This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty 496 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  John_Mann

  So, can you specifically tell when it is the unconscious dynamics of your mind at work versus when God is communicating with you?
  Can you make a clear distinction between these two things? If so, how exactly are you able to make this distinction?

  @deegee

  OMG! Please consider my paranormal experience as an ordinary delusion.

  Nothing what I'm talking about depends on this personal experience.

  There is no justice system in the world that requires innocent children to pay the penalty for a crime committed by their parents.
  It certainly isn't justice (divine or otherwise) to condemn not only the criminal to death, but also his offspring who have nothing to do with his crime. It certainly isn't justice if the law which governs societies today wasn’t satisfied with the death of a criminal but came after his offspring and executed them as well for his crime.
  If God's creation appears to have a keener sense of justice and empathy than he does, then does that not raise some worrying questions about God's nature?
  Why would you want to serve a God like that?

  This is just your opinion about justice.
• 

  EdenOne

  By conscient nihl I didn't mean a conscient pursuit of nihl. I meant a sentient, perpetual and hopeless experience of nihl, taking place as a consequence of a metaphorical original sin by a couple of man and woman 6.000 ago in mesopotania. Is that your definition of hell? Please start by telling me where in the Bible or the teachings of Jesus you find that notion, so that it can clearly be lablelled "christian" - and I say this because you define your beliefs as christian.

  It seems to me that you don't take Adam and Eve literally to be the common acestors of all makind, as per the literal reading of Genesis. If 6.000 years ago god decided for the first time to give a soul to some random couple in mesopotamia, and many more human beings were already in existence around the globe, what do the non-descendants of that couple have to do with it all? Why the burden of the original sin was imposed upon them? At what point the non-descendants of that couple began to have souls? And why? And how?
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  cofty

  Is this still going on?

  Page 18 and not one single response to any of the nine simple points in the OP
• 

  John_Mann

  Is this still going on?

  For 2000 years, day and night, in every corner of this planet.

  And considering the concept of symmetry, I think it will go more 2000 years in this world.
  
  
• 

  deegee

  "This is just your opinion about justice."

  No John_Mann. This is not just my opinion, but also the opinion of the world's justice systems.

  It is clear that God's creation has a keener sense of justice and empathy than he does in the matter of innocents suffering for the guilty.

  Why would you want to serve a God like that?

  Also, if I am not mistaken, the concept of transmission of sin from the guilty to the innocent is rejected by every major religion, except Christianity.

  Justice has been defined to "consist in rendering to everyone according to his moral deserts; good if he be good, and evil if evil - for the purpose of promoting goodness and discouraging guilt."

  If this be a recognized standard of right in human affairs, surely it should not be ignored in dealing with "divine" actions.

  Let us take the case of an earthly father, who had, say, seven children, six of whom were thoroughly bad, and the seventh as good as human nature could possibly be.

  Now, would it be considered just upon the part of that father to punish the one good child for the misdeeds of the six bad ones? Such conduct would ensure for its perpetrator a general and an emphatic condemnation.

  If a judge were knowingly to sentence to death an innocent man as a substitute for a criminal, the act would provoke universal detestation, and the judge's judicial position would in all probability be forfeited.

  Is it consistent for Christians to ascribe an act to their God which good men would refuse to perform? We think not.

  The children of criminal parents are not blamed, but are rather pitied, for being innocent victim of others.

  Children cannot be ethically punished for the sins of their parents. People not alive at the time of a sin cannot be held responsible for that "original sin."

  Ethical systems teach that everyone is responsible for their own sins.
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  deegee

  John_Mann,

  "@deegee
  OMG! Please consider my paranormal experience as an ordinary delusion.
  Nothing what I'm talking about depends on this personal experience."

  OK, so I guess this means you can't specifically tell when it is the unconscious dynamics of your mind at work versus when God is communicating with you.

  You are not able to make a clear distinction between these two things.

