Posts by Halcon

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Tonus -I cannot base my expectation on human standards of morality or behavior, because God transcends those. It strikes me as inappropriate to even call him good or bad, moral or immoral, just or unjust. He exists on a completely different moral plane, and those terms do not apply. They are, as you note, human standards.

If you truly believe and understand this, then you would refrain from categorizing what God does or doesn't do as 'good' or 'bad' yourself. In the absence of your own limited human opinion, you would simply let God determine it.

I don't have to read his mind and heart in order to understand what to expect. His actions seem sufficient. And he is, after all, unchanging. To expect him to act against the nature that he has displayed all this time strikes me as futile.

You assume you understand what is the eternal future as God knows it. And even if you did, to categorize it (as you indicated) based on our understanding of a human life of 80 years in the present would be futile.

21

A Fun Topic: BEFORE God

by Terry in

jw
friends

yuh gotta start somewhere, right?.

big bang theory is not a theory of the creation of the universe, but rather a model of the history and evolution of the universe from its earliest moments.

it wasn't really until the time of st. augustine that the idea of "out of nothing" entered the discussion.. a reading of genesis doesn't force the "out of nothing" into it at all.. in fact, a kind of chaotic "something" was put into form - or - something out of "something", the way adam is formed from red mud and eve from the rib.

Halcon

We date the birth of PHILOSOPHY back to ancient Greeks who posited:Matter is neither created nor destroyed; only changed, mingled, transformed, etc.MATTER always existed, in other words.

Yes, if all is in the mind of God...to the extent that we can understand the concept of 'mind'.

Since God is infinite, then 'matter' has always existed.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Tonus -These are the actions of someone who should not engender our trust.

Because you expect a different action from the Creator. And you base your expectation on your everyday human to human relationships.

One has to wonder about the nature of a person who behaves in such a manner. When this person is also the unstoppable force behind the universe and the only person who can determine our eternal future, the notion that he might exist should terrify us.

Here again, you are assuming you have read the mind and heart of God.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Tonus -If we are incapable of properly assessing our long-term outlook, that is a pretty glaring design flaw on God's part.

Actually, all signs point to the great possibility that God does NOT want us to have a clear comprehension of our future beyond the next few weeks. He is clearly intentional in hiding the details of our future from us.

It would seem to me that he expects a lot of us to fail, which is in direct contrast with his desire for all of us to be saved.

I would mostly say yes, indeed he does expect a lot of us to fail (the wide vs the narrow gate). But what actually happens does not negate what would be his desire.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Tonus -If we lack an eternal future, then I agree. But if this life is a microscopically tiny portion of my overall existence, then its importance is equally minor.

Perhaps if we were God this statement would be true. However, as human beings our present is always most urgent and most literally relevant. We simply don't have God's capacity to weigh our present, however great or not, against our unknowable future.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Nicolaou -God on the other hand gets a free pass from unthinking, fundamentalists on this forum for behaving like an arsehole.

Ultimately, it's not about giving God a pass. It's about recognizing that we are unable to change things because we are the creation and not the Creator.

It's difficult to see that man is not at the center of the universe, that our past present and future is out of our hands.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Tonus -I said "we should want to know." It is natural to want to know what you are about to get into, especially if it's a decision that will last for an eternity. It is also natural to think well of someone who prepares us, but to be highly suspicious of someone who will not quite explain the most important and crucial facet of our lives.

I would say the most important and crucial facet of our lives is the present, the here and now. 'Should want to know' seems more of a personal preference. Maybe not everyone wants to know. I personally don't concern myself with the afterlife since whatever it is I seem to have no say so in it.

If our defintion contrasts with that of God, we are wrong, aren't we?

Yes we would be, because God is a separate person from us, which was the point of my comment.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Tonus -Thus, the word "good" is meaningless in this context. God could decide to send all heavenly souls to hell for a period of a million years, just because he felt like it. And it would be good. There would literally be nothing wrong or bad about that action.

When Job said "good" here, he was contrasting it with the "bad" he was experiencing. Meaning that as human beings we can still define something as good or bad, apart from how God defines it. This is possible because we are not the same person as God (aka two different perspectives).

If there is one thing we should want to know clearly and unambiguously, it's what heaven and the afterlife are.

"We should know" implies we deserve to know. And when this expectation is not met we become frustrated. The scriptures repeatedly show God declining special requests. And the reaction of those who were declined is varied.

I believe that the Bible places a much greater emphasis on what our minds and hearts should comprehend in the present than indeed the very ambiguous (literally and physically) afterlife will be like.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

Joey- life on this planet is the same. Everything around us wants to take our energy for itself, just like we do with animals and plants that sustain us. Eventually we give up the energy we have and it changes state and becomes something else.

Right, not all is as it seems.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

Halcon

@jefrro

hehehe... indeed... here's another fun Bible verse I cherry picked for you, Proverbs 27:15