Something puzzling

[Momsurroundedbyboys]

(09-01-2013 01:02 AM)morondog Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 12:47 AM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote:  it's far easier to be a "believer".

No it's not ??? You have to find somehow a non-bullshit interpretation for everything that shakes your faith, or you have to just stop being curious and elevate praying and other such boring activities to the status of the best thing you can think of doing. Or dumb yourself down to a level where the religious shit makes some sort of sense.

No, I think most of that stuff goes right oer their heads. I have many friends who have returned to college and say they know the answers the teacher wants to them to give but feel that instructor/or class is trying to beat god out of them....and they laugh at that notion. Everything is giant test for them to prove their love for god. or something....

[Aseptic Skeptic]

(09-01-2013 10:26 AM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 01:02 AM)morondog Wrote:   No it's not ??? You have to find somehow a non-bullshit interpretation for everything that shakes your faith, or you have to just stop being curious and elevate praying and other such boring activities to the status of the best thing you can think of doing. Or dumb yourself down to a level where the religious shit makes some sort of sense.

No, I think most of that stuff goes right oer their heads. I have many friends who have returned to college and say they know the answers the teacher wants to them to give but feel that instructor/or class is trying to beat god out of them....and they laugh at that notion. Everything is giant test for them to prove their love for god. or something....

Test = persecution. Persecution, especially by those we perceive as beneath us and probably envious of what we have and they don't, is uplifting and unifying - we're all persecuted because our persecutors are sad, lost, envious little atheists, sub-human and condemned to a life wallowing in misery followed by an afterlife in worse misery. Our persecutions just prove to show how special we are. Praise Jesus!

[Momsurroundedbyboys]

(09-01-2013 04:05 AM)Aseptic Skeptic Wrote:  

(08-01-2013 10:46 PM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote:  Down in the Boxing Ring thread with KC, he said something rather firmly that god knows everything. If that's true, then did god also make atheists? Are we in a spiritual purgatory? Or were we created to test the faith of Christians?

I just find this a bit confusing.

Excellent question, and it's one which unravels basic concepts of Christianity.

Presuppositions:
1. God knows everything
2. "Everything" includes the entire past, present, and future
3. Heaven and hell exist
4. Failure to achieve salvation and remain in a state of grace is cause for going to hell
5. We cannot truly know god because he is supernatural, invisible, and remaining undetectable to us probably because he's giving us freewill

Most Christians believe in most of that. KC might argue the 4th point on the grounds that he believes only 144,000 pre-selected souls go to heaven, which invalidates most of the need for living a "Christian" life - you're either pre-selected or you're not. But that belief doesn't invalidate my argument.

The problem is this. God seems to be hiding; we surely can't find him. There are literally thousands of religions on this planet. Most people in those religions are there by accident of birth - it was mom and dad's religion. Others are there by conversion which usually happens by a) being vulnerable (sad, suffering, lost a loved one, whatever) and b) a chance encounter with someone who spreads word of their favorite religion.

Either way, it's chance.

So some lucky few who were born right or met the right proselytizer at the right time in their life will go to heaven. Everyone else will burn in hell. Based on modern statistics, there are about 2 billion Christians in the world but they're so subdivided into different sects and cults and whatnot that clearly not all of them are going to heaven; even they admit that (usually by telling other Christians that they will go to hell). Even if the largest group is right, that's still less than 1 billion souls saved.

Out of 7 billion people on the planet right now, 1 billion are saved (or significantly less; KC believes that number is about a million times too big). That means that at least 6 billion will burn for eternity. Maybe it's much closer to almost all 7 billion will burn for eternity.

God knows this. He knew it before he said "Let there be light." Further, he knew which of us would burn and which would be saved, even billions (or thousands for the YECs) of years before we were born. He knew me, my name, my thoughts, the number of hairs on my head, and my eternal fate, all before he said "Let there be light."

Some argue this point. Some say god doesn't know the future. I suggest, and many Christians agree, that saying such a thing limits god. Saying "Aha, there is something god doesn't know" defies his omniscience and probably his omnipotence too - certainly an omnipotent god could give himself the power to see the future.

So god knew he was sending billions and billions and billions of people to hell. Forever. Heck, if the human race sticks around long enough, it will be trillions and trillions of people. Burning forever. No reprieve.

