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liquidpele
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Are you trying to pick a fight by stating such nonsense? Be civil please.
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Charlemagne_II
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liquidpele
*Are you trying to pick a fight by stating such nonsense? Be civil please. *
Not really trying to pick a fight. :slapfight: Are you?
Just a simple statement of fact. You can’t believe in God unless you desire Him.
The atheist obviously doesn’t desire Him because he hasn’t opened his mind and his heart to Him. Will you tell me why you take offense?
*Are you trying to pick a fight by stating such nonsense? Be civil please. *
Not really trying to pick a fight. :slapfight: Are you?
Just a simple statement of fact. You can’t believe in God unless you desire Him.
The atheist obviously doesn’t desire Him because he hasn’t opened his mind and his heart to Him. Will you tell me why you take offense?
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liquidpele
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My problem is with the following comments you made:liquidpele
*Are you trying to pick a fight by stating such nonsense? Be civil please. *
Not really trying to pick a fight. :slapfight: Are you?
Just a simple statement of fact. You can’t believe in God unless you desire Him.
The atheist obviously doesn’t desire Him because he hasn’t opened his mind and his heart to Him. Will you tell me why you take offense?
Why in the world would an atheist desire for God to not exist? It implies atheism is rooting for evil, or against your religion and beliefs. This is untrue. You also say it as if all atheists think the same regarding religion, which is of course ridiculous. Your anecdotal comment about atheists trying to assure themselves is likely misguided, and simply your interpretation of the conversation since you can’t know their motives unless they told you. In short, I feel like you were simply dismissing atheists like you would an annoying child because they think differently than you, and I think this was unfair and unfounded.
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DavidHume
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As I alluded to earlier in the thread, I’m not terribly keen on the notion of any God which will create people only to damn them to eternal hellfire.
The existence of other sorts of God, while less offensive, is not a question I spend time considering.
The existence of other sorts of God, while less offensive, is not a question I spend time considering.
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1holycatholic
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DavidHume
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JDaniel’s excellent response contains my statement.
As far as his points go:
I disagree with this. A God that does not allow such a person in, correcting the person’s failures, is not a benevolent God.
Put bluntly, a Heaven without Hitler – healed of all the evil that he was – is no Heaven at all.
(You might say “but what about free will?” and I say I have no particular commitment to free will one way or the other.)
I notice JRKH addressed my question too, I’ll have to read and catch up in a separate post.
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DavidHume
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That’s pretty much my conclusion too, unless you include very heterodox/heretical (cough UU) denominations as “Christian faith systems.”
No, I wouldn’t take a chance on either of those scenarios. I think I see the intent of the analogy, but they’re missing a crucial fact: in either scenario, I am permitted to choose to live a normal life. If Christianity allowed me to choose a life in God’s heaven and oblivion, that would be one thing. But it doesn’t – it lets me choose a life in God’s heaven or a life in Satan’s hell. What kind of God sets that up? Certainly not a benevolent one, at least not in my opinion.
One consequence of atheism is growing accustomed to the notion of one’s own utter annihilation. As Mark Twain wrote, “annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born…”
The loving God part, if he’s going to prohibit Pol Pot from entering Heaven as a healed man. (Catholics can hem and haw about final death if they like, but my point is that the only God worthy of worship will have a heaven’s gate that is WIDE OPEN. Other ideas of God are just caricatures of a father archetype.)
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BWNM
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People do not believe in God or question His existence, but they don’t question their own existence till it fits their reasoning.
Man thinks he is lord in his dominion, but a fool can’t even stop calamities around him, though it will debate for months on debating.
Reason of facts base on some facts doesn’t make it a fact for facts are known and seen and are unknown and unseen.
Deaf men meets a blind man and asks blind man “How’s that movie”
Behind questions are motives, behind motives are illusions, behind illusions are only two answers - yes or no.
God bless
Man thinks he is lord in his dominion, but a fool can’t even stop calamities around him, though it will debate for months on debating.
Reason of facts base on some facts doesn’t make it a fact for facts are known and seen and are unknown and unseen.
Deaf men meets a blind man and asks blind man “How’s that movie”
Behind questions are motives, behind motives are illusions, behind illusions are only two answers - yes or no.
God bless
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JDaniel
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jam070406
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It does, and you have. Although, you must accept the fact that you beliefs or ideas of oblivion may be false.
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geometer
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You should study jewish teaching about the world to come. Pol Pot will be boiled in human excrement after he dies, as a punishment for the life he lead. He won’t be sent to hell though. Rabbis believe he will have the opportunity to see the error of his ways, he won’t be punished forever.
