So if scientists managed to one day create sentient life in a lab, they could literally do whatever they want to it including torture, mutilation, and murder because a creator has the right to do whatever it wants to it’s creation? They set the rules?yes, God has set the rules and as creator, has the right to do so.
God calls us to treat his creation with respect and dignity.So if scientists managed to one day create sentient life in a lab, they could literally do whatever they want to it including torture, mutilation, and murder because a creator has the right to do whatever it wants to it’s creation? They set the rules?
I left the church at 19 when I had the thought to myself that the only reason I believed in Christianity was because I had been raised to. And examining it from the outside has given me no reason to think it is true, and by now I, and I mean this honestly, not insultingly, find it ridiculous. The topic at hand is one of the reasons I find it ridiculous.May I ask, what made you leave the Catholic Church?
And, did you leave the Church to seek/reach higher standards of moral living?
That amazes me. When I was a (negative) atheist, I always respected Christian belief, but just had too many doubts about it. For instance, I knew that virtually all scholars had dated 1st Corinthians as being composed in 55 - 56 AD, and the formula in 1 Corinthians 15 was clearly ancient. The phrase “then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once” was something that I always found to be intriguing. The 70,000 witnesses at Fatima moved things along for me, once I came across it. The testimony of the late Pam Reynolds and other NDEs convinced me that materialism was false. The only “option” left for me was religious faith.I left the church at 19 when I had the thought to myself that the only reason I believed in Christianity was because I had been raised to. And examining it from the outside has given me no reason to think it is true, and by now I, and I mean this honestly, not insultingly, find it ridiculous. The topic at hand is one of the reasons I find it ridiculous.
It had nothing to do with changing morality, althougb inevitably my morality hss changed because of it. But it was not the other way around.
What is so ridiculous about the topic at hand. Can you put it into words?I left the church at 19 when I had the thought to myself that the only reason I believed in Christianity was because I had been raised to. And examining it from the outside has given me no reason to think it is true, and by now I, and I mean this honestly, not insultingly, find it ridiculous. The topic at hand is one of the reasons I find it ridiculous.
It had nothing to do with changing morality, althougb inevitably my morality hss changed because of it. But it was not the other way around.
I feel quite confident that no scientist will ever be able to create something from nothing as God did so this is a moot point. You see, God created the universe and with it all the rules that apply: like the law of gravity and the moral laws. The scientist in your example, sets no laws,- he is as beholden to the laws of God as any man.So if scientists managed to one day create sentient life in a lab, they could literally do whatever they want to it including torture, mutilation, and murder because a creator has the right to do whatever it wants to it’s creation? They set the rules?
Try as one might, you are a product of creation and will always be part of it.I feel quite confident that no scientist will ever be able to create something from nothing as God did so this is a moot point. You see, God created the universe and with it all the rules that apply: like the law of gravity and the moral laws. The scientist in your example, sets no laws,- he is as beholden to the laws of God as any man.
Should one obey a command from God to kill?If you want to make progress, you need to trust in things bigger than yourself. I understand that you see death as the most horrible thing imaginable. But death is only a step towards heaven or hell.
Would striking down appear necessary when pure loving goodness should be able to permeate the entire being of any wayward individual and point him/her in the proper direction?Would you have God strike down every heretic and blasphemer? That would certainly limit their ability to repent.
Is the founder of import without any consideration of his/her inspiration? Was not Moses simply a man? Were not Abraham and Mohammed?The fact is, the Catholic Church has the authority of its founder, Jesus Christ. The lutherans have the authority of their founder, Martin Luther. The Anglican’s have the authority of their founder, Henry VIII, the Mormon’s have the authority of their founder, Joseph Smith.
Would not the Midianites have seemingly considered God to be the source of their problems? Would they have been mistaken?Some will react this way and some will see that their turning from God was the genesis of their problems and turn back. Was it not the same for the israelites, who God allowed to be exiled for 70 years. During that time, some turned back to God and were allowed to return.
Is it not possible that the cross was merely an entry-level position and that Heaven could be a locale of even deeper suffering? Is it not possible that when Jesus discussed “dying to self” in order to be worthy of Heaven, the process might necessarily be eternal?I think you are extending a little too far. Jesus described heaven as paradise from the cross.
Would one willingly open arms to any other individual whose past might include an equal level of brutality?If you open your heart to him, he will let you know what is expected.
All of which must be obeyed, but why might God’s laws, purportedly eternal, be ignored?Jesus has the most credibility. - he rose from the dead. And don’t you realize that your country has far more than 620 laws.
No.This is so typical, isn’t it. you don’t get to choose whether God exists. He just IS. isn’t it a fact that you are weighing whether you want to believe?
