I'm an agnostic, and I want to debate with Christians about the figure of God. I'm not really interested in what atheists have to say if they come here to insult the beliefs of others, and really, I want to know the christian point of view on this because well... I belive there's a God, I just don't think he's good.
First of all, I've already made my experience as a confirmed catholic. I used to be an atheist but I started doubting we're really here out of the blue, in my opinion, it's impossible to explain the universe based on cience alone, I'm sure there must be an entity greater than us. After years of defending my religion tho, I noticed how God seems not to care about what you want, as an individual, as a person, but what he BELIVES is better. Christians call this "freedom", I call it a disguised Tyrany.
God IS Good you would say that too when it happens to you, consider you want crack in hell and then God will ask to you why do you take the rock? I believe that He is all so high that all the things we do is petty, yet significant out of love.
Ok, so if God is our father, isn't he supposed to listen to us once in a while? People say God follows this logic: Don't ask God for a bike because he doesn't works that way, steal the bike, and ask for forgiveness.
People say God gives, on his time, and only what he thinks is good for you, so in a way or another we're limited to what God thinks s best for an individual instead of him trying to listen to what we expect and want from life. Other religions seem to have gods who actually care, but I am more inclined to belive the cosmos is the creation of an individual entity.
people NEED to care, and they need someone to care for them and He DOES and that is selfish? He does give what we want on another level. Consider what the things we want in the next 10-20 decades and are they the TRUE THINGS we would want? are you unhappy with he way things are at the moment that you would want all that you would ask for
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Then there's the issue on Heaven, eternity. If you follow God, act like a good human being and help others out, you go to heaven. But what is Heaven? A place where pretty much you'll lose your identity and individuality in order to be one with God, the cosmos, whatever. As I've seen many Christians and people who's had NDE describe Heaven that way. You won't feel the air never again, not taste the food. Your family won't br your family. You won't be able to kiss your wife any more, hug your kid... That's pretty much hell without the physicall tortures. And that reafirms God only cares about what he thinks is right for the soul instead of trying to listen.
heaven is GOOD things waiting to happen? that is my idea
Also if he's our father, he needs like, to do something other than showing nothing but indiference once in a while. If he's a fatherly figure he's doing it wrong. We live in the *****tiest world possible and he really, doesn't seems to care, he just makes a miracle once in a while to some random person to say "Hey, I enjoy looking at all of you suffer, keep it up, maybe in 4 months or so I'll let Mary appear again somewhere so you all get paranoid and belive world's ending again!"
bull*****, you think he won't care about you because he is doing things different, and the life you have is different.
I mean, mother says "Thank God because you're fortunate to have a house, parents and a meal". Why should I? Father is the one who has tried to give us that. Indeed God is much like my father; he's only worried about giving the "basics" and the rest well... I've had to work for it.
And when I need divine intervention to get what I desire, even non material stuff, it just never comes. "Ask God and you'll get what you want" is to me the biggest lie after unicorns.
You have a brain with millions of things happening inside of it, yet you only want onething that's good for you?
[quote from="Aldath »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/outside-magic/debate/religion/565437-a-debate-with-christians-what-makes-you-think-god?comment=1"]So, I belive there's a God, but one that cares nothing about us, and really I have my doubts about Jesus being the son of God...
Guys and girls you do realise that being in a state of existence is sort of a prerequisite for a thing to be evil. I may be willing to accept an existent bad God. Can a vacuum be evil?
Guys and girls you do realise that being in a state of existence is sort of a prerequisite for a thing to be evil. I may be willing to accept an existent bad God. Can a vacuum be evil?
So you would not describe Sauron as evil, then?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Sauron is fictional. Sauron does not exist. But we can still morally evaluate the fictional actions of fictional beings and judge them to be evil in the context of the fiction; we do not need to believe the being is nonfictional.
PS: In the book, Sauron isn't actually an eye. That's just his symbol.
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I'm actually referring to the Kantian refutation of Descartes' ontological argument for the existence of god ("to exist is better than to not exist, and since God is perfect (i.e. has all the best properties), God exists. Kant says that something first need to exist before it can have properties.
Yeah, I caught that. Both the ontological argument and the best refutations of it are a little bit more subtle than that, as demonstrated by the example of Sauron. Sauron has properties. But they are, like him, fictional. They are effectively counterfactual conditionals: "If Sauron existed, then..." If you're computer-minded, you might think of them as locked away at the local level in the particular function or subroutine that is The Lord of the Rings, unable to interact with the program at the global level because the program as a whole doesn't make the assumptions the function does. Or you might just say: he's in a book. And what's in a book doesn't have the power to come out of the book, even if the book says it does. (You're not going to meet Thursday Next face to face.)
Statements about God are similarly conditioned on "If God exists, then..." So (this version of) the ontological argument actually runs, "If God exists, then he has all the best properties. If he has all the best properties, then he exists." Which is just circular: his existence is derived from assuming his existence, and it remains perfectly possible that God does not exist. More sophisticated versions of the ontological argument, such as Plantinga's, will try to argue that God possibly exists, and it is a better property for him to necessarily exist, therefore God exists. But this really doesn't avoid the circularity problem; it just disguises it by burying the premise that God exists in the necessity thing.
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Man... You actually think that's what this is about? One-upping another person? Still you desperately cling to that need to be better than others?
For goodness sake, I bring up tragedy and sadness and hardship, and your response is, "Ok, let's have a suffering contest"?!
I can't say I'm surprised, because I'm not, but I am disappointed.
This is what I mean when I say that I've seen the power Christianity has. And why I feel the things I've expressed here.
If they make you sad, then so be it. You haven't really given me reason to believe otherwise. I mean, all you've done thus far is continually repeat-
"You really cannot find it in yourself to emphasize with others? Shame on you! You are a judgmental ********, and possibly a hypocrite at that!"
Yes, I have repeated it, because it's true, and I want you to understand it, because I want it to stop being true. The refusal to empathize with other people and instead to choose berating them because of some need to be better than them is condescension.
And you are not better than the people you presume to judge, nor are you in any position to belittle them. So no, there is no "possibly" in you being hypocritical.
Quote from Highroller »
Would you go into an Alcoholics Anonymous meaning, and say, "You know, I have no idea why you guys have such a hard time staying sober, and keep falling back into alcoholism. I mean, you made a commitment to be sober, right? Then why are you having such a hard time with it? I have no understanding at all as to why you're having such a hard time with this"?
Yes. I would.
Then you've got a lot of growing up to do.
Reflect on the fact that I proposed that analogy based on something no remotely decent person would ever do. But you managed to go the distance, didn't you?
Your level of condescension and arrogance are coming dangerously close to mine own.
Oh I get it, because the only time you would admit your own flaws is when you're doing so in the form of a one-liner to stab at another human being in your attempts to elevate yourself over them. I appreciate the irony.
From what I can tell, you mean to say that the frailties of humanity is the basic, entire, point of Christianity.
But from what I understand, Christianity is saying "Humanity is flawed to begin with. THEREFORE, we need God, and ergo Christianity".
In that sense, the fact that humans are flawed aren't so much as the main point but rather simply a fact.
No, what I consider to be the entire point of Christianity is that God is the power that saves and raises us from the failures that we inherently are and create. And we can do nothing but submit ourselves to that power.
No, you're still not getting it.
Human beings, every single one of us, are flawed to the core. We are ****ed up. We are imperfect and flawed and ****ed up. That is the core of Christianity. That is its heart. That is the fundamental root of it. It is the humility to be able to look in the mirror and to look at yourself honestly, and to understand how deep your flaws truly run. To be able to see your own humanity.
And the good news is that God loves us anyway. That God loves us, not despite our humanity, but for it.
That understanding of what it means to be human is the essence of Christianity. It is the love of God, the love of one's neighbor as oneself, and the love of one's neighbor as Jesus loved mankind.
So no, I don't believe you do understand what I'm talking about. Doing so would require a recognition of a quintessential, shared humanity between you and the people you are trying to deride.
You want to know why people live in anxiety and fear? Because fear is a defense mechanism we have against pain. It's an avoidance system to keep us safe from pain. Life freaking hurts. Why are people anxious? Because life hurts, and they're afraid of being hurt. So do you want to understand someone else's anxiety, or someone else's fear? Try understanding the hurt they are afraid of. Understand why they hurt. And understand why you hurt. Understand why is life painful for you. Understand where you hurt in your life. Understand the pain you go through. Then try to imagine you feeling the hurt that other person feels, and try to feel that. Feel that pain and that suffering that other person feels, and understand why they might have difficulty bearing that.
Suffer with that person, and then you might feel sympathy with that person. Y'know, like an actual human being is supposed to be able to do without an anonymous stranger on an internet forum explaining the process to him.
But to do that, you're going to have to actually feel empathy for another human being. And condescension is the exact opposite of that.
As I've seen many Christians and people who's had NDE describe Heaven that way.
Oh who cares about near death experiences? You know what near death experiences tell us? Nothing. Some see Heaven. Some see Hell. Some see something correlating to a completely different afterlife from another religion. Some don't have an afterlife experience at all. There's no reason to think they're any more than products of your brain doing funny things because the body is dying.
I have thought about near-death experiences, and how people experience the afterlife when they die. It is said that there is activity in your brain even after you die. Your brain can flash all of your life experiences right before your eyes in one moment, right? How do we know that the afterlife is just something you experience in your brain right after you die? Your brain might make you think you'll live for eternity in the afterlife, but you're just really dead and the afterlife doesn't exist. Everyone sees things differently in their near-death experiences because they all believe different things.
Even the stuff in our dreams are made up. Who knows why I had religious dreams for the past few months even though I stopped being a Christian over a year ago. I've battled angels and demons, actually became a demon, saw the true face of God (he was an all-consuming raging ball of fire, Hell itself), etc. Is God actually a giant fireball? Who knows. Maybe I came to the realization in my dream after the burning bush, God taking the form of a storm cloud and killing people who saw his true face (it is said that he was made of fire), fire raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah, the message written in fire in the sky so that Cyrus could read it, how the Bible repeatedly says that God's anger "burns against" whatever, etc. But the Bible also says that we are made in God's image, so we have to assume he looks human.
One of the major premise of conventional Christian thought is that our physical life is irrelevant in comparison to our spiritual one, and that is why the acceptance of Christ and God and their dominion over you essentially supersedes what you do in life.
Within that context, all of your opinions are void anyhow. I'm honestly surprised that supposed former Christians like Valanarch never even considered this.
But I don't care for that right now.
Edit-
Oh **** it.
This is why I have a hard time taking many Christians seriously in the first place. For all the crap in the New Testament about how the suffering and rewards of the physical world pales in comparison to the treasures of the next (heck, this is essentially the concept that underpins most of what Jesus says in the Gospels), I find it incredibly silly that most "Christians" I've met can't bring themselves to just accept the Word. Why bother calling yourself a Christian if you're not going to do what your holy text tells you?
I can understand people worrying about things. You are human, and you will worry. But, if you are an actual Christian, then why is it so hard for you to remind yourself what the Gospels say and try to not worry?
So many Christians are worry-warts or petty in such inconsequential manners. And these are the folks who go to church every Sunday and call themselves Christians.
How is this relevant to what is being said here?
