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Quote:
Wednesday said:
Then what DO they see?
Oblivion. They just die.
If karma's a bitch, it will be my bitch!
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Quote:
Wednesday said:
Quote:
wannabuyamonkey said:
but that doesn't necesitate illogic. It just means the information is incomplete. Wich I would accept, there is much we don't know and much we haven't been told.
Then what you have is faith, not knowledge. That's perfectly fine, as long as you acknowledge it as such.
It's a long jump from there is much we don't know to we don't know anything. I have faith yes, I also have knowledge.
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
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Quote:
wannabuyamonkey said:
It's a long jump from there is much we don't know to we don't know anything.
What?
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Quote:
Wednesday said:
Quote:
wannabuyamonkey said:
It's a long jump from there is much we don't know to we don't know anything.
What?
maybe I'm not following the conversation, but I thought what you found illogical was why God would grant free will. I simply said it wasn't illogical just because we don't know why, then you seemed to thing that my faith was completely without knowledge..... again, maybe I'm not following.
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
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Quote:
Wednesday said:
Questions:
Why does a perfect God care if we give God our love?
I don't know.
In the Torah, God tells us that He is a jealous God. God does not want us to bow to false gods that do not exist. He wants us to bow to the one, true God. The God who not only created the world, but has an active hand in all of it's ongoing workings.
I think we need to look at what it means to be created in the image of God. I believe this means that we have been given the ability of higher reasoning. I think the reason we have this ability is because God created us with a part of Himself within us, that is, our spirit, which returns to Him upon out death (more on this with your second question). That higher reasoning can only exist with free will. We need to be able to quesion all that is around us. God has told us that what we will find by studying His creations and His sciences, is God.
Quote:
Wednesday said:
If God was the one who gave us the free will that allows us to not follow the right path, why is there an eternity in Hell awaiting those who do not choose that route?
We have an oral tradition which was passed down through the generations, and much of it was written in the Talmud. We call some of the stories of the tradition midrosh. They are not always necessarily true, but they carry with them a greater meaning.
I bring this up because, as I stated earlier, Jews do not believe in hell the way Christians do. While we do believe that there are things a person can do to cut himself off from God for all of eternity, we do not truly understand what this means, or if it even means this.
We do believe in reincarnation. The following is my own take on it.
I believe that as soon a soul is created and given free will, it is flawed. Why? Because it is no longer a part of God. It's purpose, therefore, is to find it's way back to God. So, how is this done? The soul is put on this world for the first time. It lives out it's life, and when it dies, it returns to God. God judges the soul. Now, most of us are far from perfect. Most of us go through life with something we need to work on. I think this starts at the beginning. The soul is judged upon it's death, and if there is a flaw, it is sent back to our world. This is where things change. The soul is placed in a sitution where it is tested. We are all tested throughout life. The soul is given every opportunity to correct it's mistakes. It is put in many situations, and it must overcome them. This cycle continues until the soul is ready to return to God.
An example is Jacob's uncle, Laban. Our rabbis learn that he was reincarnated later as Nabal. Nabal was a rich man, and he had a wife named Abigail, who was a prophetis. She would also become King David's second wife. Before that happened, and without going into too much detail, Nabal had a stroke that lasted ten days. In this time, God forgave him, and when he died, he was able to return to God.
So, what is hell? We believe that after a person dies, the body takes a year to decompose (we do not burn our dead, rather we bury them in a way that will allow nature to take it's course). During that time, the soul goes before God and is judged and punished appropriatley. Not everyone requires a punishment that lasts the full time. During that time, we also believe that while the body decomposes, the souls still has a connection to this world (I just thought I'd mention that, I don't think it's actually relevant here).
I believe that after the soul is judged, it is sent back to this world to be given a chance to fully correct it's flaws.
In a way, we live in this world to learn to be Godly. The only to know we have accomplished this, is to be tested. That is life. Once the test is complete, we have to be graded. If we pass, we move on the next world. If we fail, we have to take it over.
Our rabbis learn that we should always be kind to those with various mental disabilities, for they are great people who only need to suffer a specific life so that they may be purified and enter the next world.
Our rabbis have learnt out that are three (I think) people who have been damned for eternity, because there is nothing they could do if given another chance. I don't know how to explain, or even understand this. It is beyond me to think that any soul cannot overcome it's own flaws over time.
But then, there is always free will. What makes sense to me, may not make sense to someone else.
<sub>Will Eisner's last work - The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of ZionRDCW Profile"Well, as it happens, I wrote the damned SOP," Illescue half snarled, "and as of now, you can bar those jackals from any part of this facility until Hell's a hockey rink! Is that perfectly clear?!" - Dr. Franz Illescue - Honor Harrington: At All Costs"I don't know what I'm do, or how I do, I just do." - Alexander Ovechkin</sub>
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Quote:
Wednesday said:
So you are saying that we are perfect despite our lack of knowledge and ability to err.
We have both knowledge and the ability not to err and prove ourselves.