Should one pray the requisite number of times to Allah if one might not believe? Is such an investment in time and effort warranted if Allah might be imaginary?Whether it is worth it? And isn’t that simply put, a measure of what you think is important?
It may not be as simple as it might appear to attempt to properly evaluate which religion might hold truth and then to behave accordingly.That’s how people get to Hell. They decide they value things higher than a relationship with God. Most of them do it more subconsciously than you are doing it, however.
Is it to be considered that Jesus might behave as might a timid father who would not willingly strike an errant child early for misdeeds, but would prefer to wait until the youth might grow so uncouth so as to be beyond correction? At such a point might he then offer a shrug and a sigh and allow the youth to fall into a misery of his own proper creating?Jesus said that he calls all men to himself. he doesn’t wish for men to fall into hell, but he allows it in deference to their free will.
Hearsay…whose origins I fail to recall.I’m not familiar with this account. Where did you get it?
OKTo me, Hell’s existence is as certain as any jail. it all depends on what you think is credible evidence.
If one were to believe these 620 laws, would one not be certain to fasten a tassel to one’s garment as required? Alternately, if one were to suggest that such a law might have been created from man (even though it is stated to be from God), might one not equally consider all other such laws man-made? If all might be man-made, where is the proof of belief in God derived by following them?In the previous post, you were weighing whether following 620 rules was worth believing in God. So things like that.
No. Simply that being selfish may not necessarily make one miserable, and that being selfless at times provides its own reward.What point are you making? Are you saying its better to be selfish?
Not to sin, but to be jailed for crimes.There are plenty of people in prison who are simply greedy and get caught stealing, etc. Do you really believe that those of below average IQ or substandard learning have a greater propensity to sin?
Is it not possible that, much as a truly great poet might require a source of suffering from which to draw in order to provide such deep prose, a soul in suffering is a joy for God to behold? If so, might not Heaven be a locale of great privation rather than abundance?
(As people can see, I still haven’t worked out how to do multiple, or selection, quotes.)
There seems to be a bit of a muddle as to what God delights in, and what He permits. God delights in those who love Him, and those who love God, will, by extension, love others. God also permits suffering, and while He doesn’t specifically will that people commit sins, He alone is able to bring goodness from the consequences. As someone else mentioned, the view must always be regarding Heaven or Hell. God’s view is not ours. We see things from our own points of view, but God sees all in all. God views all in the context of eternity.
God’s will (as someone else has probably mentioned, perhaps multiple times) is to be understood as His permissive will and His deliberate will (can’t think of the right word for the second one). We know that evil exists, and that God exists, and we must, therefore, infer that God permits some evil. God has made us free, so there will always be people who abuse this freedom and commit sin. This has consequences, always. The consequences are visited upon other people, generally, and also upon the individual self. Habitual sin leads to a morally-corrupt character.
A perfect example of the permissive will of God is the recent news item of a 7-month-old unborn baby being killed in China. The mother was forced to have an abortion, and the child was placed, in pieces, next to the poor grieving woman. The father took a photo of mother and child, and the news has spread around the world. People are outraged, and so are the Chinese authorities. Unfortunately, many of them are simply horrified that China forces women to have abortions. How dare they, when abortion should be a “free choice”!!! The sad fact is that China has been doing this for decades. Another sad fact is that people who oppose this incident are quite content that millions of other children are ripped to shreds for the crime of being unborn, or the wrong gender, or for being disabled, or suspected of being disabled. Western nations also give funding to support abortion industries in third world countries. At last, the whole western world can see the horror and injustice of abortion for what it is. Many will close their eyes to the truth, of course, but some may not. The point is that the evil has been exposed in this one little event, and some hearts may be stirred into supporting the rights of the unborn.
Does God rejoice at the suffering of that little unborn one, or of the child’s parents? Not at all. Those who perpetrated this, and all other atrocities, have done so of their own free wills. They are disobeying God’s precepts when they do so. Perhaps, at last, however, the truth is being exposed, and some change may occur.
God can bring justice to those who commit (and allow) these crimes against humanity. God alone can metre out exactly the right amount of ‘punishment’ for such sins. The perpetrators will have to pay, and atone, for what they have done, considered also in the measure to which they were culpable.
A suffering soul is not a joy for God to delight it. A suffering soul has an opportunity to reach out to God. A suffering soul may offer the sufferings in atonement for his/her own sins, or else the sins of others. Suffering is but one part of the journey towards Heaven. Heaven - the union with God in love forever - is the goal, and suffering is part of the struggle towards that goal. Perseverance, faithfulness, righteousness, and all the rest, are part of what we all need to love and serve God fully.