Those who do not accept Christ will be very much concerned with what happens now. Imho, that is what fundamentally separates a non-Christian from a Christian. A non-Christian doesn't accept that the 60-80 years they live here is utterly and completely irrelevant compared to the infinity that is the next life, and so don't bother preparing themselves for the next. A Christian does accept that the 60-80 years they live here is utterly and completely irrelevant to the infinity that is the next life, and so will bother preparing themselves for the next. Mainly by accepting Christ as their lord and savior and not doing anything that goes against what he says.
So, my question to "former Christians"- Can you really call yourself "former Christians" if you never even accepted this in the first place?
Hell, for all I know God intentionally made this world as it is so that people can question the "benevolence" of God and become doubters.
Maybe this is all a test.
Who knows.
I think you misunderstand the point of view we're looking through to see the issue. We're looking from a birds eye perspective, looking down on the world as God would in a way. We're completely removing ourselves from the equation and considering everyone else. Those like Valanarch and I understand that what you say about Christian view of life/eternity is completely valid. There is plenty of text to remind us of such and the message of the gospel is one of the most important things for non-Christians to know. There lies the central problem; you actually have to listen, understand, and believe in the message to go to heaven otherwise you go to hell.
Pulling up the world religious population statistics page on wikipedia, the world is comprised of 33% Christian. Even if we're assuming Muslims and Jews go to heaven, that brings the number to around 55% . Roughly, for every one person that goes to heaven, another goes to hell for not knowing and accepting the Gospel (discounting lukewarm believers, another issue altogether). I would like to think that God wants every one of his creations in heaven because cares enough and is a all loving father figure so a maximum 55% success rate for an omnipotent being is an astounding failure. If this life is merely the test and the test is for you to hear the gospel and accept it, clearly this guy should give his creation time to complete such tasks. Natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis claim lives and many of those are people who won't get to hear the message and go to hell presumably. God should be stopping these or preventing them from happening in the first place because he cares enough for us to try to give us our best shot in getting into heaven.
edit: with these current numbers in mind, I find it hard to believe that God really cares for us. This looks more like a guy who said **** it, and tipped the first domino over and left the building
I don't want to go to the heaven in the Bible. I don't want to spend eternity being essentially high on drugs worshipping and praising him, especially when he gave Satan free reign over earth. And if I did something wrong, eternal torture is not the answer. If I go to Hell then God has clearly failed as a parent. One time I had a dream I was in heaven, several months after I stopped being a Christian, and Satan came up to me and said that God and Hell are real. I told him that the idea of an all-loving God and eternal damnation are incompatible. He responded by saying that God is not all-loving. If Satan is working against God to try and get people to go to Hell, then why is he bothering to convince me that God is real? Is he working for God? Makes me think so according to the story of Job.
Man... You actually think that's what this is about? One-upping another person? Still you desperately cling to that need to be better than others?
For goodness sake, I bring up tragedy and sadness and hardship, and your response is, "Ok, let's have a suffering contest"?!
I can't say I'm surprised, because I'm not, but I am disappointed.
...
Actually, that was an emotional response from me because I felt you accused me of not knowing what suffering is, and that's why I'm saying all these things. In all honesty it actually pissed me off (and given my ******* motto on the internet is to not be pissed off by what others write, you did a swell job at it) and so I wrote something that has no business being on an internet forum.
I considered deleting it, but I chose not to for some reason that I don't remember.
Again, though, you completely twist it to be whatever you want it to mean.
Look at yourself. You literally are taking every word I say and interpreting it in a fashion that suits your narrative. You never once seem to consider looking at them at face-value.
Yes, I have repeated it, because it's true, and I want you to understand it, because I want it to stop being true. The refusal to empathize with other people and instead to choose berating them because of some need to be better than them is condescension.
And you are not better than the people you presume to judge, nor are you in any position to belittle them. So no, there is no "possibly" in you being hypocritical.
Ok. I'm starting to get sick and tired of this song and dance. We're doing nothing but the same thing over and over at this point, and I'm honestly surprised that B_S or some other mod hasn't put a stop to it.
But, for the last time,
1) I do not consider myself "better" than anyone, least of all Christians. I don't know how many times I need to repeat this.
2) I never "berated" anyone. I said I don't understand Christians who are worry-warts or seriously worry themselves to death over various issues in the world. Furthermore, given my understanding of Christianity, I would call these kinds of Christians "Christians in name only", because they don't really fit my understanding of Christians.
Maybe Bible verses might help you see why I think in this fashion.
Treasures in Heaven
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[l] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[m] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[n]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
3) I admitted that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to call people worry-warts and whatnot when I only see a glimpse of their life. It could very well be that my titling of them as "Christians in name only" is flawed.
4) However, I do not very much care because I feel that would be disrespectful to my mother, whose faith and interpretation of Christianity essentially forms the bedrock of my own.
5) Regarding my own belief towards Christianity- I would like to believe, because I feel that having faith in things is actually important to living life. However, I cannot seem to actually believe in Christianity.
And, just to prevent you from misinterpreting this as "Oh you tried to a Christian but failed and are being judgmental towards others for doing the same, shame on you!" I repeat once more- I never once considered myself a Christian. When I say I cannot believe in Christianity, what I essentially mean is this- every time I ask myself a question on whether I can accept Jesus as my savior, whether I can believe in Christianity, etc, I get either absolute silence or a big, resounding "no".
Of the top of my head, these are the statements that you choose to interpret as me saying "I am a condescending, hypocritical ******** who doesn't emphasize with people".
Reflect on the fact that I proposed that analogy based on something no remotely decent person would ever do. But you managed to go the distance, didn't you?
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
-Matthew 7:1-2
I fully realize how that applies to me. And, yes, I am being serious. The irony here is I will say truthfully that I realize how horrible and flawed I am.
But I do not believe that I am flawed because of what I wrote in this thread. I fully realize that I can be arrogant and condescending. But I do not believe that I have shown those qualities in this thread. Because I know what I wrote, and I believe what I wrote doesn't show arrogance or condescension (outside of my last post to you).
The irony is that you won't believe a word I'm saying, and yet I'm being the most honest and truthful I've ever been outside of my own family here.
And, since I'm being honest, it hurts. I really do think I've revealed more about myself than I ever should have on a random forum because I know you won't believe a word of it. Rather twisted, really.
Oh I get it, because the only time you would admit your own flaws is when you're doing so in the form of a one-liner to stab at another human being in your attempts to elevate yourself over them. I appreciate the irony.
Wow. Talk about twisting statements to fit your own narrative.
FYI, that was an attempt at humor. Not me admitting that I'm arrogant or condescending.
You want to know why people live in anxiety and fear? Because fear is a defense mechanism we have against pain. It's an avoidance system to keep us safe from pain. Life freaking hurts. Why are people anxious? Because life hurts, and they're afraid of being hurt. So do you want to understand someone else's anxiety, or someone else's fear? Try understanding the hurt they are afraid of. Understand why they hurt. And understand why you hurt. Understand why is life painful for you. Understand where you hurt in your life. Understand the pain you go through. Then try to imagine you feeling the hurt that other person feels, and try to feel that. Feel that pain and that suffering that other person feels, and understand why they might have difficulty bearing that.
Suffer with that person, and then you might feel sympathy with that person. Y'know, like an actual human being is supposed to be able to do without an anonymous stranger on an internet forum explaining the process to him.
The irony is that you won't believe a word I'm saying, and yet I'm being the most honest and truthful I've ever been outside of my own family here.
And, since I'm being honest, it hurts. I really do think I've revealed more about myself than I ever should have on a random forum because I know you won't believe a word of it. Rather twisted, really.
I was actually crying when I wrote that last response to you, and it's not the first time I've done that in this thread.
Yes, it hurts to be vulnerable. It's terrifying. Which is why I honestly don't understand how you can say you honestly don't understand why people would be anxious about life. Can you say that you don't understand why people might have trouble letting go of themselves and being vulnerable, when you just spoke about the same thing?
4) However, I do not very much care because I feel that would be disrespectful to my mother, whose faith and interpretation of Christianity essentially forms the bedrock of my own.
But you didn't answer my question. Why did it take cancer for your mother to convert? If she really felt that's what she was supposed to do, why didn't she do it before?
Since you didn't answer, let me propose a theory. Could it be because the vicissitudes of life can distract us from what is really important, or cause us to lose sight of our own true selves? Could it be that sometimes we need reminders to help us remember who we are and what we really hold dear, and sometimes it takes confronting our own mortality to get us to understand how we want to live our lives?
If so, then how would it be disrespectful to extend that same recognition, that same understanding of human nature, to other people? That, to me, would be showing respect.
Hi Aldath. I am a Christian and will discuss with you as much as you see fit. I would like you to understand a couple of my presuppositions going into the discussion though. I do believe that God is a loving God, and that Jesus is His Son. I do believe that the Bible is the holy and inspired Word of God and can be trusted as a source of authority (not the Apocrypha though). And I do believe in having cordial discussions rather than heated debates. My involvement here, then, will be to help you process through the things that you're asking while providing what I understand to be a "Christian" perspective on things.
Quote from Aldath » »
Ok, so if God is our father, isn't he supposed to listen to us once in a while? People say God follows this logic: Don't ask God for a bike because he doesn't works that way, steal the bike, and ask for forgiveness. People say God gives, on his time, and only what he thinks is good for you, so in a way or another we're limited to what God thinks s best for an individual instead of him trying to listen to what we expect and want from life. Other religions seem to have gods who actually care, but I am more inclined to belive the cosmos is the creation of an individual entity.
Take a second and think of all of the information in the world. We live in an age where it takes 6 months or less to double that information. The propagation of information is increasing at an exponential rate. Incredible, isn't it? Now, ask yourself this question. How much of all the possible information in the universe do we as a people know? I suspect it is still but a fraction, considering how much of the universe we don't know about. How much of the available information that we as a people group do you, personally, know? A fraction, just like me and everyone else in existence. We, individually, know a fraction of a fraction of the amount of information available in the universe. A little humbling when it's put in that kind of perspective, isn't it?
Now think about God. The Christian concept of God is one who is omniscient, or "all-knowing." In other words, He knows all information about all of reality. So, while we each only know a fraction of a fraction, He knows it all. The imagery of a father to a child pales in comparison, then, when comparing relative amounts of knowledge, but it is one I will rely upon to help us understand even better. I, as a father, know a lot more than my son. And when I give my instructions, or deny his request for things, it is because out of my greater well of knowledge, I recognize that my instructions (vs. his complaints over having to do it) or my denial (vs. his whining over not getting what he wants) is better for him. This subjective concept of "better for him" is also derived from my knowledge set based on a) what I perceive that he wants, b) what I want for him, and c) what is ultimately good for him health- and behavior-wise. Extrapolate this same concept to God and to us. God knows what is best for us. This isn't a subjective concept, however, because subjectivism is based out of opinions due to limited information. God's concept of what is best for us is an objective reality, because He knows everything. Additionally, God is not just thinking of what is best for us individually, but rather, what is best for us individually with respects to His plan for us collectively.
There are additional complexities that come into the equation due to free will and our relationship with God, but I won't get into those unless you want to discuss this further. Suffice it to say, us "getting what we want" when asking God for something isn't nearly as simple as thinking of God as a genie or that we should make it happen ourselves (like your stealing a bike example). It's a complex topic, and the truth of the reality is, we don't always get what we want. The second truth, however, (and delves slightly into the aforementioned complexity of our relationship with God) is that the closer we are with God, the more we get what we want... because we will want what He wants for us.
