Believe is Shaken

[rossum]

I believe that your argument is unwittingly placing the eternal God in a temporal frame.

No. I am placing God’s actions in a temporal frame. Every miracle attributed to God is an action in a temporal frame. The Red Sea was parted inside the temporal frame of the material universe.

Also, if God is omnipresent, then He is present both inside and outside the temporal frame. He cannot be omnipresent if there is somewhere He is not present.

An unchanging God in time would be a God trapped in amber, unable to so much as part a Red Sea.

Exactly my point. That which is unchanging cannot act; that which acts cannot be unchanging.

In Buddhism, everything changes, the gods included. Even nirvana changes, otherwise it could not change from nirvana-without-rossum to nirvana-with-rossum.

rossum

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

Adam and Eve didn’t want to be “like god”. There is no evidence that says that at all in the bible, being the only source we can use. I came from my parents sure and humans came about from a common ancestor. They didn’t know because the tree of knowledge was “forbidden”.

“Your eyes will be opened and you shall be as gods–” BINGO!a

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

No. I am placing God’s actions in a temporal frame. Every miracle attributed to God is an action in a temporal frame. The Red Sea was parted inside the temporal frame of the material universe.

Also, if God is omnipresent, then He is present both inside and outside the temporal frame. He cannot be omnipresent if there is somewhere He is not present.

Exactly my point. That which is unchanging cannot act; that which acts cannot be unchanging.

In Buddhism, everything changes, the gods included. Even nirvana changes, otherwise it could not change from nirvana-without-rossum to nirvana-with-rossum.

rossum

God transcends human understanding.

 

[NM505StKate]

1. The two accounts of Judas’s death are hardly irreconcilable. Using a little imagination, we can easily sew them together. Perhaps he hung himself and after he had been hanging for a time the rope snapped and he fell. That would be speculative on our part, but that’s okay. It need not challenge your faith.
2. The passage in Matthew is admittedly mysterious. If I don’t immediately understand, does that make it untrue? And when you consider the paucity of sources for information regarding first century Judea, it’s not surprising that very little of the New Testament can be confirmed with other sources. I once encountered a person in an online debate who thought that the crucifixion could probably be easily disproved by looking at Roman crucifixion records, as though the Roman police blotter for Judea province in 33 A.D. is just a few mouse clicks away. Would that it were!
3. Yes, if you don’t pay any attention to the eyewitness accounts from the event, it isn’t difficult to write it off as the sun playing tricks on people or mass hallucinations. As to the latter, mass hallucinations do not exist. As to the former, a wide variety of people from ardent believers to mocking atheists came away profoundly shocked and moved by the experience that they shared. Fatima is not (and should not be) the pillar of my faith, but I would be very hesitant to write it off if I were you. Were it not a religious event, I suspect you’d have much less difficulty believing it.

1. How he died is not really the major sticking point. In Matthew Judas died with a guilty conscious as well as having tossed the money back at the Pharasees. In Acts he kept the money and had no guilt before he died. Also in Acts it clearly states Judas was walking and then fell with his bowels bursting open.
2. The Romans kept very good records for all the things they did. Since the Church is based in Rome there has to be records kept that say what happened. Kind of brings up a point. Now one gospel says that the Holy Family had to leave to Egypt due to Herod. Another says about a census. Problem is the census took place a fair while after Herod’s death. So which is it? Also was Jesus born in a feeding trough/manger or in a house?
3. Actually eye witness accounts are not that reliable because the brain can play tricks on us. To be a bit odd do you take the word of UFO abductees? They are eye witnesses but hardly believed. How about the people who have claimed to see Bigfoot. Eyewitnesses but no evidence.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

1. The two accounts of Judas’s death are hardly irreconcilable. Using a little imagination, we can easily sew them together. Perhaps he hung himself and after he had been hanging for a time the rope snapped and he fell. That would be speculative on our part, but that’s okay. It need not challenge your faith.
2. The passage in Matthew is admittedly mysterious. If I don’t immediately understand, does that make it untrue? And when you consider the paucity of sources for information regarding first century Judea, it’s not surprising that very little of the New Testament can be confirmed with other sources. I once encountered a person in an online debate who thought that the crucifixion could probably be easily disproved by looking at Roman crucifixion records, as though the Roman police blotter for Judea province in 33 A.D. is just a few mouse clicks away. Would that it were!
3. Yes, if you don’t pay any attention to the eyewitness accounts from the event, it isn’t difficult to write it off as the sun playing tricks on people or mass hallucinations. As to the latter, mass hallucinations do not exist. As to the former, a wide variety of people from ardent believers to mocking atheists came away profoundly shocked and moved by the experience that they shared. Fatima is not (and should not be) the pillar of my faith, but I would be very hesitant to write it off if I were you. Were it not a religious event, I suspect you’d have much less difficulty believing it.

