Hi Farkel I always thought commandment meant what was expected of us.
Heres another one Jesus"you are my friends if you do what I command...."
Acolytes
The Two Creepy Commandments
by Farkel 59 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sd-7
Great post, Farkel. I've pondered similar thoughts myself over the years--found it hard to understand the difference between God and the Devil if either one is going to kill me if I don't cooperate. I just wondered if I was just a bystander in their personal warfare. Would kind of suck if that's the only meaning to our lives, you know? I found it to be hollow.
Acolytes--definitely wanted to post on that issue of "you are my friends if you do what I am commanding you". I always found that to be a contradictory statement, as friends do not issue commands to each other. That's clearly a master/slave relationship. I mean, I guess slaves can be your friends, but I would think it gets kind of awkward.
I just figured it boils down to reality: if God exists and rules the universe as Sovereign, then logically he rules by power alone, and not love. You can't love someone who's threatening to kill you if you don't. The only way to make it work is to believe he doesn't really want to kill you. Maybe it's naive, in a way, but that always helps me.
SD-7
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glenster
:Re: command to love. It's as reasonable as saying I don't want a marraige\
unless we love each other. It's not the same as commanding someone to love
you-they have the free will to choose. It's a faith matter.Re: You forgot the pesky little fact that if you do not love a potential
marriage mate, that mate will merely walk out of your life and you can choose
another mate more to your liking. If you do not love a Hitler God, that Hitler
God will send you to His version of the Gas Chamber. You only have a ONE God
option when it comes to BibleGod. Big difference.I know there's a difference between rejecting a person as a mate and rejecting
the God of the God concept. One is fair game in interpersonal concerns and the
idea of the other would be to reject the one who gave all life and anything good
found in it who presides over it all.Overlooking how the response cleans up a lot about how people handle breakups
and divorce court cases (some victims of those have made Nazi comparisons....),
the Hitler characterization isn't to just not have a hope commitment to a God
concept but to mischaracterize the concept for several reasons.Hitler didn't have God's prerogative to do as He wishes with everything and
all life with impunity. Hitler didn't even have any ethical defense people give
people on strictly interpersonal terms--he killed offensively for gain and
racism, with Christianity only believed in as something to try to manipulate for
those goals, to actually encourage people to reject for those goals, then com-
mitted suicide knowing he'd be regarded as an organized crime leader by most be-
lievers and non-believers. He wasn't in a position to end human wars and crimes
but only add a lot to them.(The JWs leaders have propagandized the non-JWs Christians as Hitler support-
ers. That's not the best source to use for ideas.)The gas chamber comparison is forced. It depends how you interpret the after-
life concerns--only those saved go to heaven or Christian universalism: those
not saved are converted while only their human systems are dismantled by God,
and ultimately everyone goes to heaven. It was the most popular interpretation
of the afterlife in the 1st 5 or 6 centuries of Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_universalismTaking the first one, assumed as the only interpretation and objected to: even
it has interpretations other than physical torment, as by a gas chamber (I think
the JWs leaders have made the forced choice between that and their stance), for
those who don't go to heaven. It isn't to hope for people to effect it with war
but to hope God, who has the prerogative, effects the change for the better.
And pages of Wikipedia links of the bad behavior of some believers and non-be-
lievers could be provided to show it could be a lot better.And it leaves out that's the goal hoped for--that God would end people's wars
(like Hitler's) and crimes (like JWs leaders), to people thinking only of them-
self by giving money to organized crime and not caring that the people they're
giving the money to are the kind you should never give a nickel, people suffer-
ing while others don't give though there's enough to go around, etc., and re-
place it with heavenly circumstances that put an end to that.The Hitler/gas chamber characterization is even farther from the truth of the
universalism afterlife idea--that everyone would share in that. < -
glenster
continued:
The Hitler/gas chamber characterization is even farther from the truth of the
universalism afterlife idea--that everyone would share in that. That doesn't
sound very monstrous.Ironically, unwarranted condescension propagandizing a whole group of people
as wanting something monstrous is what the believing and non-believing Hitlers
and JWs leaders of the world cause divisions and worse between people with. If
you're going to criticize the JWs leaders' forced points you want to guard
against making forced points yourself.PS: Re: an omniscient God checking out a town--an omniscient God could make a
localized concern or divine intervention.Re: That statement makes no sense whatsoever.
God is generally considered as transcendant. A divine intervention in a loca-
tion could be referred to as God checking out a situation out, asking someone
something though He a already knows but wanting to hear how they answer or such.
However you want to put that in words, I think such writing refers to that. -
Farkel
glenster,
That was a a lot of verbosity about Hitler the man and all, but you simply did not comprehend that I wrote "Hitler God" as in "Jehovah is a Hitler God." And yes, the analogy is a poor one, because the comparison is not fair to Hitler. Hitler God murdered more men, women and children that Hitler human ever could in fifty lifetimes.