Quote from Aldath » »
Then there's the issue on Heaven, eternity. If you follow God, act like a good human being and help others out, you go to heaven. But what is Heaven? A place where pretty much you'll lose your identity and individuality in order to be one with God, the cosmos, whatever. As I've seen many Christians and people who's had NDE describe Heaven that way. You won't feel the air never again, not taste the food. Your family won't br your family. You won't be able to kiss your wife any more, hug your kid... That's pretty much hell without the physicall tortures. And that reafirms God only cares about what he thinks is right for the soul instead of trying to listen.
From a Biblical perspective, it is incorrect to say that acting like a good human and helping others out leads to heaven. Christianity stipulates that faith in Christ is the pathway to heaven, not through works of man. This is a side topic that I will explore more with you if you desire, but will table for now to discuss your questions. First, I want to establish that near death experiences have been debunked as being a viable source of information. Studies have been done where people claimed an out of body experience where they overheard conversations and those conversations never happened. Suffice it to say, near death experiences should not be trusted.
As for the reality of heaven... have you ever been elated? I mean, truly elated? The sense of the word is not just happy, but so overwhelmingly joyous that you can't hardly speak or breathe. To me, it's a word that is used to describe the purest sense of happiness. It is that kind of feeling that we will have in heaven, and have it perpetually. Scripture describes Heaven as a place of no tears or sorrows. What you are focusing on in your post is the earthly things that give you joy: family, food, physical reality. It's hard for us to imagine the reality of Heaven because of our attachment to earthly things... but we won't have those attachments in Heaven. To some, this sounds awful (as you've described). And I myself have been skeptical of how I can truly be happy if the things that currently make me happy are not present. Shouldn't those things that make me the most happy here be the most present in Heaven so I can be the most happy? In reality, God is what will make us the most happy. All the things that make us happy now will be but a shadow in comparison to being in His presence. It's a reality that's difficult to understand but staggering once you grasp it. The presence of God, in Scripture, is described as being so overpowering it will kill a man that is impure in any form or fashion. We will be so overpowered by God's presence in Heaven that I doubt we will focus on anything else... and we will be extremely happy for it too.
I hope this helps start our discussion. I want to close with this. What God desires most for you at this time is for you to be in a genuine relationship with Him. The start of this relationship is faith in Christ, His Son. It is through this relationship that you will "get what you desire," but you have to understand two things. A relationship with God is focused on Him, not on you, so getting what you desire cannot be of significance if the relationship is to be genuine. And two, you will get what you desire the closer you come to Him, as what you desire will change to what He desires. I mentioned this earlier, and I mention it against because it's a crucial reality to the truth of having a genuine relationship with God.
Now think about God. The Christian concept of God is one who is omniscient, or "all-knowing." In other words, He knows all information about all of reality. So, while we each only know a fraction of a fraction, He knows it all. The imagery of a father to a child pales in comparison, then, when comparing relative amounts of knowledge, but it is one I will rely upon to help us understand even better. I, as a father, know a lot more than my son. And when I give my instructions, or deny his request for things, it is because out of my greater well of knowledge, I recognize that my instructions (vs. his complaints over having to do it) or my denial (vs. his whining over not getting what he wants) is better for him. This subjective concept of "better for him" is also derived from my knowledge set based on a) what I perceive that he wants, b) what I want for him, and c) what is ultimately good for him health- and behavior-wise. Extrapolate this same concept to God and to us. God knows what is best for us. This isn't a subjective concept, however, because subjectivism is based out of opinions due to limited information. God's concept of what is best for us is an objective reality, because He knows everything. Additionally, God is not just thinking of what is best for us individually, but rather, what is best for us individually with respects to His plan for us collectively.
No, I'm afraid you haven't escaped the problem of subjectivism. Why does God want what he wants for us? It's not obvious how information, even all the information in the universe, can tell someone what is good or bad. Sure, God can know that if I smoke cigarettes I will get lung cancer and if I don't I won't. But why shouldn't I get lung cancer? But in order to turn this information into an imperative, it must be coupled with a goal. Imagine programming two computers with all the rules of chess except that you win by checkmating the other king. The computers wouldn't even be able to make a move, except perhaps randomly, because they'd have no means by which to evaluate how one move is better than another. The information about moving pawns and bishops around this board is simply an irrelevant factoid. Nor is it possible to infer a goal from the rules. A human player could probably intuit one because we're familiar with the way games work and real-life wars are fought, but logically it would be just as consistent to suppose that the goal in chess is to get your own king in checkmate - or that there is no goal at all, and the pieces just move forever.
So where does God's goal come from? Why does he "win" if I don't get lung cancer? Just as easily as we imagine a benevolent God, we can imagine a sadistic deity who knows everything and uses that knowledge to try to cause the maximum amount of suffering, or an artistic deity who knows everything and uses that knowledge to try and maximize the number of objects that are a particular shade of blue, or a completely apathetic deity who knows everything but doesn't care what happens one way or the other. God, just like any other thinking being, must decide what he wants for the world. And a different God in the same position could decide a different way. That's subjectivity. God's knowledge may give him a much better chance at accomplishing what he wants than the rest of us have, but it can't tell him objectively what he ought to want.
But now let's move on, and grant that God has decided to be benevolent. What does "benevolent" mean? Generally, that he wishes well for human beings. Okay, so what does that mean? Why are healthy lungs "wellness" and lung cancer not? Lung cancer will cause me pain and shorten my life, but of what significance are those facts? Why do we evaluate pain as a negative and long life as a positive, instead of the other way around? If that sadistic deity were in charge, encouraging me to smoke and get lung cancer, couldn't his defenders say that I ought to change what I want to what he wants, and then we'll want the same thing, and my dying of lung cancer will be good? What distinguishes an actually benevolent deity from us calling this sadistic deity benevolent? I submit that the benevolent deity is the one who does not ask us to change our desires - or if he does, it is only because they are in conflict with other, greater desires that we hold. I want to live a long and pain-free life more than I want a momentary nicotine buzz, and therefore my well-being is in not smoking. Someone who tells me not to smoke is doing it for my own sake, but someone who tells me not to avoid pain and death is not. And everybody else has their own desires, as well, which we can try to harmonize to the maximum extent possible. This is where an objective moral goal really comes from. Individual, subjective human desires are the building blocks of the thing (because though they are subjective, the fact of their existence is objective). They cannot coherently be disregarded. If you want to argue that a benevolent God does not always give us what we want, that's fine, but that needs to be justified in terms of other things that we want or that other people want. If say that God does not give us what we want and we should change what we want to suit him, leaving it at that, then you might as well be arguing that we should change to want lung cancer because a sadistic deity wants us to get lung cancer.
From a Biblical perspective, it is incorrect to say that acting like a good human and helping others out leads to heaven. Christianity stipulates that faith in Christ is the pathway to heaven, not through works of man.
Quote from James 2:14-26 »
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.
You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
I have never understood how Martin Luther could get sola fide out of this. James is not exactly beating around the bush here.
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No, I'm afraid you haven't escaped the problem of subjectivism. Why does God want what he wants for us? It's not obvious how information, even all the information in the universe, can tell someone what is good or bad. Sure, God can know that if I smoke cigarettes I will get lung cancer and if I don't I won't. But why shouldn't I get lung cancer? But in order to turn this information into an imperative, it must be coupled with a goal. Imagine programming two computers with all the rules of chess except that you win by checkmating the other king. The computers wouldn't even be able to make a move, except perhaps randomly, because they'd have no means by which to evaluate how one move is better than another. The information about moving pawns and bishops around this board is simply an irrelevant factoid. Nor is it possible to infer a goal from the rules. A human player could probably intuit one because we're familiar with the way games work and real-life wars are fought, but logically it would be just as consistent to suppose that the goal in chess is to get your own king in checkmate - or that there is no goal at all, and the pieces just move forever.
Objectivism comes from God because God is the source of reality. Good is defined as being good because God is the source of goodness. Evil is defined as evil because it is the absence of that which is good. I make objective statements grounded on the morality as defined by God regarding what is unilaterally best for my son, but it is still a subjective opinion because I do not know everything. "It is good for my son to eat dinner tonight." This subjective opinion of mine is based on the objective truth that eating is good for sustaining life. However, if my son's colon were inhabited by a parasite whose only means of survival is that my son eat minimum of 1 oz of food per day, and the cessation of eating for a 24 hour period would cause it to die, then my subjective opinion is erroneous because I am lacking information regarding my son's health. In the presence of a fully established moral code, access to complete knowledge leads to a fully objective decision-making process.
Quote from Blinking Spirit » »
So where does God's goal come from? Why does he "win" if I don't get lung cancer? Just as easily as we imagine a benevolent God, we can imagine a sadistic deity who knows everything and uses that knowledge to try to cause the maximum amount of suffering, or an artistic deity who knows everything and uses that knowledge to try and maximize the number of objects that are a particular shade of blue, or a completely apathetic deity who knows everything but doesn't care what happens one way or the other. God, just like any other thinking being, must decide what he wants for the world. And a different God in the same position could decide a different way. That's subjectivity. God's knowledge may give him a much better chance at accomplishing what he wants than the rest of us have, but it can't tell him objectively what he ought to want.
Please reference back to my original post where I stated my presuppositions going into the discussion regarding who God is and Scripture as being authoritative. God is described in Scripture as being the definition of love and His goals are clearly laid out in Scripture.
Quote from Blinking Spirit » »
But now let's move on, and grant that God has decided to be benevolent. What does "benevolent" mean? Generally, that he wishes well for human beings. Okay, so what does that mean? Why are healthy lungs "wellness" and lung cancer not? Lung cancer will cause me pain and shorten my life, but of what significance are those facts? Why do we evaluate pain as a negative and long life as a positive, instead of the other way around? If that sadistic deity were in charge, encouraging me to smoke and get lung cancer, couldn't his defenders say that I ought to change what I want to what he wants, and then we'll want the same thing, and my dying of lung cancer will be good? What distinguishes an actually benevolent deity from us calling this sadistic deity benevolent? I submit that the benevolent deity is the one who does not ask us to change our desires - or if he does, it is only because they are in conflict with other, greater desires that we hold. I want to live a long and pain-free life more than I want a momentary nicotine buzz, and therefore my well-being is in not smoking. Someone who tells me not to smoke is doing it for my own sake, but someone who tells me not to avoid pain and death is not. And everybody else has their own desires, as well, which we can try to harmonize to the maximum extent possible. This is where an objective moral goal really comes from. Individual, subjective human desires are the building blocks of the thing (because though they are subjective, the fact of their existence is objective). They cannot coherently be disregarded. If you want to argue that a benevolent God does not always give us what we want, that's fine, but that needs to be justified in terms of other things that we want or that other people want. If say that God does not give us what we want and we should change what we want to suit him, leaving it at that, then you might as well be arguing that we should change to want lung cancer because a sadistic deity wants us to get lung cancer.
You are sourcing objective truths from the multitude of subjective opinions that human's agree to. For example, "do not murder" is a law held by almost every (if not every) government around the world. Subjectively, we as humans have defined this to be a socially-positive behavior trait. Each society then "votes" on what makes the most sense, and those laws and cultural norms become the objective realities of each sub-culture. This is a relativist view of reality, and one that I reject. Instead, I posit that God is the source of objectivism. He established what is right and what is wrong. So you are correct in the sense when you say that a sadistic god could have set things up such that getting lung cancer and dying be considered "good." And if our reality had been set up that way, we would be arguing about the horrors of not getting lung cancer and how appalling that would be vs. the blissfulness of getting lung cancer, all the while fidgeting for our smokes while reading and typing away. In my worldview, our universal subjective opinions (like not murdering) are sourced from the objective reality that God set up to begin with. The concepts of good and evil are rooted within us by the one who created it all.