OK
Is it not the position of the Mormon Church that the original message of Jesus was corrupted fairly early on and so their establishment merely returns Christianity to its proper roots?
Do not the Orthodox claim that the Roman Rite corrupted the original intent of Episcopal equality and so consider their establishment to carry on in the proper original spirit of Jesus’ message?
Do not the Muslims consider that, as with Judaism, God has relinquished his blessings from Christianity and bestowed it upon them?
So is it understandable why one might feel at times lost, even among only the four claims so far discussed?
(Whoever you are, Jelrak TB, I am incredibly and continually impressed with your decency and respect for those of us with religious views. That would go for others, too, since this site is not replete with the ridicule and obscenities towards us that are on other ‘religious’ sites.)
Do you know what a hypothetical is?I feel quite confident that no scientist will ever be able to create something from nothing as God did so this is a moot point. You see, God created the universe and with it all the rules that apply: like the law of gravity and the moral laws. The scientist in your example, sets no laws,- he is as beholden to the laws of God as any man.
This appears a fair argument for Hell: that without a dire consequence, nothing great might otherwise be achieved–much as a competition in which all are awarded first place ribbons might fail to garner proper respect for any who might choose to proudly display same.Nothing we do in this world or the next is without consequence.
The ability to do things that don’t matter is not free will and if everything you did didn’t matter, you would find you soon lost interest in it.
I heard recently that physics has answered that question. Don’t ask me to explain it though.Try as one might, you are a product of creation and will always be part of it.
And as such, are subject to God.
We cannot create our own reality and be supreme ruler over it, only God can create.
Hypothetical situations and arguments are still subject to logic and reason in order to be effective. In terms of your own hypothetical question, the Catholic point of view renders it rather meaningless…you may as well have asked, “So, what if purple monkey dishwasher?”Do you know what a hypothetical is?
Perhaps. However, I would say that the ultimate goal, as a Catholic, is not to do right out of fear of consequence, but to do right out of love for God. There have been myriad posts on that in this thread already, though.This appears a fair argument for Hell: that without a dire consequence, nothing great might otherwise be achieved–much as a competition in which all are awarded first place ribbons might fail to garner proper respect for any who might choose to proudly display same.
Sure. From my stance it basically looks like this.What is so ridiculous about the topic at hand. Can you put it into words?
I wouldn’t say it isn’t democratic. If everyone just respected everyone else’s opinion, how would the world make any progress? I can respect somebody’s right to have their opinion while still criticizing it and giving reasons why I am.So, would you say convincing people of our own personal ideas, because in our eyes our ideas are ‘better’ than there’s is a good thing? Sounds a bit elitist and dictatorial to me. I mean, you couldn’t say convincing someone of your own ideas because you believe them to be better than the one’s they have is very democratic, could you?
Since solipsism is an irrefutable possibility, I would argue that we cannot know anything is necessarily based on truth. We all work off of working assumptions. Most think that the physical universe exists, and that other people exist in this physical universe. Others add some spirituality on top of it. But in the end, everyone is working off of assumptions, and all the arguments and even language end up with circular foundations. But if some ideas ARE better than others, then the beauty of language and logic is that you can attempt to show it through argument. For instance, if I can show evidence and theory for why diabetes is a real disease, and evidence and theory for how we treat it, if that wins and some 6 year old doesn’t die at the hands of some Christian Scientists, I’d say we have example of why convincing them that they were wrong was for the better. Of course its subjective, but that is almost everything in the end (although in practicality, there are plenty of things based on almost universal working assumptions that you might as well call not subjective, such as the earth revolving around the sun).In addition, a convincing argument, or ‘idea’ is not necessarily based on truth. Whether or not this is important depends, I suppose how interested one is in truth. What ideas are good for the world, and what one’s are not? Are the same ideas good for everyone, or are some good for some but bad for others? If we convince someone else of our ideas, how does that benefit them?
Fair enough. Although as a person that has been working hard since adulthood, who is happily married (to a fundamentalist Christian, LOL), and has no drug problems or existential crisis, I’d like to say he was a bad example. And I would never say that a theist can’t think for themselves. They just see the arguments in a different way, and there seems to always be some way around any point made in any argument from either side.It was put to me by an atheist, they wanted to convince me there was no God so, like them, I would be free to think for myself which would make my life better. In their opinion, they were free to think for themselves because they were an atheist, whereas I was not.
Unfortunately for the guy concerned, his argument wasn’t very convincing as he hasn’t worked in years, lives off the state, can’t hold down a relationship, and goes through life in a haze of alcohol and cannabis fumes. :hypno: As such, I don’t think this particular atheist was in a position to advise me on how to improve my life, or assert he had greater freedom of thought.
