So, it is you stupid FE Christians that are helping atheism to grow more than ever. After all, the Bible is meant for salvation... not to prove the shape of the earth.  I honestly can’t tell if these flat earth folks are religious idiots who genuinely believe their flat earth blather or atheist idiots seeking to attack Christianity via some form of misguided association fallacy. So far I can only conclude that they are idiots. |
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Yes, I do reject the traditions of stoning, slavery, rape, and genocide.
As do I So you are against what your God commands? Context matters. Lets look back not 4000 years but a mere 75. Around that time president's Roosevelt commanded an army to storm the beaches of Normandy and thus killed many defending soldiers who probably wanted nothing more then to be left alone by the United States army. He also ordered the development of a horrific weapons of destruction the atomic bomb that would later be dropped on not one but two cities full of women and children. Should I be against what the President commanded back then? Well that would require one to look at overall context both of the commands in question the reasons the command was given and their necessity. We would need to answer several questions including: 1) What does it mean for a command to be moral or immoral? 2) Could a command that is not accepted today ever be moral under any possible historic or future circumstances? 3) What are those circumstances? 4) Were those circumstances present when the command was given? One can logically support the decision to use nuclear weapons at the end of WWII and simultaneously support their nonuse today. That is possible after a mere 75 years. Your critiques of biblical accounts concerned actions that occurred thousands of years ago in a world and context we can barely imagine today. Keep that in mind when you are critiquing those times. The answer to your question is yes I do reject the traditions of stoning, slavery, rape, and genocide, and no I am not against what my God commands. If you think those positions are mutually exclusive then you have not analyzed the problem in sufficient depth. |
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Yes, I do reject the traditions of stoning, slavery, rape, and genocide.
As do I |
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I am open to evidence that I am wrong. I have been asking for it. All I got was "the Bible says that it is the evidence" type of arguments.
Then there are guys like CoinCube who jump to the conclusion that there must be some sort of pantheistic God because some things cannot be proven in Mathematics. And that this God is a Christian, Trinity God.
Cell death is an irreversible process. When you die, you are dead, no conscience, no memory, no more you.
Whatever religious fairy tale one believes is irrelevant. Religious people are increasingly becoming irrelevant.
In a few decades, religious beliefs (aka fear of death) will be diagnosed and lumped together with other phobias.
You have been presented evidence. You can find evidence for God in the Biblical tradition passed to us from the generations prior. Or if you choose to ignore that you can also infer the existence of God from certain basic features of the universe. The latter is the approach I took in my earlier post An Argument for God. I provided a link to it as your summary of my position is slightly lacking. I am aware you that have rejected my argument. This puts you in a challenging position. There is a third path to take but it is the most difficult. That path lies in living out a life grounded in something other then God and learning the hard way the consequences the choice. People always get it wrong when it comes to religion. They think its about the building's or the prayers or the singing. That ultimately is irrelevant. Choosing ones religion is the process of defining who you are and the principles and reality you structure your life upon. Whenever someone tells me they are an atheist I pause and wait for some useful information. You don't define something by what it is not you define it by what it is. Having rejected tradition and logical inference you live by and embrace some other worldview not grounded in God. Whatever you have settled upon I honestly believe it will disappoint you sooner or later. Nevertheless, I wish you well on the journey. |
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CoinCube,
I still do not see that it was God who influenced you to help the lady. It was you, not your God. You might think it was God, but the reality is it was you and only you who made that decision. You could have done the same thing if you contemplated your own life, the life of other people around you, or humanity in general.
People think the God helps them because it is a useful psychological self-help. It builds confidence in your actions.
It is like people who in survival situations believe that everything will be ok and survive, will actually increase the chances of survival.
Same goes for sick people, those who believe that they will get better (believers or Atheists) will actually get better without medical intervention. Some religious people will scream 'miracle', but the reality is that the body's immune system is helped when patients reduce stress.
The use of your psychological help (aka God) is fine if you need it, but it does not make him or her real.
Like I said before, many people who know that your God does not exist do a lot of good in their communities. It is not God it is people who do good things. I hope you understand that much.
BTW, there are also many people who kill or start wars in the name of (your or other) Gods. Do you remember George W. Bush conversations with God? Did you see what ISIS is doing? These people are convinced they are influenced by God, by the reality is they are doing what they are doing.