So I disagree with your statement that a benevolent being is one who does not ask us to change our desires. If I am a benevolent father, I will work to change my son's desires from the things that I know to be evil to things that I know to be good. On things that do not matter (amoral preferences), I leave him his individual freedom. On the things that do matter (moral realities), it would be wrong of me to leave him to his own machinations when I can steer him in the direction of good. It is my responsibility as his father, as one who loves him, to guide him in the things that are good and right.
Let's take thing out of the abstract for a minute. My son and I are at a store. He tells me he wants a candy. I tell him no. He decides to take it anyway. We leave the store and I realize he has the candy in his hand (still unopened). Do I take it back in, since stealing is wrong, and instruct him on how stealing is wrong and shouldn't do it? Do I take it back in because I know stealing is wrong but never instruct him? Or do I not do anything and let him have the candy that he stole? In the role as the good father, I would return and instruct. Why? The second scenario rights the wrong, but never works to change his perspective on stealing and will most likely lead to him stealing again and probably be sneaky the next time. The third scenario neither rights the wrong nor corrects the perspective and will definitely lead to recurrence. So, I am being benevolent when I work to change his perspective, am I not?
Regarding your last statement, I don't "leave it at that" with regards to changing our desires. As a Christian, I have a relationship with God. He is my Father, I am His son. It is a relationship built on love. As I love God, I want to do things that please Him. When I first became a Christian, I didn't know what this meant as I didn't know what things would please God. Fast forward to today, I have a better idea of what pleases God, as I've grown in knowledge and grown closer to Him. Based on your reasoning above, I am actually not changing my desires for God, but rather, God is revealing to me how my lesser desires are conflict with my greater desire to please Him, and as such, they change to align with that greater desire. God desires me to behave a certain way and do certain things, and this will please Him. Over time, the two paths will begin to merge as my lesser desires align with my greater desire and my behavior and actions align with God's desire for me. The end result is that the things I want to have are the things that God wants me to have, so asking God for something will result in Him giving it to me. Hence how this subject ties back to the OP.
Quote from Blinking Spirit » »
I have never understood how Martin Luther could get sola fide out of this. James is not exactly beating around the bush here.
Here's a cut and paste from an exegesis I did years ago on this portion of James.
James 2:14, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him?"
It's like the difference between the sinner's prayer and true repentence. Just because you say the words doesn't mean you mean it.
James 2:15-17, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it not accomplished by action, is dead."
Here, James provides us with a rather vivid analogy of a man who "wishes" well but doesn't do anything. Well, the actions were not of the heart. If the man had really wished well, he would have done something to help his brother or sister!
James 2:18-19, "But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder."
This is such a powerful passage right here. James demonstrates conclusively that knowledge of God is not enough to save a man! It's like the phrase "actions speak louder than words." What you say means nothing if it's not backed by what you do. The important difference to keep in mind is that while what we do is a manifestation of what we believe, it is what we believe that saves us. It's somewhat circular as well, because what we believe will result in what we do. As such, if you have true faith, you have true action. If you do not have true faith, you will not have the ensuing actions.
James 2:20-23, "You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as rightouesness,' and he was called God's friend."
It appears we have a duel between Paul in Romans 4 and this passage in James. Let's take a look:
Romans 4:2,4-5 "If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about--but not before God...Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness."
Indeed, on the surface, it seems contradictory. It, however, reminds me of a hypothetical story. Let me share it with you.
One day, a man took a tripwire and spanned it across the Grand Canyon. He advertized an amazing feat and drew a crowd one day. He told them, "I am going to walk this tripwire across the Grand Canyon and back, no problem." And he did. The crowd was amazed! Now, he took a wheelbarrow and told them, "Not only will I take this wheelbarrow across, I am going to run across it!" And he did so. The crowd was even more amazed!
Then he addressed the crowd. "How many of you think I can do it again, as many times as I want?" They all thought he could. "How many of you think I could do it with a person in the wheelbarrow?" They all thought he could. "Who wants to get in the wheelbarrow." None of them did.
And such is the story. None of the people in the story had true faith in him, else all of them would have been willing to get in the wheelbarrow. For you see, while they professed their belief in his ability to do something, none of them were trusting enough to be in the wheelbarrow. Everyone was scared! Scared of what though? They had seen him do it without falling, but they were still scared.
This is exactly the point that both Paul and James make, just with looking at different sides of the same coin. Paul emphasizes the fact that faith does not require works, while James emphasizes that the realization and actualization of faith is shown through works. There is no battle, no contradiction, just a difference in focus.
James 2:24, "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone."
And the last verse is a stinger, as the word "justified," as typically used by Paul, seems to indicate salvation, whereas here, James clearly cannot be using the word "justified" to mean salvation in the same sense as Paul, or else we would have a clear contradiction. As such, I will provide an excerpt from Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words under "justified," or in Greek, "δικαιοω."
In regard to justification by works, the so-called contradiction between James and the Apostle Paul is only apparent. There is harmony in the different views of the subject. Paul has in mind Abraham's attitude toward God, his acceptance of God's word. This was a matter known only to God. The Romans Epistle is occupied with the effect of this Godward attitude, not upon Abraham's character or actions, but upon the contrast between faith and the lack of it, namely, unbelief, cp. Rom. 2:20. James (2:21-26) is occupied with the contrast between faith that is real and faith that is false, a faith barren and dead, which is not faith at all.
Again, the two writers have before them different epochs in Abraham's life--Paul, the event recorded in Gen. 15, James, that in Gen. 22. Contrast the words 'believed' in Gen. 15:6 and 'obeyed' in 22:18.
Further, the two writers use the words 'faith' and 'works' in somewhat different senses. With Paul, faith is acceptance of God's word; with James, it is acceptance of the truth of certain statements about God, (ver. 19) which may fail to affect one's conduct. Faith, as dealt with by Paul, results in acceptance with God., i.e., justification, and is bound to manifest itself. If not, as James says 'Can that faith save him?' (ver. 14). With Paul, works are dead works; with James they are life works. The works of which Paul speaks could be quite independent of faith: those referred to by James can be wrought only where faith is real, and they will attest its reality.
So with rightouesness, or justification: Paul is occupied with a right relationship with God, James, with right conduct. Paul testifies that the ungodly can be justified by faith, James that only the right-doer is justified.
--Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, pg. 626
And such is the story. None of the people in the story had true faith in him, else all of them would have been willing to get in the wheelbarrow. For you see, while they professed their belief in his ability to do something, none of them were trusting enough to be in the wheelbarrow. Everyone was scared! Scared of what though? They had seen him do it without falling, but they were still scared.
So, it sounds like you're advocating James' point of view: faith without works is nothing.
This is exactly the point that both Paul and James make, just with looking at different sides of the same coin. Paul emphasizes the fact that faith does not require works, while James emphasizes that the realization and actualization of faith is shown through works. There is no battle, no contradiction, just a difference in focus.
Erm, no, that's not correct, because of what you're about to quote:
James 2:24, "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone."
Yeah, that totally goes against what Paul says. Paul said, "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness."
So either justification comes from faith alone, or justification does not come from faith alone. It cannot be both.
And the last verse is a stinger, as the word "justified," as typically used by Paul, seems to indicate salvation, whereas here, James clearly cannot be using the word "justified" to mean salvation in the same sense as Paul, or else we would have a clear contradiction.
Ok, so you're arguing that these two "apparently" contradictory passages are not contradictory, and your justification for this is that they can't be contradictory, because if they were, there would be a contradiction?
In other words, you're arguing that your conclusion is the correct one, and your evidence for this is that it has to be the correct one, or else it wouldn't be correct?
That's called Begging The Question. It's a logical fallacy in which you assume your conclusion is already correct and use that assumption as evidence for you being correct. But that's fallacious. You feeling that you must be correct is not evidence for you being correct.
The fact of the matter is that we have a direct contradiction. James is saying that faith without works is meaningless. Paul is saying that a man with faith who does not work is righteous in God's eyes. They cannot both be correct, as they directly contradict one another.
In regard to justification by works, the so-called contradiction between James and the Apostle Paul is only apparent. There is harmony in the different views of the subject. Paul has in mind Abraham's attitude toward God, his acceptance of God's word. This was a matter known only to God. The Romans Epistle is occupied with the effect of this Godward attitude, not upon Abraham's character or actions, but upon the contrast between faith and the lack of it, namely, unbelief, cp. Rom. 2:20. James (2:21-26) is occupied with the contrast between faith that is real and faith that is false, a faith barren and dead, which is not faith at all.
Erm, yeah, and James is saying that faith without works is the barren and dead one, not faith at all, and Paul is arguing that faith without works is not only righteous faith, but that works cannot redeem one at all, right?
So still contradictory.
Further, the two writers use the words 'faith' and 'works' in somewhat different senses. With Paul, faith is acceptance of God's word; with James, it is acceptance of the truth of certain statements about God, (ver. 19) which may fail to affect one's conduct. Faith, as dealt with by Paul, results in acceptance with God., i.e., justification, and is bound to manifest itself. If not, as James says 'Can that faith save him?' (ver. 14). With Paul, works are dead works; with James they are life works. The works of which Paul speaks could be quite independent of faith: those referred to by James can be wrought only where faith is real, and they will attest its reality.
We're still dealing with direct contradictions. Either faith in God is enough to save a person, or a person needs works. You cannot have both.
So with rightouesness, or justification: Paul is occupied with a right relationship with God, James, with right conduct. Paul testifies that the ungodly can be justified by faith, James that only the right-doer is justified.
... And those are directly contradictory statements.
Either a person is justified by faith alone, or he is not justified by faith alone. It cannot be both.
This subjective opinion of mine is based on the objective truth that eating is good for sustaining life.
Correct. However, it is subjective that sustaining life is a good thing. Therein lies your problem. Perfect information about which causes lead to which effects does not say anything about which effects ought to be caused. This is a facet of the famous problem in philosophy known as the "is-ought gap": "food sustains life" is an "is", but "life is good" is an "ought", and you can't get from one to the other. So perfect information doesn't make God moral. As you seem to acknowledge by accepting the possibility of an omniscient sadistic deity, which leaves me puzzled as to why you're still talking about omniscience.
Please reference back to my original post where I stated my presuppositions going into the discussion regarding who God is and Scripture as being authoritative. God is described in Scripture as being the definition of love and His goals are clearly laid out in Scripture.
I saw that, but you need to realize that resting your argument on such contentious presuppositions effectively destroys its persuasive power. You will really only be able to make headway talking to other devout Christians. And you're not talking to devout Christians here.
For that matter, on this particular point, even if I were a devout Christian my question would still stand. The Bible states God's goals (maybe), but I'm asking why he has those goals and not some other goals. On this matter, to the best of my knowledge, the Bible does not speak. It says he is loving, but why does loving someone mean you want them to live long and healthily instead of short and painfully?
This is a relativist view of reality, and one that I reject.
Cool. I reject it too. Don't read more into what I've written than I've written.