I consider just punishment to be both a combination of proportionality to the harm done, as well as whether or not the person was able to comprehend that they were doing harm.Where I say you do have a point is on punishment based on belief. I wouldn’t imagine you are of the opinion all punishment is unjust. Therefore, what would you consider just punishment, and what would you consider unjust?
And it is so ridiculous because it a strawman of what God is and has done. No one is forced to sin. Any and all can choose not to sin. This is why hell has to be real. Those you end up there could have chosen to not sin.Sure. From my stance it basically looks like this.
God creates a bunch of beings and gives them freewill. He puts them into an existence where they will want to do many things that make him extremely angry. They do these things, and he is angry enough that he decides to send them to a place of eternal punishment because of them. He keeps doing this for thousands of years. Then he sends one man in one point on the globe to say a few things about loving this and that person (not the first person to do so) and die on a cross. After this man dies, he decides that he finally has a reason to rescue everyone that came before him that was a decent person, from eternal punishment. He also decides that from here on out, it is important to believe details about this man, that only thousands of people in one spot on the earth at one point in time saw, in order to avoid eternal punishment, and receive more reward after death. He relies on the word of people, and eventually the written word, and EVENTUALLY modern technology (that STILL doesn’t reach everyone in the world), to spread this unimaginably important (if its eternal consequences are true) message. Meanwhile people in different regions of the world are onto their own religion, and even if they hear of Jesus, they dismiss it along with all the other religions in favor of their own.
So in the end you have a god that makes people want to sin by nature, then punishes sin with eternal torture, and only lets you out of eternal torture if, BEFORE death, you happened to believe in the right religion even though he didn’t give any universally recognizable reason to believe in it over others. And this is a just, loving, forgiving, and INTELLIGENT god.
From where I stand, and I’m not trying to be mean about it, this story is as ridiculous as a story could get.
But he gave them more than free will, didn’t he. He gave them life. He gave them a conscience to guide them. He gave them the ability to reason. He gave them a specific set of skills that they could use to do His will. H egave them direction though the prophets and apostles and He showed that they were legitimate by granting them the ability to do miraculous works.Sure. From my stance it basically looks like this.
God creates a bunch of beings and gives them freewill.
I personally don’t want to do anything that makes God extremely angry and I am certainly far from alone on this. Remember, not everyone thinks as you do. Doing things that make God angry, (like killing, stealing, lying, committing adultery- in a word, hurting others) are not good for you and you should be able to arrive at that knowledge through reason with the aid of your conscience.He puts them into an existence where they will want to do many things that make him extremely angry.
Well, this doesn’t tell the whole story. God continually calls to all of us to do his will. He will allow anyone to be saved who is willing to repent of his/her sins sacramentally, no matter what they have done. It is only those that won’t repent that are condemned…They do these things, and he is angry enough that he decides to send them to a place of eternal punishment because of them.
The catholic teaching on this matter is that those that live just lives who have never heard of Jesus can be saved. This is the concept of invincible ignorance. But if the truth of the Gospel is made available to them and they reject it, then they are culpableHe keeps doing this for thousands of years. Then he sends one man in one point on the globe to say a few things about loving this and that person (not the first person to do so) and die on a cross. After this man dies, he decides that he finally has a reason to rescue everyone that came before him that was a decent person, from eternal punishment. He also decides that from here on out, it is important to believe details about this man, that only thousands of people in one spot on the earth at one point in time saw, in order to avoid eternal punishment, and receive more reward after death. He relies on the word of people, and eventually the written word, and EVENTUALLY modern technology (that STILL doesn’t reach everyone in the world), to spread this unimaginably important (if its eternal consequences are true) message. Meanwhile people in different regions of the world are onto their own religion, and even if they hear of Jesus, they dismiss it along with all the other religions in favor of their own.
Men are not inherently evil . We were made in the image and nature of God.So in the end you have a god that makes people want to sin by nature,
Not all sin, only unrepentent sin.then punishes sin with eternal torture,
This is hardly true. The Christian God demonstrated and still demonstrates his divinity through the works of his servants, starting with the prophets, peaking with the resurrrection of Jesus, and continuing with the apostles and Saints. There are 1.3 Billion catholics worldwide - I would say that that’s quite universal.and only lets you out of eternal torture if, BEFORE death, you happened to believe in the right religion even though he didn’t give any universally recognizable reason to believe in it over others.
The God you describe is unrecognizable to a knowledgeable Catholic.And this is a just, loving, forgiving, and INTELLIGENT god
Well, that’s exactly the problem. Where you are standing doesn’t allow you to understand the true God. If you stay on this website and learn the true characteristics of God, your perspective will changeFrom where I stand, and I’m not trying to be mean about it, this story is as ridiculous as a story could get.