People are responsible for their good and bad actions. Only people, there is no God involved because God does not exist.
God is the product of an overactive imagination. That is all.
I think you would benefit from expanding your imagination. Imagination is essential to problem solving and the current human condition is one of the biggest problems around. Why Imagination is Essential To Problem Solvinghttps://medium.com/@mananhora/le-petit-prince-and-why-imagination-is-essential-to-problem-solving-6ff6b2b30eafToday, in trying to solve the world’s most pressing and challenging problems, we need to be able to see things in different ways. To go beyond what is obvious and visible. To imagine all the possibilities. Not just to come up with innovative solutions but more importantly, to first be able to correctly identify the problem, and be able to look at it in different ways. In trying to come up with new ideas to solve a problem or design a new feature for a product, a lot of people engage in ‘brainstorming sessions’, where you typically sit in groups, perhaps with a whiteboard, and try to come up with as many solutions as possible for solving the problem, which is great for generating new ideas. But I think before that, it’s important to spend time with the problem. As Albert Einstein once said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
‘The Slow Elevator Problem’…
Now, imagine you’re a landlord of an office building in New York in the 1930s. And the employees in the office complain to you that the elevators are slow in the building, and threaten to leave if nothing is done about it. Now this is a serious problem, you could end up losing your tenants if you don’t fix it. You’ll probably call your team of engineers and get them to come up with possible solutions to make elevators faster. But that’s not what this one particular landlord did when faced with the same problem.
You might think that the problem is that the elevators are slow, and the landlord should get better machines and make them faster. But is that really the problem? Or rather, is that the only way of looking at the problem?
Here are some other possible perspectives:
a)The tenants are not good because they complain a lot, so they should be fired.
b)The threat of leaving is the problem- if the landlord offers the tenants something else in return for not complaining/threatening to leave, it may solve the landlord’s problem
c)Or…The tenants don’t like to wait for the elevators. It’s the waiting, and the boredom that comes with having nothing to do while waiting, that’s the problem.
This is exactly how the landlord saw the problem. So he decided to install mirrors in the elevator waiting areas, to give people something to engage themselves with (admiring themselves in the mirror), whilst they waited for the elevators. And it actually worked. The installation of mirrors was made quickly and at a relatively low cost. The complaints about waiting stopped. Today, if you’ve noticed, it’s fairly commonplace to have mirrors outside elevators. And that, is how this practice started.
If we have a hammer, we tend to see everything as a nail, but it may not be a nail, it may be a hole in the wall, or a leak in the pipe, or any one of a hundred and forty six other things. We need to open our minds to see things differently. To go beyond the obvious. To use our creativity to think of different approaches and perspectives to the problem at hand. Had the landlord tried to make elevators faster, he would have ended up spending much more money and resources, but all he did was install mirrors and the problem was solved.
Lesson: Don’t try to build faster elevators. Use your imagination to get to the root of the problem before trying to fix it.
So what is the root of the problem? That’s a very big question but here is one way of framing it that I borrowed from miscreanity. The optimal way to increase freedom for individuals is to allow and enable instead of control. A universal strategy is an essential foundation that enables freedom. Without that, we have the situation that is developing now with varying viewpoints where some sets are progressing toward destruction. Competition can take place when there is room for growth but on a globally saturated scale, nobody wins. Reproductive strategy is likely to become essentially irrelevant for humanity, possibly within our lifetimes. It seems inevitable that our existing biological bodies will give way to different forms that will carry us off-planet. Furthermore it is probable that we are expanding into a universe that is not empty. It will contain other life some older and much farther along then us some younger with the potential to become like us in time. Allowing and enabling all individuals indeed all life to thrive in a constructive environment will become paramount. What then is the protocol that keeps our freedom from becoming destructive? Of course, my thinking is that the protocol is outlined in the Christian bible. If you disagree the onus is on you to genuinely solve the problem another way and the solution cannot be limited to yourself but must be be alive capable of propagating to others and able to sustain itself and grow. It is in your self interest to find a solution to the problem and to be absolutely confident and certain in your answer. |
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You have no proof that afterlife or any Gods exist, yet you somehow think you stand on the higher moral ground by having these irrational beliefs.