But the thing is, when I argue against moral relativists, I don't just say "I reject that worldview" and reassert my own. I engage with the worldview and expose the problems with it, furnishing these as reasons for my rejection. You haven't actually said anything about why your worldview ought to be believed and relativism disbelieved. (And, as I have shown and will continue to show, your worldview actually is relativist. Heck, this whole reject-and-reassert line you've taken betrays a relativist mindset: you're stressing your personal belief in the theory rather than explaining the objective logic of it.)
In my worldview, our universal subjective opinions (like not murdering) are sourced from the objective reality that God set up to begin with. The concepts of good and evil are rooted within us by the one who created it all.
But you've acknowledged that he could have been a sadist and set it up the other way around. And I don't think you've even fully explored that possibility: a sadistic deity would not need to have given us the same opinions as he has. Rather, he might well have given us the opposite opinions, so we'll be more dismayed by what he does to us. Under these circumstances, would pain be good, because it's what the deity wants, or would it be bad, because it's not what everybody else wants?
And regardless of how the details of the sadistic deity scenario turn out, the mere fact that it's possible is ample demonstration that God's morality - at least as you have described it - is not objective. An objective fact is a fact which any qualified observer under the same circumstances would determine to be true, regardless of their personal feelings. For instance, anyone seated where I am seated would answer the question "What color is this keyboard?" the same way (unless they're visually impaired and can't make the observation). But if a benevolent deity creating the universe and a sadistic deity creating the universe can come up with different answers to the question "What is good?", then good obviously cannot be objective. It's based on the feelings of the particular deity. And while we may be hard-wired to have the same feelings (or the opposite feelings!), psychological hard-wiring is the furthest thing from logical grounds for accepting an objective truth. If I had a mind-control laser that could make everybody's favorite color blue, that wouldn't make blue objectively the best color.
So I disagree with your statement that a benevolent being is one who does not ask us to change our desires. If I am a benevolent father, I will work to change my son's desires from the things that I know to be evil to things that I know to be good.
Not to be a broken record, but how do you know them to be good? If you're a mortal in this Christian moral universe you describe, then you can say that the good is what God wills. But this is an analogy, and "you" are actually supposed to be God. And if you're God, what then?
So, I am being benevolent when I work to change his perspective, am I not?
You'll note that I embrace the possibility of changing people's perspectives: "I want to live a long and pain-free life more than I want a momentary nicotine buzz, and therefore my well-being is in not smoking. Someone who tells me not to smoke is doing it for my own sake..." As a father, you teach your son to lead a law-abiding life because in the long run it will get him and everybody else more of what they want. If what people want doesn't matter, then there's no reason why your son shouldn't be thief, and no reason why a deity shouldn't say, "Steal everything that isn't nailed down - then go get a crowbar!" What we mean when we say a deity is benevolent - when we say that he loves us - is that he wishes for us to get the most out of our lives. You can deny someone you love something they want in the short term, but try to imagine denying them everything forever. You can't, because that's not love.
The important difference to keep in mind is that while what we do is a manifestation of what we believe, it is what we believe that saves us.
...is directly contradicted by the passage that it's supposed to be exegesizing. You say that belief saves, but James points out that demons believe, and are not saved.
And as for the contradiction between James and Paul, your entire argument rests on your conviction that this cannot be a real contradiction (plus an unjustified appeal to authority). But that too is eisegetical. Why can't it be a contradiction? Neither James nor Paul was God. They were mortal men, struggling to understand and explain the phenomenon of Jesus. Is it out of the question that they had different interpretations of an issue, just as the Catholic and Protestant denominations have different interpretations of it today? (I do not say that all interpretations are equally valid or any such nonsense - one may be right and the other wrong, or for that matter both may be wrong.) Let me tell you, all the indicators are that not only did they have different interpretations, but that these passages are actually direct argument and counter-argument - the wording is too similar for them just to be coincidentally parallel. If you ran into such passages in, say, the Upanishads, would you have any hesitation at all in thinking the authors were in a theological dispute?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
A few times I have seen this analogy from clearly intelligent Christians, which leads me to believe it must have been put to ink by some Christian writer that you've all read, though I suppose it is a fairly obvious comparison to make. It seems to me that there is a glaring problem with it. From the perspective of someone who does not already affirm God's perfect goodness and love, as Aldath seems to be, it strikes me as a singularly unhelpful analogy; you establish that you are a caring father, and then conclude from there that in this way God resembles you (or perhaps, that you resemble God) and that in the same way you look out for the best interests of your child because you love him, God looks out for all of his human children. This latter idea - that God cares for and looks after humanity - is the very idea Aldath specifically disclaims with his original post. What reason would someone have to conclude that God is a better father than you, besides already affirming that belief? Well, you don't provide one, and when we look at the state of the world we see many reasons to believe that he is far worse. By assuming that God is motivated by love and care for his children, as you are motivated, the father-son analogy simply begs the question - you need to already believe what you want it to show.
So, a couple of thoughts here. First, every person in the world is not a child of God. "Child of God" as defined in Scripture are those who are Christian. Born into this world, we are enemies of God. He still loves everyone with His general love for humanity, but we are not His children in the sense of the analogy. Salvation causes us to be adopted as His child, at which point the analogy takes over. Second, the "many reasons" that we come up with when looking at the state of the world to establish that God is bad at what He does are human reasonings. It's like my son telling me that he's unhappy when I don't give him candy. His finite understanding at the age of 5 tells him that I am withholding that which he can reason to be the utmost of good things in that moment: the piece of chocolate right outside his grasp. So yes, we can come up with all kinds of reasons why God is a bad God looking at the world around us... but at the end of the day, God's knowledge vastly exceeds our own, so I have to trust that He knows what He's doing. I won't always understand it, I won't always like it, and in my own little reasoning, may not agree with it. But my responsibility is to trust that He is doing what is best. And that's the perspective that a Christian must accept on faith. Aldath has asked for a discussion with Christians on this topic, and this is the Christian viewpoint IMO.
So yes, we can come up with all kinds of reasons why God is a bad God looking at the world around us... but at the end of the day, God's knowledge vastly exceeds our own, so I have to trust that He knows what He's doing. I won't always understand it, I won't always like it, and in my own little reasoning, may not agree with it. But my responsibility is to trust that He is doing what is best. And that's the perspective that a Christian must accept on faith. Aldath has asked for a discussion with Christians on this topic, and this is the Christian viewpoint IMO.
Your argument seems to be, essentially, we can't know if he's good or evil so just submit to him and hope that he's good. Is that correct? Because that's exactly the mentality Synalon was saying was problematic.
Besides which, this doesn't actually answer whether or not he's good, and is actually a great recipe for submitting to a malevolent being.
If people don't start out as 'Children of God', how is anyone who isn't a Child of God supposed to think that God is good?
Erm, yeah, and James is saying that faith without works is the barren and dead one, not faith at all, and Paul is arguing that faith without works is not only righteous faith, but that works cannot redeem one at all, right?
So still contradictory.
We're still dealing with direct contradictions. Either faith in God is enough to save a person, or a person needs works. You cannot have both.
... And those are directly contradictory statements.
Either a person is justified by faith alone, or he is not justified by faith alone. It cannot be both.
You have to understand the audiences to which each author is writing. Paul is writing to a church in Rome that has a significant problem, namely, the Jews and Gentiles were having difficulty integrating in the church together because of their different viewpoints on salvation. The first 3-4 chapters of Romans, Paul is working to unite their viewpoints to help them understand that salvation through Christ is for both the Jew and the Gentile and is irrespective of works. The Jews were trying to force the Gentiles to go through all these rituals (i.e. works) before they could be saved. Their view was warped because of their presuppositions. Paul is correcting their viewpoint by telling them that salvation does not require all these rituals (works) but comes from faith in Christ. James, on the other hand, is addressing a different issue. His audience are Christians where one problem was that some people were making proclamations of faith and then continuing in their path of wicked ways. James is correct in saying that faith without works is dead in the context of his audience, because he is trying to address the fact that people were doing just that: making proclamations of faith yet not having works to demonstrate that faith. In chemistry terms, having faith makes you an acid, but the litmus test is the works you do. The litmus test does not change the reality of the acid, only confirms that it is an acid. James is saying that faith is dead (not an acid) if there are no works to back it up (litmus test comes back non-acidic when put in the non-acid that is claiming to be an acid). Paul is saying that works (litmus test) don't save you (sticking a strip into a liquid doesn't magically turn it into an acid) but that faith is what saves you (turns the liquid into an acid). James is a retroactive look at a man's faith and evaluating it from the outside in (man's perspective). Paul is a look at a man's faith and evaluating it from the inside out (God's perspective). Outside in, man's perspective, can only be justified (determined) by works. Someone claiming to be Christian who has no works, from our perspective on the outside, it's a lie and they are not a Christian. Inside out, God's perspective, a man is justified by faith alone. Someone claiming to be a Christian is known by God to be a Christian if they have saving faith, regardless of works. The complementary harmony between the two viewpoints is that the person who is claiming to be a Christian, and actually is one, will produce the works of a Christian. It is the inevitability of the change that God creates in them, and hence, the validity of both Paul and James on the topic of faith and works.
Outside in, man's perspective, can only be justified (determined) by works. Someone claiming to be Christian who has no works, from our perspective on the outside, it's a lie and they are not a Christian. Inside out, God's perspective, a man is justified by faith alone. Someone claiming to be a Christian is known by God to be a Christian if they have saving faith, regardless of works.
Then you are saying that James is wrong because he's contradicting God.
Then you are saying that James is wrong because he's contradicting God.
What? No. I'm saying that James is discussing the perspective of how Man views salvation whereas Paul is discussing the perspective of how God views salvation. James is saying that we, as people, can only affirm that someone is saved by observing their works. If I make the proclamation "I am saved because of my faith in Christ" and then continue in my killing spree, my works belie my proclamation of faith. The evidence of my faith (from a human's perspective) is my works, just like the evidence of an acid is a litmus test. God doesn't need works to know I'm saved because He can see my heart, my inner being, and know whether or not my faith is genuine. The reason they work together is because the works will naturally follow from saving faith. The point of faith alone theology is to point out that we cannot work our way to heaven. There is no amount of good things that we can do to earn our way to heaven. It is by faith that we are saved. The point that James is making is that the works that we do is evidence of the faith that we have. It is no good for a man to just make a proclamation. People lie every day. It must be genuine. And genuine saving faith results in good works, the very works that James is saying should be evident in one who has true faith.
Your argument seems to be, essentially, we can't know if he's good or evil so just submit to him and hope that he's good. Is that correct? Because that's exactly the mentality Synalon was saying was problematic.
Besides which, this doesn't actually answer whether or not he's good, and is actually a great recipe for submitting to a malevolent being.
If people don't start out as 'Children of God', how is anyone who isn't a Child of God supposed to think that God is good?
Nobody ever said faith was easy. I have to have faith that God is good. I have to have faith that His understanding vastly exceeds my own. I have to have faith that God will work out all things for the good of those He loves. It takes faith. Simple as that. However, you are right when you say that it's a great recipe for submitting to a malevolent being. My faith is placed in the God as portrayed in Scripture, and He is not portrayed as a malevolent being. I have faith that the Bible is an accurate depiction of God and not a fabricated one by Man or a falsified one by a malevolent being who wants to pose as a benevolent being to subvert Man to his own wishes. These are things that I must put my faith in to hold the beliefs that I do. And it's not easy, and it's not always simple. But to me, it is both truth and a reality.
