As Williams explains, God is not an additional thing in the universe that requires explanation. He is the explanation. To insist on the question of what caused God is not an argument against God, it's simply another way of saying that you don't believe in God. Because if there was an answer to the question "what caused God", then that God wouldn't be God, because God by definition doesn't have a cause. It initially seems like a clever question, "what caused God" , but it rather misses the point.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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21
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
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21
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
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slimboyfat
God is sufficient in himself. He doesn't require another, but he chooses to create others as an expression of love, that's the point. If God had the experience of others regardless of his will then it couldn't be said to be a choice or an expression of love to share existence with others. Anything we say about God is obviously tentative, but among the things we can say it seems to make more sense that God shared existence by an active choice and that it was motivated by love. Asking if God had love before that doesn't seem like a defeater because it's not clear that "before" means anything to God if he created time at the creation. Or even if his expression of love was preceded by a period (if period means something here) of intention before action, that seems preferable to saying that God had no choice in the matter and was compelled to share existence as a necessary state of affairs.
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The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
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slimboyfat
Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
He said:
As a Christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love. That is, it’s a willingness that the other should be. The world exists because God desires that there be an other, and so love is fundamental to that.
If bringing others into existence is an expression of love, then it makes sense that God loves his “so much” (John 3.16) as the first one he called into existence. God was alone and completely sufficient in himself, and he did not need any other person in order to make himself complete, but it was an active choice, prompted by love, that moved him to create other beings to share existence with. If God had always existed as three persons, as Trinitarians claim, then it was no choice, or expression of love, to share existence, but an eternal fact. The Trinity therefore undermines the initial act of love by God in sharing existence, first with his firstborn son, and then with the angels and humans.
Rowan Williams’ comments are at 2.45 in this video
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What is this?
by Achille inthis image is from "the watchtower" july 2024 (study edition):i can't figure out what that object is that is between the sleeping apostles.wath is it?
a stick, a scroll of the scriptures?
....
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slimboyfat
Ah, found it now.
Yeah that depiction is no accident. It can’t be. It takes a long time to produce an image like that and a lot of people are involved in the process. So WTF is going on?
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What is this?
by Achille inthis image is from "the watchtower" july 2024 (study edition):i can't figure out what that object is that is between the sleeping apostles.wath is it?
a stick, a scroll of the scriptures?
....
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slimboyfat
July magazine isn’t up on the website yet. Where did this come from?
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What is this?
by Achille inthis image is from "the watchtower" july 2024 (study edition):i can't figure out what that object is that is between the sleeping apostles.wath is it?
a stick, a scroll of the scriptures?
....
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slimboyfat
Oh for crying out loud. Are they for real?? 😳
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Diligence and Enthusiasm - LDS vs JWs
by Rivergang inon a scale of 1 to 100, i would put the lds in the high 90s, and the witnesses at about minus 10.. these days (well, around here at least) one encounters the mormon missionaries all over the place.
if they are not knocking at your door, they are approaching you out in the street.
of late, this has been happening all the bloody time!.
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slimboyfat
JWs are growing faster than the population in developed countries, or in countries such as Poland, Italy, Japan and South Korea, where the overall population is in decline, they are declining more slowly than the general population, or keeping steady, whereas the general population is in decline.
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Diligence and Enthusiasm - LDS vs JWs
by Rivergang inon a scale of 1 to 100, i would put the lds in the high 90s, and the witnesses at about minus 10.. these days (well, around here at least) one encounters the mormon missionaries all over the place.
if they are not knocking at your door, they are approaching you out in the street.
of late, this has been happening all the bloody time!.
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slimboyfat
But at no greater rate than that of the population in general.
That’s incorrect. JWs are growing faster than the general population and always have done except for a couple of years during the disruption of the pandemic. The latest figures are JWs grew at 2.4% compared with world population growth of 0.9%.
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What the new JW light position really is 👍
by ElderBerry ini’m still an elder and i consider myself jw light.
as my fellow elders are.
we don’t throw our weight around like elders used to in the past, it’s all very easy going these days.
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slimboyfat
There is some irony in the fact that as WT loosens its grip and becomes more liberal, those who have already left WT become even angrier at WT and those who stay in the religion. You’d think reforms would be welcome and encouraged to go further if impact on current and future JWs is the paramount concern, but for some who have already left WT any reforms are simply an affront in view of their past experiences and nothing but the entire collapse of the religion will satisfy.
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Diligence and Enthusiasm - LDS vs JWs
by Rivergang inon a scale of 1 to 100, i would put the lds in the high 90s, and the witnesses at about minus 10.. these days (well, around here at least) one encounters the mormon missionaries all over the place.
if they are not knocking at your door, they are approaching you out in the street.
of late, this has been happening all the bloody time!.
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slimboyfat
Only a small fraction of Mormons preach whereas all active JWs preach, fewer than 100,000 Mormons missionaries compared with 8 million plus JWs who preach, nearly 2 million of them pioneers.
Mormons are in decline in the UK and many other developed countries whereas JWs have steady numbers or are increasingly slightly, in particular among immigrant communities.