Goodness can also be brought by people who do not contemplate God and are convinced that belief in the supernatural is a bunch of horseshit. How would you explain that? LOL.
You are an enigma to me. You seem to understand what I am talking about, but yet have this mental block when it comes to your irrational assumption about the 'creator of the universe who influences the world through the actions of people who believe in him'.
How in the world can you prove that your God influences the actions of people who contemplate him? Aren't hardcore Atheists not God's children? Aren't billions of Hindus or Chinese Buddhists not God's children?
It’s very easy to prove God influences the actions of people who contemplate him there are examples of this happening every day. Here is a personal one. I am a physician. Yesterday I had a patient come in to see me who was very poor and on Medicaid. In my field most providers in my specialty do not take Medicaid because it does not pay particularly well. The patient in question was a candidate for an interventional procedure I do to help with her condition. Most private insurances would have paid for it Medicaid will not because well because its Medicaid and sometimes you get what you pay for when it comes to insurance. So I put her on my schedule and will do the procedure for free. Why, because I can, she can benefit, and she honestly has no way to pay for it. She is poor I am not. I would not have done that 5 years ago before I started to contemplate God. In fact I would not have seen her at all because business is business and it is certainly not good business to do things for free or for that matter to see Medicaid patients at all. Now did God do that or did I do that? Well it was certainly me but I only did so because at some point in my life I started to contemplate God. So God gets the lion’s share of the credit probably all the credit because it was ultimately God and my contemplation of him that led to the act of mercy. Goodness can indeed be brought into the world by people who do not contemplate God. Hardcore Atheists and billions of Hindus or Chinese Buddhists are most definitely God's children. Undeniably many of them by our very lenient human standards are good. You seem to place a high value on charity and helping others. Perhaps you would have done the exact same in my shoes. Perhaps you would do far more good and for far greater numbers if you had the exact same resources and skill sets I do. That is not the point. Some people are innately taller, some stronger, and other are more inherently good or evil then others. I am somewhere in the middle not particularly good not particularly evil average overall, I'd say except for academics I was blessed to be above average in that area. These differences are often inherent some people are naturally compassionate other have no inherent empathy at all. The question is how we exceed ourselves. How do we go beyond our build in default condition? What is the best way to become good if we are not naturally very good or become better if we are already good? The answer is two-fold: 1) we can in theory fundamentally change ourselves at the biological or mental level. We lack the ability to do this now but there is no doubt this kind of change is coming soon and will almost certainly go catastrophically awry if we are not much wiser by the time it gets here 2) We can accept a fundamental Truth and worldview that forces attention to goodness front and center and into every aspect of our lives and propagate that Truth into the future. This second option is transformative. If chosen on a large enough scale it may just prevent or more realistically delay our self-destruction once the first option becomes possible. The mental block is yours as is ultimately the irrationality I understand your particular block well enough to know that you will translate all of this as my psychological need for irrational beliefs or God in order to "feel good" or "be good" or “address my insecurities.” In doing so you will entirely miss the point. I understand why you think the way you do because I once shared a worldview not all that different from your and then rejected it so it is not hard for me to slip into old habits and envision the world as you do. The reverse is probably not true hence the enigma. |
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Nah... I am amazed by all the life that is around us. I do not worship it. I appreciate it.
Life is, just is. Whether I am alive, whether I am amazed by it or NOT. It was here billions of years before me, and it will be here in billions of years after I die.
The difference between our positions is that you focus on the afterlife, I focus on this life when we are alive.
There is no afterlife IMHO. You beg to differ.
You think that the afterlife is more important than this life. That is why you don't value this life the same way I do.
To you this life is worthless, the life in the afterlife is the prize you are after.
The concept of God that you have invented is just mental imagery and feelings you have developed to help you believe that there is an afterlife; the afterlife you so desperately seek.
In this you have judged me incorrectly. I don’t think an afterlife is more important then this life. Any afterlife would be an extension of this life built upon the foundation we create in the here and now. I also believe you are wrong about the afterlife but even if you are right it would change nothing. God brings goodness into this world primarily via the actions of his children who contemplate him. If God had not yet created the conditions necessary for an afterlife then the sacrifice called for by his creations would be much greater but our duty would remain unchanged. Genesis 28:12 and John 4:38 can give you a hint as to what that duty would be. Fortunately, for us the same text tells us that the necessary price has already been paid. Ultimately even the afterlife is secondary. What matters most is what we ourselves are and that in turn is driven by what we choose to worship. |
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I said, "if you must worship". I don't need to worship anything.