As for the enemies of God coming to recognize that God is good... Jesus put it this way: "There is no one good but God." We must first recognize that we are not good to be able to understand that God is good. Think of it this way. God, being the source of all reality, defines what is good and what is evil. The concepts of good and evil are a matter of perspective relative to whom is judging. That's why what is good to some may be evil to another. If you are being judged against a moral code that you disagree with, you may think that you did good, but the judge who is sitting on your trial will find you guilty of doing evil because of the moral code you are being judged against. God judges us after we die against His moral code. He establishes perfection from a moral standpoint, and we are held accountable to that standard. We cannot live up that standard, and therefore, by the laws of good and evil as defined by God, we are not good. Once recognized, we are now more able to recognize that God is good and that we can only become good with His help. And that's the beginning of the process of salvation that leads to becoming a Child of God.
Daniel
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God IS Good you would say that too when it happens to you, consider you want crack in hell and then God will ask to you why do you take the rock? I believe that He is all so high that all the things we do is petty, yet significant out of love.
NOT THE logic
people NEED to care, and they need someone to care for them and He DOES and that is selfish? He does give what we want on another level. Consider what the things we want in the next 10-20 decades and are they the TRUE THINGS we would want? are you unhappy with he way things are at the moment that you would want all that you would ask for
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we all work
I bet Jesus did the same thing
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
PS: In the book, Sauron isn't actually an eye. That's just his symbol.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Statements about God are similarly conditioned on "If God exists, then..." So (this version of) the ontological argument actually runs, "If God exists, then he has all the best properties. If he has all the best properties, then he exists." Which is just circular: his existence is derived from assuming his existence, and it remains perfectly possible that God does not exist. More sophisticated versions of the ontological argument, such as Plantinga's, will try to argue that God possibly exists, and it is a better property for him to necessarily exist, therefore God exists. But this really doesn't avoid the circularity problem; it just disguises it by burying the premise that God exists in the necessity thing.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
For goodness sake, I bring up tragedy and sadness and hardship, and your response is, "Ok, let's have a suffering contest"?!
I can't say I'm surprised, because I'm not, but I am disappointed.
Yes, I have repeated it, because it's true, and I want you to understand it, because I want it to stop being true. The refusal to empathize with other people and instead to choose berating them because of some need to be better than them is condescension.
And you are not better than the people you presume to judge, nor are you in any position to belittle them. So no, there is no "possibly" in you being hypocritical.
Then you've got a lot of growing up to do.
Reflect on the fact that I proposed that analogy based on something no remotely decent person would ever do. But you managed to go the distance, didn't you?
Oh I get it, because the only time you would admit your own flaws is when you're doing so in the form of a one-liner to stab at another human being in your attempts to elevate yourself over them. I appreciate the irony.
No, you're still not getting it.
Human beings, every single one of us, are flawed to the core. We are ****ed up. We are imperfect and flawed and ****ed up. That is the core of Christianity. That is its heart. That is the fundamental root of it. It is the humility to be able to look in the mirror and to look at yourself honestly, and to understand how deep your flaws truly run. To be able to see your own humanity.
And the good news is that God loves us anyway. That God loves us, not despite our humanity, but for it.
That understanding of what it means to be human is the essence of Christianity. It is the love of God, the love of one's neighbor as oneself, and the love of one's neighbor as Jesus loved mankind.
So no, I don't believe you do understand what I'm talking about. Doing so would require a recognition of a quintessential, shared humanity between you and the people you are trying to deride.
You want to know why people live in anxiety and fear? Because fear is a defense mechanism we have against pain. It's an avoidance system to keep us safe from pain. Life freaking hurts. Why are people anxious? Because life hurts, and they're afraid of being hurt. So do you want to understand someone else's anxiety, or someone else's fear? Try understanding the hurt they are afraid of. Understand why they hurt. And understand why you hurt. Understand why is life painful for you. Understand where you hurt in your life. Understand the pain you go through. Then try to imagine you feeling the hurt that other person feels, and try to feel that. Feel that pain and that suffering that other person feels, and understand why they might have difficulty bearing that.
Suffer with that person, and then you might feel sympathy with that person. Y'know, like an actual human being is supposed to be able to do without an anonymous stranger on an internet forum explaining the process to him.
But to do that, you're going to have to actually feel empathy for another human being. And condescension is the exact opposite of that.
Infraction for flaming. - Blinking Spirit
I have thought about near-death experiences, and how people experience the afterlife when they die. It is said that there is activity in your brain even after you die. Your brain can flash all of your life experiences right before your eyes in one moment, right? How do we know that the afterlife is just something you experience in your brain right after you die? Your brain might make you think you'll live for eternity in the afterlife, but you're just really dead and the afterlife doesn't exist. Everyone sees things differently in their near-death experiences because they all believe different things.
Even the stuff in our dreams are made up. Who knows why I had religious dreams for the past few months even though I stopped being a Christian over a year ago. I've battled angels and demons, actually became a demon, saw the true face of God (he was an all-consuming raging ball of fire, Hell itself), etc. Is God actually a giant fireball? Who knows. Maybe I came to the realization in my dream after the burning bush, God taking the form of a storm cloud and killing people who saw his true face (it is said that he was made of fire), fire raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah, the message written in fire in the sky so that Cyrus could read it, how the Bible repeatedly says that God's anger "burns against" whatever, etc. But the Bible also says that we are made in God's image, so we have to assume he looks human.
I don't want to go to the heaven in the Bible. I don't want to spend eternity being essentially high on drugs worshipping and praising him, especially when he gave Satan free reign over earth. And if I did something wrong, eternal torture is not the answer. If I go to Hell then God has clearly failed as a parent. One time I had a dream I was in heaven, several months after I stopped being a Christian, and Satan came up to me and said that God and Hell are real. I told him that the idea of an all-loving God and eternal damnation are incompatible. He responded by saying that God is not all-loving. If Satan is working against God to try and get people to go to Hell, then why is he bothering to convince me that God is real? Is he working for God? Makes me think so according to the story of Job.
...
Actually, that was an emotional response from me because I felt you accused me of not knowing what suffering is, and that's why I'm saying all these things. In all honesty it actually pissed me off (and given my ******* motto on the internet is to not be pissed off by what others write, you did a swell job at it) and so I wrote something that has no business being on an internet forum.
I considered deleting it, but I chose not to for some reason that I don't remember.
Again, though, you completely twist it to be whatever you want it to mean.
Look at yourself. You literally are taking every word I say and interpreting it in a fashion that suits your narrative. You never once seem to consider looking at them at face-value.
Why are you doing this?
Ok. I'm starting to get sick and tired of this song and dance. We're doing nothing but the same thing over and over at this point, and I'm honestly surprised that B_S or some other mod hasn't put a stop to it.
But, for the last time,
1) I do not consider myself "better" than anyone, least of all Christians. I don't know how many times I need to repeat this.
2) I never "berated" anyone. I said I don't understand Christians who are worry-warts or seriously worry themselves to death over various issues in the world. Furthermore, given my understanding of Christianity, I would call these kinds of Christians "Christians in name only", because they don't really fit my understanding of Christians.
Maybe Bible verses might help you see why I think in this fashion.
Treasures in Heaven
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[l] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[m] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[n]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
3) I admitted that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to call people worry-warts and whatnot when I only see a glimpse of their life. It could very well be that my titling of them as "Christians in name only" is flawed.
4) However, I do not very much care because I feel that would be disrespectful to my mother, whose faith and interpretation of Christianity essentially forms the bedrock of my own.
5) Regarding my own belief towards Christianity- I would like to believe, because I feel that having faith in things is actually important to living life. However, I cannot seem to actually believe in Christianity.
And, just to prevent you from misinterpreting this as "Oh you tried to a Christian but failed and are being judgmental towards others for doing the same, shame on you!" I repeat once more- I never once considered myself a Christian. When I say I cannot believe in Christianity, what I essentially mean is this- every time I ask myself a question on whether I can accept Jesus as my savior, whether I can believe in Christianity, etc, I get either absolute silence or a big, resounding "no".
Of the top of my head, these are the statements that you choose to interpret as me saying "I am a condescending, hypocritical ******** who doesn't emphasize with people".
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
-Matthew 7:1-2
I fully realize how that applies to me. And, yes, I am being serious. The irony here is I will say truthfully that I realize how horrible and flawed I am.
But I do not believe that I am flawed because of what I wrote in this thread. I fully realize that I can be arrogant and condescending. But I do not believe that I have shown those qualities in this thread. Because I know what I wrote, and I believe what I wrote doesn't show arrogance or condescension (outside of my last post to you).
The irony is that you won't believe a word I'm saying, and yet I'm being the most honest and truthful I've ever been outside of my own family here.
And, since I'm being honest, it hurts. I really do think I've revealed more about myself than I ever should have on a random forum because I know you won't believe a word of it. Rather twisted, really.
Wow. Talk about twisting statements to fit your own narrative.
FYI, that was an attempt at humor. Not me admitting that I'm arrogant or condescending.
Oh you know what, **** you.
I'm done.
Yes, it hurts to be vulnerable. It's terrifying. Which is why I honestly don't understand how you can say you honestly don't understand why people would be anxious about life. Can you say that you don't understand why people might have trouble letting go of themselves and being vulnerable, when you just spoke about the same thing?
But you didn't answer my question. Why did it take cancer for your mother to convert? If she really felt that's what she was supposed to do, why didn't she do it before?
Since you didn't answer, let me propose a theory. Could it be because the vicissitudes of life can distract us from what is really important, or cause us to lose sight of our own true selves? Could it be that sometimes we need reminders to help us remember who we are and what we really hold dear, and sometimes it takes confronting our own mortality to get us to understand how we want to live our lives?
If so, then how would it be disrespectful to extend that same recognition, that same understanding of human nature, to other people? That, to me, would be showing respect.
Take a second and think of all of the information in the world. We live in an age where it takes 6 months or less to double that information. The propagation of information is increasing at an exponential rate. Incredible, isn't it? Now, ask yourself this question. How much of all the possible information in the universe do we as a people know? I suspect it is still but a fraction, considering how much of the universe we don't know about. How much of the available information that we as a people group do you, personally, know? A fraction, just like me and everyone else in existence. We, individually, know a fraction of a fraction of the amount of information available in the universe. A little humbling when it's put in that kind of perspective, isn't it?
Now think about God. The Christian concept of God is one who is omniscient, or "all-knowing." In other words, He knows all information about all of reality. So, while we each only know a fraction of a fraction, He knows it all. The imagery of a father to a child pales in comparison, then, when comparing relative amounts of knowledge, but it is one I will rely upon to help us understand even better. I, as a father, know a lot more than my son. And when I give my instructions, or deny his request for things, it is because out of my greater well of knowledge, I recognize that my instructions (vs. his complaints over having to do it) or my denial (vs. his whining over not getting what he wants) is better for him. This subjective concept of "better for him" is also derived from my knowledge set based on a) what I perceive that he wants, b) what I want for him, and c) what is ultimately good for him health- and behavior-wise. Extrapolate this same concept to God and to us. God knows what is best for us. This isn't a subjective concept, however, because subjectivism is based out of opinions due to limited information. God's concept of what is best for us is an objective reality, because He knows everything. Additionally, God is not just thinking of what is best for us individually, but rather, what is best for us individually with respects to His plan for us collectively.
