Posts by yadda yadda 2

Orthodox Jews hold to the historicity of the Pentateuch, in which God commits or sanctions acts which if committed by any human would be regarded as morally abhorrent. As for their theodicies, they ultimately belief God's reasons for permitting underserved suffering is a 'mystery'. In other words, they have no convincing theodicy, you must just have faith. From Beliefnet.com on Orthdox Jews:

Undeserved Suffering
Sometimes it is believed that suffering is caused by a weakness in one’s devotion to God. Generally, it is believed that God gave humans free will to feel pleasure and pain, and His purpose in allowing deep suffering of the innocent must be good even if mysterious. God suffers along with the sufferer. Some Jews (e.g. the Hasidim) believe that suffering is punishment for past-life sins. Knowing why God allows suffering is not as important as knowing that God will punish the perpetrators.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

yadda yadda 2

The God that most skeptics reject, a God with unceasing hands ‐ on control, is simply not the God

of the Bible. The biblical God may enter the fray when the flow of nature and humanity strays too far

from the intended teleological path.

I enjoyed Professor Schroeder's youtube clip very much, thanks for posting that.

The quote from his book above shows he is really a Deist though (ie, believes in a non-intervening God, but he adds his personal ad-hoc qualifier that God will intervene if things get bad enough down here on earth).

The God of the Bible, and Jesus post-resurrection, are definitely portrayed as 'hands on' divine beings who Christians can have a personal, familial relationship with as a son has with a father, or a brother to a brother.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

yadda yadda 2

I'm pretending there is a God and then assuming that ALL of those killed in the tsunami will be given a chance at peacfull eternal life.

Wouldn't that be wonderful if it were true. But it still doesn't answer why God would permit so much evil and suffering in the first place? What kind of morality is that? It's a bit like saying it is morally acceptable for some bystander who has the power to prevent the crime to just stand by and do nothing to stop an old lady from being beaten up, provided that the old ladies injuries are all healed in hospital and she receives a million dollars in compensation from the criminal. Why bother trying to stop any evil and suffering at all if ultimately God's hiddenness is justified by an after-life? "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out" was the mentality behind the inquisitions and crusades.

Think about what 'morality' really means (have you heard of the Euthyphro dilemma? http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/266266/1/The-Euthyphro-Dilemma-as-it-Applies-to-the-Doctrine-of-Atonement#.UsYgItIW3ng. If God is in any way to be believeable and worthy of worship, then humans must be able to comprehend his morality. Are we in God's image or not? His morals must then be understandable to us for his existence to have any real meaning at all. If God's morality is ultimately incomprehensible to us with no theodicy standing up to analysis and is at great odds with natural human morality, then God may as well not exist at all.

12

The American Constitution versus the 'Kingdom of God'.

by yadda yadda 2 in

i thought this comparison between the american constitution and the 'kingdom of god' was very interesting from an article in this ex-mormon's excellent website http://packham.n4m.org/us-xian.htm.

the article notes how america's founding father's were deists, not bible-believing christians.. but our nation is also a system of government, not just a society.

the constitution is about government, not about society.

yadda yadda 2

What is really interesting about this for me is that liberal western democracy, based on the principles of the American Constitution, as inspired by the great philosphers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, John Locke et al, is indisputably acknowledged by most as the ideal form of government. It is spreading around the world, since it works. Forms of governance at the opposite end of the political spectrum, ie, authoritarianism and dictatorships, are tending to disappear over time.

Now given that clear trend, if we are made in 'God's image' (Gen 1:26), it means that the American Constitution and its high principles based on bottom-up rule, equality and liberty is surely much closer to the form of government that reflects what it means to be 'in God's image.'

As long as this clear trend continues of the spread of liberal western democracy based on these universally recognised principles, how can it be claimed by JW's that man cannot rule himself?

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

yadda yadda 2

Is this thread now going to become an evolution v creationism debate?

There are lots of books, articles and websites available on those subjects sunny23. Ever heard of Google or Amazon?

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

yadda yadda 2

I think Cofty can do better than "you're just playing semantics."

Pelican: I wrote, "He does not "fail" to act. He chooses not to act as mankind wants him to."

So PelicanBeach, then enlighten us on how God does act but not in a way that mankind wants him to?

If God is acting or intervening in mysterious ways now somehow, then that worsens God's position since you are left with the quandry of why God is somehow acting now but yet takes no action to remove/mitigate the worst kinds of evil and suffering.

For example, how is it morally acceptable for God to, say, give the 'holy spirit' to some Christian in answer to their prayer but yet not lift a finger to stop the infant child of a Bible-believing praying Tutsi mother from being hacked to death in the Rwandan genocide.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

yadda yadda 2

Then we would have to determine the max time we would allot for such a bet on rightfull sovereignty. If you were God when would you have put a stop to it? Consider that ALL forms and types of human rule and satanic influences would need to be explored and tested fully first.

Yes, and there are innumerable forms of government that could be trialled in the future. You could have a world rulership based purely on scientific analysis and computerised distribution of resources where the human need is greatest, ie, to reduce the worst kinds of suffering. How about a form of world government by electronic vote on any given issue, like global government by census. How about rulership by women only, no men allowed, since history shows males have nearly always ruled and caused all the suffering (Margaret Thatcher aside lol).

Ultimately, given a long enough time horizon and scientific advancement, there is no reason to believe man is incapable of self-governance.

In fact, isn't the rule of the 144,000 a rule by human beings, only resurrected ones? What after the millennial reign, who rules then? Revelation describes human kings ruling on earth. So even Biblically it's ultimately God's purpose that human's administrate themselves.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

yadda yadda 2

Think about my posts above Sunny23. What does the physical evidence of history and your own eyes tell you about whether there is an intervening God or not?

Once you've followed the evidence to it's inevitable conclusion, all you really have left is Pascals Wager. One chooses to believe in God not for evidentiary or scientific reasons, but as a sort of insurance policy just in case.

Pascal's Wager is an argument in apologetic philosophy which was devised by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or does not exist. Given the possibility that God actually does exist and assuming the infinite gain or loss associated with belief in God or with unbelief, a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.). [1]