I cannot believe it. Are all religious folks so shallow to think only about themselves and their salvation?
It is all about you and your personal pleasure.
Why would you even think that someone would want to be good to others to satisfy their own personal whimsy?
You are good to others so that others feel good. That is what selflessness is all about.
Maybe religious people cannot become truly selfless that is why you don't understand or trust what I am talking about.
Maybe that is why you invent the supernatural to satisfy your pathological lack of empathy for human beings.
You need the supernatural because you lack connection with other, physical life.
I am afraid our nervous systems are wired differently that is why you do not truly trust and understand what I am saying.
Instead, you look for invalidation of my position elsewhere by inventing that reason to fit it into your worldview.
I am walking, talking Jesus or Budda compared to you guys.
You are wrong on that point af_newbie. Everyone worships something. Your only choice is what that worship is centered on and whether you are going to be aware of what you are worshipping. Here is the entire speech by David Foster Wallace. It was dubbed by Time magazine the greatest commencement speech of all time and it highlights this issue well. This Is Water - Full version-David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMIAlmost none of us are selfless. I certainly am not. Religious people are still people. Yes an individual who is religious only out of a concern or fear for his or her presumed future salvation is also engaged in a form of self-worship. We are a very self centered species and our religions institutions are not immune to our failings. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, however, can with time and greater wisdom lead to doing the right thing for the right reasons. Whether you are a walking, talking Jesus or Buddha compared to me I cannot say as I don’t really know you or how you live your life. What I can say is that as I have grown wiser my eyes have opened to my own sin and moral failures. I do not consider myself a “good” person. I consider myself a sinner who genuinely strives to sin less so that I can become a better person. Given your claim that you don’t know what sin means I recommend caution in comparing yourself to Jesus or Buddha. |
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I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable. We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches. “You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See: An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal. If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you. As for the closed or open systems, it is your assumption, just like your assumption that God must exist. We are here on this Earth for a very short time; make the best of it. Impact lives of people around you in a positive way, create good memories. That is all you can do. You did not exist for billions of years, you exist only for about 80-120 years if you are lucky, then you go back to non-existing forever (or about 20 billion years as some estimate, then the Big Rip or Big Crunch will destroy all atoms in your body and the rest of the universe). We are indeed only on this earth for a very short period of time and your suggestions on ways to make the most of that time are not bad ones. 1) Impact the lives of people around you in a positive way. 2) Create good memories. 3) Develop deep, meaningful relationships with people. 4) Love and respect life (humans, plants, animals). These are all good suggestions but do they qualify as the objects of worship that Mr. Wallace described above? To answer that we must ask another question. Are we valuing those things as means to an end or an end in itself? Perhaps what we are really after is personal pleasure and satisfaction and feel those rules the best way to achieve it. In that event personal pleasure is our true object of worship not the suggestions. We despite our fine words are much more akin to the hedonist placing our pleasure above all else. One man might value deep meaningful relationships another endless one night stands personal preferences vary. Or perhaps we are really value successful reproduction and ensuring our genetic line extends propagates. Maybe those suggestions are our opinion on how best to achieve that. In that case we are again worshiping reproduction not the fine suggestions. One man may opt for the strategy of being the reliable family man, another might seek to be a scoundrel to seduce and then repeatedly abscond at the first opportunity. Strategies like personal preferences also vary. Or maybe just maybe we actually value those things as an end in an of themselves. That is far less likely. BADecker was correct when he noted that most of the time what we humans do is self-worship. If we value something as an end in and of itself we become more concerned more with the essence of those things and less about their impact on us personally. If we truly treasure deep, meaningful relationships or the love and respect of life as an ends then our primary concern will not be maximization of those things in our personal lives though that will most certainly happen. Instead our primary goal will be ensuring those treasured ends grow stronger in the world and do everything we can to ensure that after our deaths we leave a world with more of those meaningful relationships and a greater love and respect of life then was there when we entered it. If we value something as an ends we must ask ourselves how do I make sure I work towards those ends even if I don't want to or I am tired. What will keep me on track when those ends no longer give me the pleasure they once did or they become costly. How do I grow those many good things in a world that is not necessary fertile soil for the principles and does not prioritize them. A system is obviously necessary. A system that strengthens us and helps keep our focus on necessary goals. I would propose two alternative rules from which your four goals can be naturally derived from. 1) Love God: This unifies all creation under a father. It makes all of us and all of life siblings to one another. 2) Love your neighbor as yourself: This dictates how we are to treat our siblings. I would suggest that your list of good things follows naturally from genuine application of the two premises above. Furthermore I would highlight that the the above two rules are viable as ends in and of themselves and not just as means. Finally I would point out that their exists a well structured system built around those principles that already exists to help support and propagate them. What we worship ultimately defines what we are. |
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You missed his point. His point was that in the future we could discover how the world (and all the parallel universes) were created naturally. Your position is not allowing for any future discoveries to be accepted because it would invalidate your 'God the creator of all things' position entirely.