There are additional complexities that come into the equation due to free will and our relationship with God, but I won't get into those unless you want to discuss this further. Suffice it to say, us "getting what we want" when asking God for something isn't nearly as simple as thinking of God as a genie or that we should make it happen ourselves (like your stealing a bike example). It's a complex topic, and the truth of the reality is, we don't always get what we want. The second truth, however, (and delves slightly into the aforementioned complexity of our relationship with God) is that the closer we are with God, the more we get what we want... because we will want what He wants for us.
From a Biblical perspective, it is incorrect to say that acting like a good human and helping others out leads to heaven. Christianity stipulates that faith in Christ is the pathway to heaven, not through works of man. This is a side topic that I will explore more with you if you desire, but will table for now to discuss your questions. First, I want to establish that near death experiences have been debunked as being a viable source of information. Studies have been done where people claimed an out of body experience where they overheard conversations and those conversations never happened. Suffice it to say, near death experiences should not be trusted.
As for the reality of heaven... have you ever been elated? I mean, truly elated? The sense of the word is not just happy, but so overwhelmingly joyous that you can't hardly speak or breathe. To me, it's a word that is used to describe the purest sense of happiness. It is that kind of feeling that we will have in heaven, and have it perpetually. Scripture describes Heaven as a place of no tears or sorrows. What you are focusing on in your post is the earthly things that give you joy: family, food, physical reality. It's hard for us to imagine the reality of Heaven because of our attachment to earthly things... but we won't have those attachments in Heaven. To some, this sounds awful (as you've described). And I myself have been skeptical of how I can truly be happy if the things that currently make me happy are not present. Shouldn't those things that make me the most happy here be the most present in Heaven so I can be the most happy? In reality, God is what will make us the most happy. All the things that make us happy now will be but a shadow in comparison to being in His presence. It's a reality that's difficult to understand but staggering once you grasp it. The presence of God, in Scripture, is described as being so overpowering it will kill a man that is impure in any form or fashion. We will be so overpowered by God's presence in Heaven that I doubt we will focus on anything else... and we will be extremely happy for it too.
I hope this helps start our discussion. I want to close with this. What God desires most for you at this time is for you to be in a genuine relationship with Him. The start of this relationship is faith in Christ, His Son. It is through this relationship that you will "get what you desire," but you have to understand two things. A relationship with God is focused on Him, not on you, so getting what you desire cannot be of significance if the relationship is to be genuine. And two, you will get what you desire the closer you come to Him, as what you desire will change to what He desires. I mentioned this earlier, and I mention it against because it's a crucial reality to the truth of having a genuine relationship with God.
Daniel
So where does God's goal come from? Why does he "win" if I don't get lung cancer? Just as easily as we imagine a benevolent God, we can imagine a sadistic deity who knows everything and uses that knowledge to try to cause the maximum amount of suffering, or an artistic deity who knows everything and uses that knowledge to try and maximize the number of objects that are a particular shade of blue, or a completely apathetic deity who knows everything but doesn't care what happens one way or the other. God, just like any other thinking being, must decide what he wants for the world. And a different God in the same position could decide a different way. That's subjectivity. God's knowledge may give him a much better chance at accomplishing what he wants than the rest of us have, but it can't tell him objectively what he ought to want.
But now let's move on, and grant that God has decided to be benevolent. What does "benevolent" mean? Generally, that he wishes well for human beings. Okay, so what does that mean? Why are healthy lungs "wellness" and lung cancer not? Lung cancer will cause me pain and shorten my life, but of what significance are those facts? Why do we evaluate pain as a negative and long life as a positive, instead of the other way around? If that sadistic deity were in charge, encouraging me to smoke and get lung cancer, couldn't his defenders say that I ought to change what I want to what he wants, and then we'll want the same thing, and my dying of lung cancer will be good? What distinguishes an actually benevolent deity from us calling this sadistic deity benevolent? I submit that the benevolent deity is the one who does not ask us to change our desires - or if he does, it is only because they are in conflict with other, greater desires that we hold. I want to live a long and pain-free life more than I want a momentary nicotine buzz, and therefore my well-being is in not smoking. Someone who tells me not to smoke is doing it for my own sake, but someone who tells me not to avoid pain and death is not. And everybody else has their own desires, as well, which we can try to harmonize to the maximum extent possible. This is where an objective moral goal really comes from. Individual, subjective human desires are the building blocks of the thing (because though they are subjective, the fact of their existence is objective). They cannot coherently be disregarded. If you want to argue that a benevolent God does not always give us what we want, that's fine, but that needs to be justified in terms of other things that we want or that other people want. If say that God does not give us what we want and we should change what we want to suit him, leaving it at that, then you might as well be arguing that we should change to want lung cancer because a sadistic deity wants us to get lung cancer.
I have never understood how Martin Luther could get sola fide out of this. James is not exactly beating around the bush here.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Objectivism comes from God because God is the source of reality. Good is defined as being good because God is the source of goodness. Evil is defined as evil because it is the absence of that which is good. I make objective statements grounded on the morality as defined by God regarding what is unilaterally best for my son, but it is still a subjective opinion because I do not know everything. "It is good for my son to eat dinner tonight." This subjective opinion of mine is based on the objective truth that eating is good for sustaining life. However, if my son's colon were inhabited by a parasite whose only means of survival is that my son eat minimum of 1 oz of food per day, and the cessation of eating for a 24 hour period would cause it to die, then my subjective opinion is erroneous because I am lacking information regarding my son's health. In the presence of a fully established moral code, access to complete knowledge leads to a fully objective decision-making process.
Please reference back to my original post where I stated my presuppositions going into the discussion regarding who God is and Scripture as being authoritative. God is described in Scripture as being the definition of love and His goals are clearly laid out in Scripture.
You are sourcing objective truths from the multitude of subjective opinions that human's agree to. For example, "do not murder" is a law held by almost every (if not every) government around the world. Subjectively, we as humans have defined this to be a socially-positive behavior trait. Each society then "votes" on what makes the most sense, and those laws and cultural norms become the objective realities of each sub-culture. This is a relativist view of reality, and one that I reject. Instead, I posit that God is the source of objectivism. He established what is right and what is wrong. So you are correct in the sense when you say that a sadistic god could have set things up such that getting lung cancer and dying be considered "good." And if our reality had been set up that way, we would be arguing about the horrors of not getting lung cancer and how appalling that would be vs. the blissfulness of getting lung cancer, all the while fidgeting for our smokes while reading and typing away. In my worldview, our universal subjective opinions (like not murdering) are sourced from the objective reality that God set up to begin with. The concepts of good and evil are rooted within us by the one who created it all.
So I disagree with your statement that a benevolent being is one who does not ask us to change our desires. If I am a benevolent father, I will work to change my son's desires from the things that I know to be evil to things that I know to be good. On things that do not matter (amoral preferences), I leave him his individual freedom. On the things that do matter (moral realities), it would be wrong of me to leave him to his own machinations when I can steer him in the direction of good. It is my responsibility as his father, as one who loves him, to guide him in the things that are good and right.
Let's take thing out of the abstract for a minute. My son and I are at a store. He tells me he wants a candy. I tell him no. He decides to take it anyway. We leave the store and I realize he has the candy in his hand (still unopened). Do I take it back in, since stealing is wrong, and instruct him on how stealing is wrong and shouldn't do it? Do I take it back in because I know stealing is wrong but never instruct him? Or do I not do anything and let him have the candy that he stole? In the role as the good father, I would return and instruct. Why? The second scenario rights the wrong, but never works to change his perspective on stealing and will most likely lead to him stealing again and probably be sneaky the next time. The third scenario neither rights the wrong nor corrects the perspective and will definitely lead to recurrence. So, I am being benevolent when I work to change his perspective, am I not?
Regarding your last statement, I don't "leave it at that" with regards to changing our desires. As a Christian, I have a relationship with God. He is my Father, I am His son. It is a relationship built on love. As I love God, I want to do things that please Him. When I first became a Christian, I didn't know what this meant as I didn't know what things would please God. Fast forward to today, I have a better idea of what pleases God, as I've grown in knowledge and grown closer to Him. Based on your reasoning above, I am actually not changing my desires for God, but rather, God is revealing to me how my lesser desires are conflict with my greater desire to please Him, and as such, they change to align with that greater desire. God desires me to behave a certain way and do certain things, and this will please Him. Over time, the two paths will begin to merge as my lesser desires align with my greater desire and my behavior and actions align with God's desire for me. The end result is that the things I want to have are the things that God wants me to have, so asking God for something will result in Him giving it to me. Hence how this subject ties back to the OP.
Here's a cut and paste from an exegesis I did years ago on this portion of James.
James 2:14, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him?"
It's like the difference between the sinner's prayer and true repentence. Just because you say the words doesn't mean you mean it.
James 2:15-17, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it not accomplished by action, is dead."
Here, James provides us with a rather vivid analogy of a man who "wishes" well but doesn't do anything. Well, the actions were not of the heart. If the man had really wished well, he would have done something to help his brother or sister!
James 2:18-19, "But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder."
This is such a powerful passage right here. James demonstrates conclusively that knowledge of God is not enough to save a man! It's like the phrase "actions speak louder than words." What you say means nothing if it's not backed by what you do. The important difference to keep in mind is that while what we do is a manifestation of what we believe, it is what we believe that saves us. It's somewhat circular as well, because what we believe will result in what we do. As such, if you have true faith, you have true action. If you do not have true faith, you will not have the ensuing actions.
James 2:20-23, "You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as rightouesness,' and he was called God's friend."
It appears we have a duel between Paul in Romans 4 and this passage in James. Let's take a look:
Romans 4:2,4-5 "If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about--but not before God...Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness."
Indeed, on the surface, it seems contradictory. It, however, reminds me of a hypothetical story. Let me share it with you.
One day, a man took a tripwire and spanned it across the Grand Canyon. He advertized an amazing feat and drew a crowd one day. He told them, "I am going to walk this tripwire across the Grand Canyon and back, no problem." And he did. The crowd was amazed! Now, he took a wheelbarrow and told them, "Not only will I take this wheelbarrow across, I am going to run across it!" And he did so. The crowd was even more amazed!
Then he addressed the crowd. "How many of you think I can do it again, as many times as I want?" They all thought he could. "How many of you think I could do it with a person in the wheelbarrow?" They all thought he could. "Who wants to get in the wheelbarrow." None of them did.
And such is the story. None of the people in the story had true faith in him, else all of them would have been willing to get in the wheelbarrow. For you see, while they professed their belief in his ability to do something, none of them were trusting enough to be in the wheelbarrow. Everyone was scared! Scared of what though? They had seen him do it without falling, but they were still scared.
This is exactly the point that both Paul and James make, just with looking at different sides of the same coin. Paul emphasizes the fact that faith does not require works, while James emphasizes that the realization and actualization of faith is shown through works. There is no battle, no contradiction, just a difference in focus.
James 2:24, "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone."
And the last verse is a stinger, as the word "justified," as typically used by Paul, seems to indicate salvation, whereas here, James clearly cannot be using the word "justified" to mean salvation in the same sense as Paul, or else we would have a clear contradiction. As such, I will provide an excerpt from Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words under "justified," or in Greek, "δικαιοω."