The dead did appear after His ressurection. They testified to Jesus as the Ressurection and the life.

 

[NM505StKate]

“Your eyes will be opened and you shall be as gods–” BINGO!a

That is not what it says. It says not to eat of the tree because if you do you will surely die. When El Eloiam, sorry for misspelling, was more talking about them eating from the tree of life which would make Adam and Eve like “us” as in gods.

 

[Hicks]

Also, if God is omnipresent, then He is present both inside and outside the temporal frame. He cannot be omnipresent if there is somewhere He is not present.
rossum

This is correct, we are not in disagreement. You are lacking the key point, however. God is eternally present, even in our temporal frame. However, as I said previously, God does not change because God is fully in possession of himself and eternally present. There is therefore no contradiction in saying that God can change something without himself being changed.

God did not change when he brought me into existence. I did not add to his being or take away. Having created me (in time) is eternally part of who God is, but this was only actualized in our frame of reference in 1983 A.D.

 

[NM505StKate]

The dead did appear after His ressurection. They testified to Jesus as the Ressurection and the life.

Oh? Then why is it only in one Gospel? Why is it not recorded anywhere else in Jewish history books? The dead freaking walking is a pretty big event yet only one source can claim it?

 

[NM505StKate]

This is correct, we are not in disagreement. You are lacking the key point, however. God is eternally present, even in our temporal frame. However, as I said previously, God does not change because God is fully in possession of himself and eternally present. There is therefore no contradiction in saying that God can change something without himself being changed.

God did not change when he brought me into existence. I did not add to his being or take away. Having created me (in time) is eternally part of who God is, but this was only actualized in our frame of reference in 1983 A.D.

Sounds more like a paradox.

 

[Hicks]

The dead did appear after His ressurection. They testified to Jesus as the Ressurection and the life.

I completely agree. The Gospel writer says this and I have no doubt of its truth. By mysterious, I mean as to questions like “in what manner and appearance?”, “for how long?”, etc. Kate seems to be asking why dead men walking didn’t make a bigger impression, and my answer is simply that we don’t know enough about the event itself to really say.

NM505StKate:

Oh? Then why is it only in one Gospel? Why is it not recorded anywhere else in Jewish history books? The dead freaking walking is a pretty big event yet only one source can claim it?

Go gather up all the Jewish history books from this period. It won’t take you long. Dwell on the possibility of bias and selective telling of events from other sources as well as our comparatively little knowledge about the event itself even from Matthew. It’s an interesting problem, but hardly a faith killer.

 

[Hicks]

Sounds more like a paradox.

I fail to see it. Please expand.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Adam and Eve didn’t want to be “like god”. There is no evidence that says that at all in the bible, being the only source we can use. I came from my parents sure and humans came about from a common ancestor. They didn’t know because the tree of knowledge was “forbidden”.

That’s why they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Sure, we all have a common ancestor. There was a first person, but from where did that first person, who had no parents come?

And the universe? How did all that cosmic material get there?

 

[Lily_Bernans]

“Your eyes will be opened and you shall be as gods–” BINGO!a

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I believe that your argument is unwittingly placing the eternal God in a temporal frame. An unchanging God in time would be a God trapped in amber, unable to so much as part a Red Sea. A changing God would be a God that (in changing) was heading toward or away from perfection. Either way, He would be imperfect, and therefore not God.

The Catholic God is not trapped in an instant of time **or **constantly changing. He is in full possession of himself. As a human, I am not in full possession of myself. Yesterday is inaccessible, tomorrow unimaginable. I gain or lose aspects of myself as time passes. On the other hand, God is in full possession of himself, such that parting the Red Sea, sending His Son in the Incarnation, and the Second Coming are all part of His eternal Now.

God is able to act in time without being changed because He himself is not in time, but its Creator and Master.

Frank Sheed’s “Theology for Beginners” is excellent. Pardon this extended quote, Sheed expresses the thought with great clarity:

"God is changeless because he is infinite. He has all perfections. He cannot lose any of them, so there is no past into which they can flow away. Nor is there any future from which new perfections can flow to him. He has all perfections, in the present, a present which does not change and does not cease. That is eternity. The universe he created is not like that. Things come and go. Change is continuous. Time and the universe started together.

