Work 6, rest 1.
Very simple concept. And we both know, you read this.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - rfaulk34 - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 09:30 AM)WhoDeyWho Wrote: How can you "improvise" from a script god wrote before you were even born?
You can't.
You were pre-programmed at the factory.
And you typed big not because of "free will", but because God programmed you to. You only think you have free will. That's the joke of it all.
lol. If you say so.
RE: Intermediate step to beginning of life uncovered - rfaulk34 - 06-16-2015
(06-16-2015, 09:30 AM)GMDino Wrote: Bingo.
People of faith "believe". That is what faith is: I don't understand it, but I believe it. They think they already know the answer and there is no use in seeking it anymore.
People of science will admit they do not know but know there IS an answer and they seek it.
And smart Christians continue to seek answers to hard to understand bible passages.
Samesies!!!!