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Post by SimSim on Jul 26, 2009 20:37:06 GMT -5
*Cramps...untwists*HIS ALMIGHTY DING-A-LING!! IT MANIFESTS AS A HUMAN MALE BUT IS ACCTUALLY JUST ONE BIG DICK AHAHAHAHA...ha... * forcibly twists back into fundie pretzel* So god becomes Dr. Manhattan's dongle?
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Post by ironbite on Jul 26, 2009 20:44:28 GMT -5
No no no
Ironbite-God is Dr. Manhattan's blue dong.
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Post by kristine on Jul 26, 2009 21:03:34 GMT -5
You guys are killing me here....hold on * twists psyche into a pretzel again-blows dust off of old Sunday School memories.* God is perfect and created humanity perfectly (aka Adam and Eve) but no world would be complete without freedom and choices - but the stress of perfection was too much for humans to bare and they chose incorrectly to ignore God (fall from grace) so he distanced Himself from them (us) by letting humanity 'hang ourselves with our own rope' so to speak. We will learn to be more perfect and like God by learning from our own mistakes kristine, are you ready for another pretzel? Freedom and choices - that's an important point, and as I see it, it negates the idea of an omniscient god. God, who is outside time and space, must have foreknowledge of anything that happens in his creation, that is, if God is omniscient there is no free will, and certainly not in the question of salvation. God knew from the very beginning who would be saved and who would be lost, which means life on earth is like a screenplay. The actors may not know the manuscript, but the author certainly does, and there's no way the actors can add to or subtract from the play. Freedom is not consistent with omniscience, and I for one see no logical solution to this problem. Do you? Srsly?? No. but if it means the bible (or their ideas about it's interpretations) might be wrong then most of the people we call fundies will tie logic in knots to get to a point where it is. Ready...hrmm...almost got it...* twists psyche into a pretzel again-blows dust off of old college debates.* Each choice we make creates a new future, God knows all the futures we could possibly go through; what each choice will mean to our future - and as we choose them we are making the choices freely but God knows what is down each path. Rather than a screenplay - life is more like a choose your own adventure book (remember those) where everyone starts at the same place and everyone will eventually end at the same place, but the path you take to get from start to finish is your own. But God, like the writer, knows what each choice will mean. God in His infinite wisdom knows what path is best for you, but won't force you to take it. God does not know for sure what choices you will make but knows the outcome either way. Did you see the movie Sliding Doors ? (pretty good actually) the movie starts out and about 15 minutes into it -it splits into two different story lines about the same people - all because the main character managed to get on an early train or misses it. - in the end, one story line ends tragically the other ends on an upbeat scene. It's confusing - but if you saw the movie you'd know what I'm talking about. ;D www.imdb.com/title/tt0120148/
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Post by Freydis The Valkyrie on Jul 26, 2009 21:06:28 GMT -5
Then it's no real choice. It's not freedom of choice but more of a "choose me or be punished."
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Post by kristine on Jul 26, 2009 22:10:57 GMT -5
Hi, My name is Kristine and I will be your substitute fundie for the thread until one of the real ones comes back to play. Our specials tonight are "why-your-going-to-hell-and-I'm-not", "It's-okay-to-be-gods-plaything" and "righteous-indignation" marinated in "Persecution-complex" So would you like to start off with....Oh,...right... Then it's no real choice. It's not freedom of choice but more of a "choose me or be punished." the way they see it, there is only one path to righteousness/grace/paradise what have you, and that is God's way- God set it up to be the right path to take - He's spelled it out for you in the Bible so anything you do off that path is your choice and you will suffer the consequences accordingly. If you tell someone, don't do X or Y will happen, and they do X anyway - are you punishing them when Y bites them in the ass?
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Post by Freydis The Valkyrie on Jul 26, 2009 22:27:25 GMT -5
Not really. It's just some idiot who ignored the warning. Telling somebody, for instance, not to put one's hand into hot oil, because they'll get burnt, and they do it anyway, that's just ignoring simple common sense safety.
However, if it were a free choice to follow God or not, then there would not be a punishment for not doing so, which is what Hell is, in essence. It's less don't do this or you'll get hurt, and more of FOLLOW ME OR ELSE!
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 26, 2009 22:30:47 GMT -5
My thing with the choose-your-own-adventure book analogy is just that it brings up another problem: Unless God knows which path you'll take, he doesn't know everything. If he does know which path you'll take, free will is an illusion.