Farkel
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glenster
The lack of comprehension shoe is on the other foot. I'm taking deaths into
account the same as you, and we probably see cruelty the same, but I'm factoring
into it prerogative and more, which come with the God concept or you're just not
dealing with it, and you're leaving it out.What are you quote mining for? Here's the best I have so far on cruelty in
the scheme of things, crueler in the OT, with a God belief:Consider the example I gave of Job again.
He looked at the bad things, that everyone dies, etc., the best you can do is
be glad for your shot at life and the good you found in it, true if you add God
or not--if you add it, you see His prerogative as owner and as a higher quality
being regarding people who create all the crimes and wars in the world, etc.
That includes that everyone dies. It did in Job's day and is still true in our
day. That includes men, women, and children. "Look--there's a line in Samuel."
What for? More died than everyone then? And still, the best you can do is look
at it like Job.Consider the analogy I made of God > people and people > animals again.
A rancher has cows. He gives them the free choice to be what they'll be. The
brown ones are killing the yellow ones, etc. Some are starving but the cows
don't see to it they're fed--in fact, some are stealing the food of the others.
A guy goes by and says, "That rancher's no good unless He'd have all those cows
live in his ranch house." The rancher is thinking, "That's unfortunate because
I was thinking some hamburgers would go good about now."Add that the rancher never rescues an animal from a pound, medical lab, or
farm for a food processing plant. He doesn't have one pet live in his house let
alone have a vagrant stay in a spare room. But he considers himself a nice
person and others do, too. They think it's his prerogative.I've probably described some people you know and care about. Should we con-
sider them Hitlers that nobody should love?If we can look across at all the equal quality beings and the mess they make
of things in the world, imagine how cynical a higher quality being could regard
it. If anything, people are the worst of the three in the analogy--they take
lives for any reason you can think of though they don't have God's prerogative
in having provided and owning all life, and they have more wisdom than animals
about how to create a world without cruelty over territorial disputes, weeding
the weak from the herd, etc., so animals aren't as culpable. Why would He have
to be terrible if He didn't want them around forever? We can criticize but He
has to be some kind of omnipotent moron? But it changes so He reconciles
people to Himself in the NT. Lord knows why, but He does.That includes you don't need a nation with it as the law of the land, which to
me is an improvement over Mosaic law or whatever belief or non-belief view being
the law of the land since I don't like people hurting each other over this
stuff. If you need Him to want everybody around Him forever in afterlife
concerns, you can use Christian Universalsm. -
Farkel
glenster,
Tell me how many humans wiped out the entire planet at once? Can't think of any? Me neither. But I'm familiar with a God who did. Those little suckling babies must have done something terribly wrong to merit being suffocated to death or beaten with water on the rocks to death. Bad babies. Bad, bad, BAD babies.
: If we can look across at all the equal quality beings and the mess they make
of things in the world, imagine how cynical a higher quality being could regard
it.You got on thing right. Your God is certainly cynical, more cynical than any human who ever lived. Is that one of those "godly" qualities we keep hearing aoubt?
:If anything, people are the worst of the three in the analogy--they take
lives for any reason you can think of though they don't have God's prerogative
in having provided and owning all life,Don't think humans parents provided life for their offspring. Would a human murder an entire family living next door because the next door father pissed him off? Do you think parent's OWN the life of their children? NO! They do not. They are caretakers, not owners. If you are asserting that God OWNS us, then yeah, we are mere property to God and God can do whatever He wants. Any God that considers his children to be mere property can go screw Himself. (You read that right.)
and they have more wisdom than animals
: Why would He have to be terrible if He didn't want them around forever?
Why would a human have to be terrible if he decided to kill all his kids when they reached the age of say, 15?
: We can criticize but He has to be some kind of omnipotent moron?
Yes, God is a moron and hardly omnipotent.
: But it changes so He reconciles people to Himself in the NT.
I thought God was unchanging. If he was once a bad God and is now a good God, then he's unpredicable and cannot be trusted. He might change his mind again next week.
: Lord knows why, but He does.
Well, when he explains all of my question to you, please let me know.
Farkel
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Atman
:You should always be wary of Gods for whom you are always busy making up excuses.
LMAO that's priceless! Thanks for the laughs Farkel.