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JDaniel
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DH:
How does a god create an imperfect creature, give him the freedom of choice, absent himself from the natural being’s senses, only able to leave an ancient footprint in the sand of some remote beach, yet nothing more than a seeming rumor, which the imperfect, physical creature can regard as a sign of the meta-natural or deny with all of his heart and strength, request a simple return of love to be freely given, take exquisite care not to make him an automaton, and expect each and every one of them to want to hold to Him so tightly that it would make him look like an automaton?
I think that it is in the nature of that which CAN be created. God cannot duplicate himself. What He did was to create something that was provided every possibility of heaven’s attainment, knowing full well that the creation of imperfect beings would leave little choice but to lose a few. How could it be otherwise - regardless of how much God might have wished it to be?
Neither do I as any god that I created would, in fact, not be God.
jd
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JDaniel
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I know that the following scenario might be an exaggeration, to some extent, but, what would you do with a man, in possession of some power, who gathered up and horribly tortured young children, keeping them alive as long as possible so that each would receive the utmost measure of torture able to be provided? Let’s say that man did this to thousands of children for decades. And, let’s say the man is not sick.
Forgive and forget? Do you now see the error of your ways, Mr. Bad Guy? (Obviously this is from my perspective.)
What it takes to displease God to such a degree is impossible to know. But if, the mind and heart of such a person does not change at, or after death, then what is God to do with him?
Forgive and forget?
jd
Forgive and forget? Do you now see the error of your ways, Mr. Bad Guy? (Obviously this is from my perspective.)
What it takes to displease God to such a degree is impossible to know. But if, the mind and heart of such a person does not change at, or after death, then what is God to do with him?
Forgive and forget?
jd
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bobzills
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It sounds like purgatory.
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1holycatholic
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DavidHume
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I see no injustice in the salvation of all.
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DavidHume
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“Oblivion” to me means my own non-existence; anything else is not oblivion, but rather some malicious God’s twisted idea of retribution/reward.
Honestly, even a karmic cycle seems far more benevolent to me than heaven/purgatory/hell.
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DavidHume
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I detect an underlying assumption of yours that a being with free will is superior to an automaton. In this context, I don’t share it.
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1holycatholic
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JRKH
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Of course - This does not preclude your becoming a “Theist” outside of the Catholic/Christian fold. One thing that we can be certain of, whether in Science or in Theology, is that knowledge about something can only come within the context of accepting it’s existance. Thus I would see the person who is a theist or even an agnostic as being in a better position spiritually than a person who is an atheist.
Yet, if we are right and this God does exist, you have not avoided hell by denying that God exists.
I don’t pretend to have the answers to your objections. I only know of one who does. The Holy Spirit of God Himself. I only know that one can never obtain those answers if one simply continues to deny the possibilities. Maybe the way that we as Christians understand God, Heaven, Hell, Salvation, etc is NOT exactly and perfectly clear and correct. We believe it is, BUT we should, and I think do, understand that God, being Greater than All else, has given us what we need, in a form we can understand with our human intellect that reflects reality as God knows it to be. St Pauls says that here we can see only dimly but after mortal death we will see clearly.
I have a wonderful book called “The Fullfillment of All Desire”. It is “a guidebook of the journey to God based on the wisdom of the Saints”. These are saints of the mystic tradition within the catholic Church. All of these Saints agree that the Journey toward Loving and Fearing God begins with a very humanistic/selfish love. That is we Love and desire God out of fear of punishment. However, as we endeavor to do God’s will and move “toward the light” as we might say, that selfish Love is replaced by a selfless Love.
Given that choice I guess I have to cling to at least the hope of salvation. I know it is selfish and a weak kind of Love, but I’m working on it. If God wants me in Heaven with Him, and I know He does, then I’ll do what I can to get there. My efforts may be feeble and unworthy but I will rely upon God’s mercy to make up the difference.
I do not mean to sound harsh by this but It’s too bad that you cannot grant to God that which you yourself hold God to. You see a God that does not conform to that which you define for Him or desire from Him, and therefore God is not permitted into your presence - Into your life - Into your “Heaven”, as it were. You see a concept of God that you find imperfect, unloving, even “sinful” by your reckoning, and thus you condemn God to oblivion. So Why do you see your human judgement against God as being any more logical or valid than God’s Judgement of souls?
Why are you permitted to condemn but God is not?
What do you think?
Peace
James
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