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Wednesday said:
Again, why would an all-powerful and all-loving God give us the ability to choose NOT to love God when the choice brings such horrible results?
This does not make sense no matter how you try to redirect it.
Either God is not all-powerful, God is not all-loving, we HAVE to choose to love God, the choice of not loving God does not result in Hell, or Hell is not all that horrible.
If it's one of those or something else that I haven't thought of THAT MAKES SENSE, let me know.
So....Essentially, what you're trying to say is: It would be more logical to make us into a bunch of robots?
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Wednesday said:
Fair enough. You've made a leap of blind faith. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Of course, if this is the case, you can understand and respect others who do not see it this way, and you can understand how your leap of faith can not be used to substantiate your argument.
Never tried to use it to substantiate anything. It was just my hypothesis. I have a question though: Can you prove my theory wrong?
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Wednesday said:
I still don't see where you've added anything new that breaks the circle. From my understanding, the one element you've added is faith.
No, I expressed that God is give and take, which is added on to his sole commercialized characteristic of love. He gives you life and then takes your worship and devotion.
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Wednesday said:One more thing, you say that we can not easily understand the logic, but that it can be understood. Do you believe that anyone has understood it, and if so who?
Hard to say and no. If I had to guess though, I'd prolly name a couple of saints.
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Quote:
wannabuyamonkey said:
maybe I'm not following the conversation, but I thought what you found illogical was why God would grant free will.
No, I just didn't understand the sentence. It doesn't make sense.
Quote:
wannabuyamonkey said:
I simply said it wasn't illogical just because we don't know why, then you seemed to thing that my faith was completely without knowledge..... again, maybe I'm not following.
No. Although I don't see how you can say your faith and knowledge are two different things, but that's semantics.
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Pariah said:
The e-mail didn't try to compare God's presence to measuring heat or darkness.
Actually, I'm having trouble trying to figure out what, if anything, the story is trying to prove. Except that the 'student' is equating God with good, as if they were essentially the same concept, in calling evil the absence of God. Which is a pretty shaky foundation upon which to base any argument at all.
Thing is- I can’t spell or type. I spell so badly my spell check doesn’t even know what I was trying to spell. And I have five Eisners HAHAHAHHA!!
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The athiest professor is, quite simply, using the term "evil" to describe considered-to-be horrific actions done by man-kind. What has slipped his mind is that "evil" is a concept derived from religous beliefs, namely, a theistic belief, which is exactly what he speaks against. By showing him that he's using a theistic-based standard for defining "evil", he reveals the professor's fallacy.
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I don't think that was it was at all.
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Well...
From what I see, the student used the pre-defined elements of heat and light as exemplification with science as the comparison's mediator to lead to his third conclusion. The idea that cold is the absence of heat remains an analysis originating from science. The idea that darkness is the absence of light remains an analysis originating from science. The idea that evil is the absence of God is an analysis made by religion, which, I reiterate, is the founder of the concept of "evil" in the first place. There's no scientific basis that revolves around "evil".
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There is a moral standard outside of anything taught by religion. Say you met someone who had never read the bible or had contact with religion... do you think that person would still consider murder or theft wrong?
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Depends on the society that person's been exposed to. If they've lived in this modern-day society that's been saturated by Christian values for centuries then most likely not. If it's the exact opposite for the person, then there's a good chance he might think they aren't wrong. Of course, however, that does not mean he'll go out of his way to kill people, but since he'd have no standards of morality, it's more than likely he'd carry no stigma towards murder, bodily harm, or robbery.
"Moral standards" weren't concocted by secularism. Past civilizations like Greece and Egypt pre-conversion never maintained laws that were relatively similar to the current standard of what's considered "moral" simply because there was an innert conscience assigned to each individual and/or government. Theft, murder and other heinous crimes weren't abided because they were counter-productive and anti-Utopian. If they tolerated these acts and let them spread, it could have meant the destruction of the society. "Evil" wasn't so much a factor in the laws provided by any government until later, and then the spread of Christianity/Judaism allowed the concept of "morals" to catch on.
Last edited by Pariah; 2005-04-02 11:31 AM.
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Quote:
Danny said:
There is a moral standard outside of anything taught by religion. Say you met someone who had never read the bible or had contact with religion... do you think that person would still consider murder or theft wrong?
Not neccesarily. There have been many primitive societies that considered murder and treachery virtues, but that asside I think most people have an inherent sense of right and wrong. The question becomes "Who put it there?" is our innate sence of right and wrong an ideal embued by our Creator or is it some how secreted from the brain in teh same manner bile is secreted by the liver?
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
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People, why are we still arguing? Here's the proof! Quote:
god said:
Yes, I exist.
There you have it!
Knutreturns said: Spoken like the true Greatest RDCW Champ!
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Thing is- I can’t spell or type. I spell so badly my spell check doesn’t even know what I was trying to spell. And I have five Eisners HAHAHAHHA!!
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Thanks, God! You're the niftiest!
Knutreturns said: Spoken like the true Greatest RDCW Champ!
All hail King Snarf!
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