Daniel
So, it sounds like you're advocating James' point of view: faith without works is nothing.
Erm, no, that's not correct, because of what you're about to quote:
Yeah, that totally goes against what Paul says. Paul said, "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness."
So either justification comes from faith alone, or justification does not come from faith alone. It cannot be both.
Ok, so you're arguing that these two "apparently" contradictory passages are not contradictory, and your justification for this is that they can't be contradictory, because if they were, there would be a contradiction?
In other words, you're arguing that your conclusion is the correct one, and your evidence for this is that it has to be the correct one, or else it wouldn't be correct?
That's called Begging The Question. It's a logical fallacy in which you assume your conclusion is already correct and use that assumption as evidence for you being correct. But that's fallacious. You feeling that you must be correct is not evidence for you being correct.
The fact of the matter is that we have a direct contradiction. James is saying that faith without works is meaningless. Paul is saying that a man with faith who does not work is righteous in God's eyes. They cannot both be correct, as they directly contradict one another.
Erm, yeah, and James is saying that faith without works is the barren and dead one, not faith at all, and Paul is arguing that faith without works is not only righteous faith, but that works cannot redeem one at all, right?
So still contradictory.
We're still dealing with direct contradictions. Either faith in God is enough to save a person, or a person needs works. You cannot have both.
... And those are directly contradictory statements.
Either a person is justified by faith alone, or he is not justified by faith alone. It cannot be both.
I saw that, but you need to realize that resting your argument on such contentious presuppositions effectively destroys its persuasive power. You will really only be able to make headway talking to other devout Christians. And you're not talking to devout Christians here.
For that matter, on this particular point, even if I were a devout Christian my question would still stand. The Bible states God's goals (maybe), but I'm asking why he has those goals and not some other goals. On this matter, to the best of my knowledge, the Bible does not speak. It says he is loving, but why does loving someone mean you want them to live long and healthily instead of short and painfully?
Cool. I reject it too. Don't read more into what I've written than I've written.
But the thing is, when I argue against moral relativists, I don't just say "I reject that worldview" and reassert my own. I engage with the worldview and expose the problems with it, furnishing these as reasons for my rejection. You haven't actually said anything about why your worldview ought to be believed and relativism disbelieved. (And, as I have shown and will continue to show, your worldview actually is relativist. Heck, this whole reject-and-reassert line you've taken betrays a relativist mindset: you're stressing your personal belief in the theory rather than explaining the objective logic of it.)
But you've acknowledged that he could have been a sadist and set it up the other way around. And I don't think you've even fully explored that possibility: a sadistic deity would not need to have given us the same opinions as he has. Rather, he might well have given us the opposite opinions, so we'll be more dismayed by what he does to us. Under these circumstances, would pain be good, because it's what the deity wants, or would it be bad, because it's not what everybody else wants?
And regardless of how the details of the sadistic deity scenario turn out, the mere fact that it's possible is ample demonstration that God's morality - at least as you have described it - is not objective. An objective fact is a fact which any qualified observer under the same circumstances would determine to be true, regardless of their personal feelings. For instance, anyone seated where I am seated would answer the question "What color is this keyboard?" the same way (unless they're visually impaired and can't make the observation). But if a benevolent deity creating the universe and a sadistic deity creating the universe can come up with different answers to the question "What is good?", then good obviously cannot be objective. It's based on the feelings of the particular deity. And while we may be hard-wired to have the same feelings (or the opposite feelings!), psychological hard-wiring is the furthest thing from logical grounds for accepting an objective truth. If I had a mind-control laser that could make everybody's favorite color blue, that wouldn't make blue objectively the best color.
Not to be a broken record, but how do you know them to be good? If you're a mortal in this Christian moral universe you describe, then you can say that the good is what God wills. But this is an analogy, and "you" are actually supposed to be God. And if you're God, what then?
You'll note that I embrace the possibility of changing people's perspectives: "I want to live a long and pain-free life more than I want a momentary nicotine buzz, and therefore my well-being is in not smoking. Someone who tells me not to smoke is doing it for my own sake..." As a father, you teach your son to lead a law-abiding life because in the long run it will get him and everybody else more of what they want. If what people want doesn't matter, then there's no reason why your son shouldn't be thief, and no reason why a deity shouldn't say, "Steal everything that isn't nailed down - then go get a crowbar!" What we mean when we say a deity is benevolent - when we say that he loves us - is that he wishes for us to get the most out of our lives. You can deny someone you love something they want in the short term, but try to imagine denying them everything forever. You can't, because that's not love.
See, you get it. Just turn it around: "As God loves me..."
Then ponder the fact that God loves everyone, but not everyone loves God.
Reads more like an eisegesis to me. In particular, this line... ...is directly contradicted by the passage that it's supposed to be exegesizing. You say that belief saves, but James points out that demons believe, and are not saved.
And as for the contradiction between James and Paul, your entire argument rests on your conviction that this cannot be a real contradiction (plus an unjustified appeal to authority). But that too is eisegetical. Why can't it be a contradiction? Neither James nor Paul was God. They were mortal men, struggling to understand and explain the phenomenon of Jesus. Is it out of the question that they had different interpretations of an issue, just as the Catholic and Protestant denominations have different interpretations of it today? (I do not say that all interpretations are equally valid or any such nonsense - one may be right and the other wrong, or for that matter both may be wrong.) Let me tell you, all the indicators are that not only did they have different interpretations, but that these passages are actually direct argument and counter-argument - the wording is too similar for them just to be coincidentally parallel. If you ran into such passages in, say, the Upanishads, would you have any hesitation at all in thinking the authors were in a theological dispute?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
So, a couple of thoughts here. First, every person in the world is not a child of God. "Child of God" as defined in Scripture are those who are Christian. Born into this world, we are enemies of God. He still loves everyone with His general love for humanity, but we are not His children in the sense of the analogy. Salvation causes us to be adopted as His child, at which point the analogy takes over. Second, the "many reasons" that we come up with when looking at the state of the world to establish that God is bad at what He does are human reasonings. It's like my son telling me that he's unhappy when I don't give him candy. His finite understanding at the age of 5 tells him that I am withholding that which he can reason to be the utmost of good things in that moment: the piece of chocolate right outside his grasp. So yes, we can come up with all kinds of reasons why God is a bad God looking at the world around us... but at the end of the day, God's knowledge vastly exceeds our own, so I have to trust that He knows what He's doing. I won't always understand it, I won't always like it, and in my own little reasoning, may not agree with it. But my responsibility is to trust that He is doing what is best. And that's the perspective that a Christian must accept on faith. Aldath has asked for a discussion with Christians on this topic, and this is the Christian viewpoint IMO.
Daniel
Your argument seems to be, essentially, we can't know if he's good or evil so just submit to him and hope that he's good. Is that correct? Because that's exactly the mentality Synalon was saying was problematic.
Besides which, this doesn't actually answer whether or not he's good, and is actually a great recipe for submitting to a malevolent being.
If people don't start out as 'Children of God', how is anyone who isn't a Child of God supposed to think that God is good?
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You have to understand the audiences to which each author is writing. Paul is writing to a church in Rome that has a significant problem, namely, the Jews and Gentiles were having difficulty integrating in the church together because of their different viewpoints on salvation. The first 3-4 chapters of Romans, Paul is working to unite their viewpoints to help them understand that salvation through Christ is for both the Jew and the Gentile and is irrespective of works. The Jews were trying to force the Gentiles to go through all these rituals (i.e. works) before they could be saved. Their view was warped because of their presuppositions. Paul is correcting their viewpoint by telling them that salvation does not require all these rituals (works) but comes from faith in Christ. James, on the other hand, is addressing a different issue. His audience are Christians where one problem was that some people were making proclamations of faith and then continuing in their path of wicked ways. James is correct in saying that faith without works is dead in the context of his audience, because he is trying to address the fact that people were doing just that: making proclamations of faith yet not having works to demonstrate that faith. In chemistry terms, having faith makes you an acid, but the litmus test is the works you do. The litmus test does not change the reality of the acid, only confirms that it is an acid. James is saying that faith is dead (not an acid) if there are no works to back it up (litmus test comes back non-acidic when put in the non-acid that is claiming to be an acid). Paul is saying that works (litmus test) don't save you (sticking a strip into a liquid doesn't magically turn it into an acid) but that faith is what saves you (turns the liquid into an acid). James is a retroactive look at a man's faith and evaluating it from the outside in (man's perspective). Paul is a look at a man's faith and evaluating it from the inside out (God's perspective). Outside in, man's perspective, can only be justified (determined) by works. Someone claiming to be Christian who has no works, from our perspective on the outside, it's a lie and they are not a Christian. Inside out, God's perspective, a man is justified by faith alone. Someone claiming to be a Christian is known by God to be a Christian if they have saving faith, regardless of works. The complementary harmony between the two viewpoints is that the person who is claiming to be a Christian, and actually is one, will produce the works of a Christian. It is the inevitability of the change that God creates in them, and hence, the validity of both Paul and James on the topic of faith and works.
Daniel
What? No. I'm saying that James is discussing the perspective of how Man views salvation whereas Paul is discussing the perspective of how God views salvation. James is saying that we, as people, can only affirm that someone is saved by observing their works. If I make the proclamation "I am saved because of my faith in Christ" and then continue in my killing spree, my works belie my proclamation of faith. The evidence of my faith (from a human's perspective) is my works, just like the evidence of an acid is a litmus test. God doesn't need works to know I'm saved because He can see my heart, my inner being, and know whether or not my faith is genuine. The reason they work together is because the works will naturally follow from saving faith. The point of faith alone theology is to point out that we cannot work our way to heaven. There is no amount of good things that we can do to earn our way to heaven. It is by faith that we are saved. The point that James is making is that the works that we do is evidence of the faith that we have. It is no good for a man to just make a proclamation. People lie every day. It must be genuine. And genuine saving faith results in good works, the very works that James is saying should be evident in one who has true faith.
Daniel
Nobody ever said faith was easy. I have to have faith that God is good. I have to have faith that His understanding vastly exceeds my own. I have to have faith that God will work out all things for the good of those He loves. It takes faith. Simple as that. However, you are right when you say that it's a great recipe for submitting to a malevolent being. My faith is placed in the God as portrayed in Scripture, and He is not portrayed as a malevolent being. I have faith that the Bible is an accurate depiction of God and not a fabricated one by Man or a falsified one by a malevolent being who wants to pose as a benevolent being to subvert Man to his own wishes. These are things that I must put my faith in to hold the beliefs that I do. And it's not easy, and it's not always simple. But to me, it is both truth and a reality.
As for the enemies of God coming to recognize that God is good... Jesus put it this way: "There is no one good but God." We must first recognize that we are not good to be able to understand that God is good. Think of it this way. God, being the source of all reality, defines what is good and what is evil. The concepts of good and evil are a matter of perspective relative to whom is judging. That's why what is good to some may be evil to another. If you are being judged against a moral code that you disagree with, you may think that you did good, but the judge who is sitting on your trial will find you guilty of doing evil because of the moral code you are being judged against. God judges us after we die against His moral code. He establishes perfection from a moral standpoint, and we are held accountable to that standard. We cannot live up that standard, and therefore, by the laws of good and evil as defined by God, we are not good. Once recognized, we are now more able to recognize that God is good and that we can only become good with His help. And that's the beginning of the process of salvation that leads to becoming a Child of God.
Daniel