Why will we burn?

Because god made stupid rules and then did everything he could to make sure we didn't know the rules - faked the age of the universe, faked the age of the earth, faked DNA, faked evolution, faked most sciences, faked history, faked everything, really. And then he gave us the rules disguised as a flawed, illogical, mistranslated, miscopied, deliberately manipulated book of ancient mythology that only a tiny portion of the world received, knowing we wouldn't all believe it. And then he buried that one little book by allowing thousands of other religions to seem just as valid.

How can we possibly choose? God knows the answer - we can't. It's luck of the draw or we burn. He knows it. He knew it all along.

He wants us to burn. Almost all of us. Forever and ever.

And he will hear every scream of tortured agony from every throat of every soul suffering for all of eternity. Billions of agonized screams and begging for mercy every second, for every second of eternity. Literally infinite screaming and suffering and misery, and he will hear every scream. He is omnipresent, after all, so he's there next to every tortured soul, watching and hearing and smelling the torture and the burning and the agony and the screaming.

This is what god wants? This is what he created us for?

It's most sadistic, cruel, evil thing I can imagine. In fact, it's literally infinitely more sadistic and evil than anything else I can imagine.

This is the Christian god. This is his plan. This is his mercy. This is his love for us all. This is his salvation for only a tiny percentage of souls he knew would be saved from before the beginning of time.

This is god?

By this standard, god is infinitely more evil than Satan - Satan is just doing the job that god selected for him from the beginning, doing what he was created to do, doing the will of the almighty, omnipotent, invincible god. It was god who made these rules, god who enforces them, god who created us all knowing he would send us to hell for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Way, way, way worse than Satan.

Dawkins said, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully".

He's right. But I say that isn't even the tip of the iceberg. The crap he pulled in the Old Testament is nothing compared to the book of revelations and an eternity of billions, trillions of souls tortured for ever and ever and ever. Our afterlife is quite literally infinitely worse than the Old Testament, infinitely worse than Dawkins' entirely inadequate description of this infinitely sadistic god.

The only thing that, to me, is worse than what I just described is the evil Christians who wish this fate on people like you and me just because we don't believe in their imaginary sky-daddy. God is imaginary (as is Satan, don't take my point above to be profession of a belief in Satan). God didn't really do this. No god could possibly do this. But those Christians are real, and they really wish this fate on total strangers over a difference in beliefs. That's real evil which, in my book, trumps all imaginary evil.

Yes, but even in KC's case, how does he know he's one of the blessed ones who does get to reside in heaven? Yet under that kind of scheme, no free will (not that I agree with free will much to begin with), an omniscient/omnipotent god; then someone completely evil could be allowed in heaven because they're pre-selected and all the evil they bring God decided on as a way to cull people. That's just wicked.

[Momsurroundedbyboys]

(09-01-2013 10:41 AM)Aseptic Skeptic Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 10:26 AM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote:  No, I think most of that stuff goes right oer their heads. I have many friends who have returned to college and say they know the answers the teacher wants to them to give but feel that instructor/or class is trying to beat god out of them....and they laugh at that notion. Everything is giant test for them to prove their love for god. or something....

Test = persecution. Persecution, especially by those we perceive as beneath us and probably envious of what we have and they don't, is uplifting and unifying - we're all persecuted because our persecutors are sad, lost, envious little atheists, sub-human and condemned to a life wallowing in misery followed by an afterlife in worse misery. Our persecutions just prove to show how special we are. Praise Jesus!

Yes that....exactly!

[Momsurroundedbyboys]

(09-01-2013 09:18 AM)DLJ Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 09:08 AM)ideasonscribe Wrote:  I'm not really sure what the condition of humans are when we spawn. It seems to me like it is built in our nature to rebel against God but I'm only semi-certain on that.
It seems to be the case that every human has free will and that our free will is to naturally do whatever we want, and that is to be as selfish as we can be. It also seems like we have this other part of us that knows what we ought to do, and so we sometimes are conflicted in our behavior.
...

Reading this, I feel very fortunate not to have to worry about any of it.