We must concentrate upon the concept of eternity; it brings us deep into the meaning of God. You and I and all of us are in time, which means that we are never at any moment the whole of ourselves. What we were last year, what we shall be next year, all belong to our total being; but last year has gone and next year has not arrived. There is never a moment when we are all there. We possess our being, the philosopher say, successively. Not so God. All that he is, he possesses in one single act of being. Eternity does not mean everlasting time, time open at both ends, so that however far you go back into the past there is no beginning, however far you go forward in the future, there is no end. Eternity is not time at all. It is God’s total possession of himself."

Great post!

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

Oh? Then why is it only in one Gospel? Why is it not recorded anywhere else in Jewish history books? The dead freaking walking is a pretty big event yet only one source can claim it?

Matthew was written to the Jews to prove that Jesus was their Messiah. In the prophecy of Ezekiel God promises to raise Israel’s “dry bones.” In Jesus the prophecy is fufilled.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

1. How he died is not really the major sticking point. In Matthew Judas died with a guilty conscious as well as having tossed the money back at the Pharasees. In Acts he kept the money and had no guilt before he died. Also in Acts it clearly states Judas was walking and then fell with his bowels bursting open.
2. The Romans kept very good records for all the things they did. Since the Church is based in Rome there has to be records kept that say what happened. Kind of brings up a point. Now one gospel says that the Holy Family had to leave to Egypt due to Herod. Another says about a census. Problem is the census took place a fair while after Herod’s death. So which is it? Also was Jesus born in a feeding trough/manger or in a house?
3. Actually eye witness accounts are not that reliable because the brain can play tricks on us. To be a bit odd do you take the word of UFO abductees? They are eye witnesses but hardly believed. How about the people who have claimed to see Bigfoot. Eyewitnesses but no evidence.

Judas’ rope could have been weak and he may have fallen headlong.
Or he may have survived his suicide attempt and then fallen headlong
There are many threads on this subject.

Quirinius could have been a deputy govenor. Or the text may have been corrupted.

So according to you all of Jerusalem was hallucinating?

 

[NM505StKate]

I completely agree. The Gospel writer says this and I have no doubt of its truth. By mysterious, I mean as to questions like “in what manner and appearance?”, “for how long?”, etc. Kate seems to be asking why dead men walking didn’t make a bigger impression, and my answer is simply that we don’t know enough about the event itself to really say.

Go gather up all the Jewish history books from this period. It won’t take you long. Dwell on the possibility of bias and selective telling of events from other sources as well as our comparatively little knowledge about the event itself even from Matthew. It’s an interesting problem, but hardly a faith killer.

The writer of Matthew fixed up bits of Mark and is generally considered a Jewish apologetic. Interesting how none of the other Gospels even mention it because that would be one heck of a way to convince people. “The dead walked and talked to proclaim this carpenter as the living God? Sign me up.” but that didn’t happen. I agree there is bias but the dead fragging walking is a big deal.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

The writer of Matthew fixed up bits of Mark and is generally considered a Jewish apologetic. Interesting how none of the other Gospels even mention it because that would be one heck of a way to convince people. “The dead walked and talked to proclaim this carpenter as the living God? Sign me up.” but that didn’t happen. I agree there is bias but the dead fragging walking is a big deal.

I advise you to reread my last post Kate.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I mean this is the most charitable way, but it would do you good, Kate, to take a basic Catechism course or join the RCIA group at your parish.

Before you can attempt to refute Catholicism, you have to understand it first. People who are questioning can always use more knowledge.

 

[NM505StKate]

That’s why they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Sure, we all have a common ancestor. There was a first person, but from where did that first person, who had no parents come?

And the universe? How did all that cosmic material get there?

No they ate because it looked good to eat and had a sweet smell. They were naïve on everything. Think of them like full grown babies. Sure can walk and talk but have no experience at all. Just dolls that do as they are told. If God wanted this why put the tree there? Why make the fruit look pleasing to the eye and smell good? Maybe God wanted man to “fall” to punish them and send them to hell? Maybe it should be considered a myth and a way of the ancient Jewish people used to explain how they came about or as a metaphor of man leaving hunting/gathering and settled into a less nomadic life.

We don’t know how the universe started before the Big Bang. Maybe it always existed. Not going to dive into the first person thing because of banned topic.