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glenster
We agree on disliking the bad things of life and even your stance to a degree:
"If God were just an equal quality being who didn't provide/preside over life or
have His prerogative about it all and had those people die, he'd be a human
criminal." (It skips over the bad people do with their free will, though, and
how that may seem to a higher quality being.) It's true that it makes a big
difference from the God concept and leads to different conclusions. Where we
disagree is that your stance is that it's the concept about God. It's an edit-
orial about the dark side of His prerogative as exercised by someone other than
God but given as a characterization of God. You can simplify the truth into a
distortion which is easier to remember but since it's a distortion isn't worth
remembering.The subsequent responses seem like extensions of that at times. A few res-
ponses:"Tell me how many humans wiped out the entire planet at once? Can't think of
any? Me neither. But I'm familiar with a God who did. Those little suckling
babies must have done something terribly wrong to merit being suffocated to
death or beaten with water on the rocks to death. Bad babies. Bad, bad, BAD
babies."Since the flood account should be taken figuratively, not literally, I don't
know of anyone, including God, that did that, so it's not true that you do,
either. It's taken figuratively for theological teaching, it doesn't have God
wipe out the whole planet but practically all of it since the story has it that
practically everyone did bad with their free will. It doesn't explain His re-
gard for the infants, but one possibility is that he could have known they'd end
up like most. Otherwise, He'd have the prerogative to give or take life for any
kind of lower life--no exceptions, so it's not the problem for the God concept
that it would be for a person."If we can look across at all the equal quality beings and the mess they make
of things in the world, imagine how cynical a higher quality being could regard
it.""You got on thing right. Your God is certainly cynical, more cynical than any
human who ever lived. Is that one of those "godly" qualities we keep hearing
aoubt?"That's backwards. Considering how critical we can be about all the crime and
suffering equal quality beings cause, a higher quality being would have the
prerogative to be at least as critical without it being cynical, yet for that
God to be a higher quality being yet offer to take them to heaven (if using
Universalism--everyone) is a more generous offer than circumtances would require
of Him. Your God concept is rendered a little more cynically than proportionate
to the subject at times, though.God is a faith concern about a possible God beyond the see-able, touchable
world. In this life, it's only the cynical people that I've seen hurt anybody.
They can make a person become that way themself, and it can make some of us re-
solve that we'd never want anyone to think of us as like that.Again, we'd agree about not liking the bad things of life, but the God concept
can't be worse than the world He presides over or it wouldn't be there for Job
or you or I to say I'm glad I got my shot at it and what good I found in it.
It's your choice to make out the bad is all there is to the idea, not mine, and
that's the only cynicism to see there. It can be a little funny sometimes, but
if you're asking me to take it serio -
glenster
if you're asking me to take it seriously, that's what I see.
":If anything, people are the worst of the three in the analogy--they take
lives for any reason you can think of though they don't have God's prerogative
in having provided and owning all life, and they have more wisdom than animals""Don't think humans parents provided life for their offspring. Would a human
murder an entire family living next door because the next door father pissed
him off? Do you think parent's OWN the life of their children? NO! They do
not. They are caretakers, not owners."You're getting even more confused here. I made the point that I don't think
people have the prerogative to take other people's lives in those ways, either.
But you're unfortunately wrong about them none of them doing it, though--many do
or kill just as senselessly."If you are asserting that God OWNS us, then yeah, we are mere property to God
and God can do whatever He wants. Any God that considers his children to be
mere property can go screw Himself. (You read that right.)"Again, you're getting our assertions backward and mischaracterizing the God
concept with an aspect of it as though the whole of it. The idea of God's prer-
ogative includes that He owns everything but that life has it's good and bad
side, not just the bad. For a God concept to be credible, it has to be recon-
ciled with both, so yours isn't credible. If the concept was that God regards
people as just things, I'd curse it myself, but it's not the concept any more
than I think that way about other people or what I get out of life generally.": Why would He have to be terrible if He didn't want them around forever?"
"Why would a human have to be terrible if he decided to kill all his kids when
they reached the age of say, 15?You didn't understand what I meant. But to answer the question, the father
not only doesn't have God's prerogative but doesn't have any subtantiation in
interpersonal terms, like defense, for killing equal quality beings. I don't
think we have different outlooks about something like that, not that it bears on
my point.": We can criticize but He has to be some kind of omnipotent moron?"
"Yes, God is a moron and hardly omnipotent."
You're confused again. The question was if God needs to be a moron as defined
as being less critical than we know to be about people to be acceptable (and He
couldn't know more than people and know less), and you're contradictorily af-
firming "Yes" he is less critical, therefore not bad to people, while the res-
ponses otherwise affect a stance about Him being nothing but bad. That's a
screwup in both directions at once. It's neither true that the concept is that
He's totally uncritical/everything is heaven on earth or that He's totally nega-
tive/there's nothing worthwhile in life.The concept of God is that He's omnipotent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotent": But it changes so He reconciles people to Himself in the NT."
"I thought God was unchanging. If he was once a bad God and is now a good God,
then he's unpredicable and cannot be trusted. He might change his mind again
next week."Reliable consistency in anyone is always good for trust.... But seriously,
you're mischaracterizing something by giving an aspect of something as though
the whole of it.&nb