We have evolved social morals (reciprocity, empathy, loyalty etc.) so we do not just do whatever we want. Not even namiloveyou does that whatever he'/she may claim.
Even if were where naturally rebellious (which we are not or no one would belong to a religion or pay tax etc.) we can't rebel against an authority figure that does not exist.
There is growing evidence that explains the limitations of the 'free will' model.

That is good news worth spreading.

I have a huge issue with the whole "free will" thing. I'm constrained by so many things (my gender, DNA, sense of community -- I find it difficult to believe in the idea of "free will" on any level. I do understand there are people out there who might not share my "values" or "personal beliefs" but they too are constrained with their own issues (gender, DNA, genetic information, et al).

It's really funny because the idea has never sat well with me, but I lacked the ability to properly articulate it until I came here to this forum.

[Chas]

(09-01-2013 08:47 AM)ideasonscribe Wrote:  I'm not really sure what the condition of humans are when we spawn. It seems to me like it is built in our nature to rebel against God but I'm only semi-certain on that.

Spawn? Really?

How is it built in to our nature to rebel against the non-existent? A child (or demon-spawn) has no knowledge of any gods, so how could it rebel?

[Aseptic Skeptic]

(09-01-2013 11:16 AM)Chas Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 08:47 AM)ideasonscribe Wrote:  I'm not really sure what the condition of humans are when we spawn. It seems to me like it is built in our nature to rebel against God but I'm only semi-certain on that.

Spawn? Really?

How is it built in to our nature to rebel against the non-existent? A child (or demon-spawn) has no knowledge of any gods, so how could it rebel?

Duh. Original Sin. We're all born sinful and evil because of original sin. Don't you know anything? The bible says we're all evil and rebellious, right from birth.

What? It doesn't actually say that? Well, uh, you have to interpret the bible to see what it really means, and it definitely really means that.

[Impulse]

(09-01-2013 06:32 AM)ideasonscribe Wrote:  

(08-01-2013 10:46 PM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote:  Down in the Boxing Ring thread with KC, he said something rather firmly that god knows everything. If that's true, then did god also make atheists? Are we in a spiritual purgatory? Or were we created to test the faith of Christians?

I just find this a bit confusing.

Sometimes you guys aren't very consistent. That or you just aren't specifying.

Many of you have recently said that we are all born Atheists.

I think my stance was that we are all born Apatheists which is a type of Atheist. Basically, we are all born without having made a choice - then throughout life we make choices and believe different things.

So I don't think God creates the person distinctly as an Atheist. It seems more reasonable to say that He just gave every person the choice to do as they wish.

Not to sidetrack the thread, but I couldn't let this go. Each person logically must be born a theist or an atheist. They either have a belief in a god (theist) or they don't have a belief in a god (atheist). I would argue it's the latter due to their not having any concept of a god at all yet and they therefore can't be an apatheist either. You can't not care about something you don't even know about at all.

[Reltzik]

(08-01-2013 10:46 PM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote:  Down in the Boxing Ring thread with KC, he said something rather firmly that god knows everything. If that's true, then did god also make atheists? Are we in a spiritual purgatory? Or were we created to test the faith of Christians?

I just find this a bit confusing.

Of all the things to find confusing, you pick THAT?

Here's a better one. Why would an omniscient God seek to test people at all?

[Momsurroundedbyboys]

(09-01-2013 01:36 PM)Impulse Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 06:32 AM)ideasonscribe Wrote:  Sometimes you guys aren't very consistent. That or you just aren't specifying.

Many of you have recently said that we are all born Atheists.

I think my stance was that we are all born Apatheists which is a type of Atheist. Basically, we are all born without having made a choice - then throughout life we make choices and believe different things.

So I don't think God creates the person distinctly as an Atheist. It seems more reasonable to say that He just gave every person the choice to do as they wish.

Not to sidetrack the thread, but I couldn't let this go. Each person logically must be born a theist or an atheist. They either have a belief in a god (theist) or they don't have a belief in a god (atheist). I would argue it's the latter due to their not having any concept of a god at all yet and they therefore can't be an apatheist either. You can't not care about something you don't even know about at all.

Do you have evidence of this innate knowledge? Sayng that people are born with specific knowledge of god or gods and others aren't....seems at the least to be speculative.

If you're "atheist" simply because you haven't heard about the latest god or whatever that means you're not born with knowledge of any god (s).