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Post by kristine on Jul 26, 2009 23:11:13 GMT -5
However, if it were a free choice to follow God or not, then there would not be a punishment for not doing so, which is what Hell is, in essence. It's less don't do this or you'll get hurt, and more of FOLLOW ME OR ELSE! Hell is the place furthest from God. It isn't a threat from God (to a fundie) it is a place you will gradually end up by making the wrong decisions. Hence like your example of the hot oil, God told you what to do in the Bible (don't be gay, don't swear...etc) so that you wouldn't get burned by hell when you die - if you do it anyway and keep moving away from Him - when you die you will burn. Hence why they think they are doing everyone a favor by trying to convert them and become offended when you don't take their advise. My thing with the choose-your-own-adventure book analogy is just that it brings up another problem: Unless God knows which path you'll take, he doesn't know everything. If he does know which path you'll take, free will is an illusion. I agree, I think the idea of omniscience is silly, but it's a matter of semantics at that point. The writer of the choose-your- own-adventure knows every path you could take and it's consequences - so what choices you make become irrelevant because they know one thing will lead to the next and where you will end up. remember the movie War Games with Matthew Brodrick - The computer was trying to win at tic-tac-toe but in the end found that the only way to win was not to play (futility) - it's kinda like that - to God our lives are like that tic-tac-toe game (with two competent players) no matter where you put the pieces (making a choice), it's really no surprise to God what the outcome will be - No choice you make, no art you can create, no attitude you adopt will surprise God. It's not that things are preordained, just that things will always follow a pattern, comprehend a complicated enough pattern and nothing within that pattern will be seen as original. combine that with God's sense of time being not necessarily linear and you have something that can not be comprehended by mortal man. It goes with the same train of thought most paradoxes would be under; If x and Y are mutually exclusive then just change the reality around them till they are not. Because (everyone say it with me) God works in mysterious ways.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 26, 2009 23:21:32 GMT -5
The flaw with the Fundie argument about "moving towards Hell" is that God created Hell & the conditions to go there, regardless of who or what he did it "for."
That being said, I really rather like the original plot of Touched by an Angel: God was an arrogant prick who just kinda fucked with people. Too bad they dropped that in favor of something more "family oriented."
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Post by kristine on Jul 27, 2009 0:32:23 GMT -5
The flaw with the Fundie argument about "moving towards Hell" is that God created Hell & the conditions to go there, regardless of who or what he did it "for." god created the angels who choose wrong and fell away, and their rebellion created hell. God allowed it to happen but didn't design it per se himself - that's why it's the worst place you could be, because it's away from god. He also allowed anyone who wanted to do the same as the fallen to go to the same place as them - he is not creating the conditions - the sinner is. Could he just forgive everyone for what ever they do to each other - Yes, but that would take away the consequences of free will - which humanity chose over paradise with the original sin of the knowledge between good and evil. I don't know -I think the god of the old testament was very much that evil prick who just liked to show off His power and screw with people. Just look at the story of Job - devil challenges God to prove a human will still worship him when he does not have it good, so God takes the challenge and takes everything from Job including killing off his family - Job remains faithful proving the devil wrong - and God gives every thing back to Job. - except it's a new family...so what happened to Job's old family that died to prove god's point? well...their still dead. - As an allegory about having faith in tough times, this works, but if we take the bible as word for word truth - then it makes God out to be a real dick, and relegates certain human beings to the status of props and accessories in someone else's story. - and that I can not believe.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 27, 2009 0:57:49 GMT -5
Human beings as props does seem to be about the way it works, doesn't it? Kinda like that whole, "What about your unsaved relatives in Hell" thing.
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Post by Jedi Knight on Jul 27, 2009 15:53:39 GMT -5
kristine, I'm very impressed by your mind-twisting skills. You are way beyond an ordinary pretzel, you have reached the Moebius strip:
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 27, 2009 17:14:59 GMT -5
The Hell is that monstrosity, & why do ants love it so much?
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Post by Jedi Knight on Jul 27, 2009 17:37:54 GMT -5
That is M.C. Escher's drawing of a Moebius strip. The strip is essenially a surface with only one side. Try to follow the path the ants walk, and you see they walk a path that goes both on the "inside" and the "outside" of the strip, before they end up where they started. They probably don't love it, they just can't get off. This webpage can explain the strip much better than I can: www.cut-the-knot.org/do_you_know/moebius.shtml
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 27, 2009 17:50:50 GMT -5
Holy crap, I am freaking out.
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