  It certainly is very difficult to make the distinction since no one knows what is buried in their subconscious and since God does not explicitly and unequivocally make it clear that it is he who is giving a person a vision, or speaking to the person, or inserting thoughts into a person's mind, or answering the person's prayer or showing the person a "sign". People are left to figure out all by themselves whether it was God who actually communicated with them.

  So a person cannot unequivocally, beyond the shadow of a doubt tell whether a "vision" was their own product or whether it originated from an external source.
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  John_Mann

  You said that god gives each man a soul at the moment of conception.

  Yes.

  That makes god the causing agent of that soul, not the physical parents.

  Yes. The parents being the only causing agents is called traducionism. Of course parents are causing agents too, this process needs sex.

  God isn't bound by any law according to which he must abide to give a soul to every fertilized human egg.

  He's bound by His nature. He can't lie or be evil, for instance. The nature, the will and the intellect of God/angels/men are very distinct things.

  He made a pact with Adam and every descendant of Adam must have a soul.

  He has a choice to give it or not give a soul.

  Idk.

  By causing a soul to exist, god is taking responsability for such soul.

  In a sense yes. He must give opportunities to this soul.

  If god is the causing agent of the existence of that soul, it is entirely god's responsability that such soul is made to pay for the original sin.

  Idk if I understand what you mean.

  Because, you know, he chose to create that soul.

  He has made a pact.

  If, because of the original sin, that human is born defective, or dies in a horrific tsunami, it is entirely god's will.

  No.

  Because an almighty god could a) decided to not give that human a soul;

  Maybe He has no choice.

  b) have crated a world where tsunamis didn't exist, because they're entirely not needed for life to exist;

  I don't agree. How do you know is possible to exist worlds suitable for free-willed beings in a physical world without natural laws?

  c) have created a world where humans would be miraculously protected from natural disasters and genetic defects.

  Same thing. How do you know that?

  And finally, after injustly subjecting millions of human beings to needless suffering during their physical life, god decides, after a few years, to resign from responsability towards the soul he created by doing nothing to stop that soul from falling into a perpetual state of sentient nihil.
  I wonder - is this a god worth believing and worshipping?

  I don't agree with your premises so I can't accept your conclusion.
• 

  deegee

  Cofty,

  The discussion is still going on because John_Mann can't bring himself to confront and come to terms with his mortality.

  He needs something to make him feel good about death so he went from believing that he was going to live forever on a Paradise earth to believing that his soul will live on after he dies - he exchanged one venue for another: earth for heaven.

  In trying to make himself feel good about death, he tenaciously tries to defend his indefensible alternate faith of Catholicism which has promised him immortality in the afterlife, which cannot be verified.
• 

  John_Mann

  The discussion is still going on because John_Mann can't bring himself to confront and come to terms with his mortality.
  He needs something to make him feel good about death so he went from believing that he was going to live forever on a Paradise earth to believing that his soul will live on after he dies - he exchanged one venue for another: earth for heaven.
  In trying to make himself feel good about death, he tenaciously tries to defend his indefensible alternate faith of Catholicism.

  Not only my soul but my body too. Catholics believe the human nature must be in soul and body forever. We're not ghosts in biological machines. And we're not just biological machines.

  I believe there are only two options after death: God or oblivion.

  I'm not trying to avoid death like a JW. I know everyone is doomed to die. It's a very unpleasant fate but...

  My belief is about AFTER death. Not death itself.

  If I'm wrong so oblivion is reality and ironically I will never know.

  But if I'm right so my belief produces a possibility that's infinitely (literally) worse than oblivion.

  That's when I think about the Pascal's wager. It says if you have a very small doubt about the certainty of oblivion it's better to believe in God because there's a possibility of infinite loss.

  God must be 100% obvious nonsense and we must have 100% of certain evidence against the existence of God.

  So in a psychological way my position can bring something worse than oblivion.
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  "This is just your opinion about justice."

  One sure way to know whether this is just my opinion about justice - try telling a court of law that it is your children who should be penalized if you should commit a crime.

  Please be sure to let us know the outcome if you should ever find yourself in this situation.