An honest position is to say: we know what we know, what we don't know we don't know...
Exactly. Just look at history. Was it not more logical to believe in a god 5000 years ago? I believe it was. People had so little information about anything, a big bearded man in the sky seemed quite logical. They also believed the earth was flat, can you blame them? Of course that was shown to be not even close to reality. I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable. We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches. “You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See: An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal. |
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Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand.
There are a ton of problems with this kind of argument. For one, something that might seem logical now, might not be logical tomorrow when we find out whatever new information that changes everything. Perhaps our understanding of the universe is not even 0.01% correct. Second problem would be that even if it's logical to think there is a creator, the argument still doesn't show it's the god from the bible and not other god. Regarding #1 Our knowledge may indeed expand in the future and invalidate some of current understanding. However, changing or shaping your current worldview based on hypothetical future knowledge that may or may not ever exist is not a path to a sane or stable worldview. Regarding #2 If there is an entity that created the universe then by definition that is the God of the Bible for such a creator is by definition God. This would be true even if the Bible was somehow shown to be incomplete or inaccurate in its description of said creator. |
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In regards to “good people” I suspect we would have trouble agreeing on the definition of that term. here is a comment I ran across a few months back that stuck with me. Not my words but I have found them to be true.
“I have often noticed. The further the unbeliever is from God...the more "good" they believe themselves to be. Contrastly, the nearer one draws toward God...the less good they see in their own life! God is the light the reveals the sin within us. As we draw nearer that light...so that sin is revealed. As we move further ...so that sin disappears in the darkness.”
The proper term would be a spiritual transformation. Perhaps that’s why you are struggling with the concept. Materialist reject the existence of the spirit so naturally it’s difficult to understand the transformation of something that you refuse to acknowledge exists. As I said before the closest analogy in materialist phraseology would be an update or revision of the core operating system.
That is the problem. I don't even know what does 'sin' or 'spirit' even mean. They are abstract concepts developed to instill fear and bondage in the gullible masses. So what you're talking about is mumbo jumbo in my 'materialistic' world. Makes absolutely no sense. Crazy talk. Yes well that happens when people adopt different fundamental a priori about the nature of the universe. They begin to branch out in entirely different directions. To you my arguments sound like crazy talk. To me your arguments appear as willful blindness reflecting an inability to open your eyes and take in the nature of reality around you. The a priori matters quite a bit. Our innate biological limitations lock us into set forms and patterns dictated by natural law but increasingly we are developing the power to overcome these and remake reality according to our whims. As we do so the a priori becomes ever more important as it ultimately directs our developmental path which becomes a matter of choice not destiny. A synonym for a priori is faith. Everyone who is logical and consistent has a faith. The nihilist has faith in the meaninglessness of the universe. The hedonist has faith that pleasure is the most important thing in life. The theist has faith in God. What we choose to have faith in is far more important then commonly recognized for in the end it dictates who we are. If you understand this you can begin to understand why a genuine faith in God may at the end of the day be more important then the mistakes even the horrible ones that people may have committed on the winding path to achieving that faith. |
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Are you are talking about a functional transformation?
How did your body or mind functionally changed since you 'accepted' God?
Let me give you a hint. Good people remain good people despite believing or disbelieving in imaginary friends. Same goes for the bad apples.
Again, a real example would be helpful to understand where you went wrong.
In regards to “good people” I suspect we would have trouble agreeing on the definition of that term. here is a comment I ran across a few months back that stuck with me. Not my words but I have found them to be true. “I have often noticed. The further the unbeliever is from God...the more "good" they believe themselves to be. Contrastly, the nearer one draws toward God...the less good they see in their own life! God is the light the reveals the sin within us. As we draw nearer that light...so that sin is revealed. As we move further ...so that sin disappears in the darkness.” The proper term would be a spiritual transformation. Perhaps that’s why you are struggling with the concept. Materialist reject the existence of the spirit so naturally it’s difficult to understand the transformation of something that you refuse to acknowledge exists. As I said before the closest analogy in materialist phraseology would be an update or revision of the core operating system. |
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What part of there's a giant bearded dude in the sky that created earth and man don't you understand?
Notbatman is a simpleton or troll who ignores all scientific evidence, believes that everyone is engaged in a giant conspiracy to hide the nature of the planet and can apparently only visualize an infinite creator as a big man in the sky with a giant beard. Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand. |
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What transformation are you talking about? Are you 'transforming' right now?
Can you post the before and after pictures from your transformation? What exactly did you transform? Please be specific.
Maybe a computer science analogy will be easier for you to follow? When you download an operating system onto a computer what kind of transformation is that? Physically the change is unobservable the computer and hard drive look exactly the same. Nevertheless the functional changes and the effect on the behavior of the system is profound. Choosing God is the human version of this general type of transformation a revision to the core operating system. Nearly completely unobservable yet at the same time fundamental. |
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BTW, it is not 'God' who is transforming you, it is you who is transforming you
Those are not mutually exclusive possibilities. Why do you need a new word for it? If it is energy that is within us, call it that and be done with it. Why continue to use this intricate mythology around the concepts that are well understood today? Not sure I am following you? What new word? We bring God into this world via our faith and subsequent actions. In the process we transform both ourselves and the world. We are the ones doing the work but the work and transformation is only possible because of God. |
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BTW, it is not 'God' who is transforming you, it is you who is transforming you
Those are not mutually exclusive possibilities. |
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I hope one day I will be able to know which to believe but if I don’t no biggie.
Here is a video on this topic that I enjoyed watching. It’s one of my favorite essays by of C.S. Lewis’s narrated and put to video. Man or Rabbit by C.S. Lewis https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X9fR1vSxNEQ |
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Subjugation to the Bronze Age way of thinking can bring you to destruction in a New York minute.
Fictional characters remain fictional, no matter what you or I believe.
Actually the opposite is true. Rejecting God is what brings destruction down upon you. It is not the destruction of a vengeful entity but the tragedy of foolish self destruction. Most people don’t understand the foundation their society was built upon and what is necessary to sustain it. Your error is your focus. Your seem to think that the important question is what exists out there apart from you. That is certainly an interesting question but ultimitally secondary. The important question is what exists inside of you. What is there at your essence that can be built upon. God is something transforms you a necessary foundation. |
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A murderer who kills and repents may indeed be less evil then a man who denies God and lives an outwardly unassuming life. ...
I think your moral compass is skewed. If I live my selfless life helping others, caring for poor and needy, never harmed anyone, I am eviler than a murderer just because I think that the fictional characters are fictional? Who thought you such garbage? Ask for a refund. You may indeed do all those good things now. Maybe you are the utterly selfless individual Astargath was imagining upthread. In that event it is unquestionable that you are going good in the here and now and should be commended for it. However that’s not the most important question when discussing an afterlife. More important then what you have done so far is what you would do if given tremendously more power then you currently have and an eternity of time to work with. What fundamental core belief do hold that will keep you on the path of good. After eons of serving the poor and needy what would prevent you from ever becomming bored and deciding one day to glorify and serve yourself with your great power instead of using it to serve others? The answer of course is that it is the genuine acceptance that we are the stewards not the owners of God’s creation that our accomplishments are a reflection of his glory not our own. That willing subjugation is what prevents the self from becomming destructive. |
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