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fix
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How does that make your conscience correct?
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LilyM
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That’s ridiculous. God IS logical and consistent (we reflect Him in our love of logic and consistency) and ISN’T divided against Himself - He is what He is and He is ONE thing.
He can’t possibly at one and the same time be the one true Yahweh of Jews and Christians, the Allah of the Muslims AND the many deities that Hindus or ancient Greeks worship.
Nor can He possibly at one and the same time have never become human - which Jews and Muslims believe - become human as one person and one only (Jesus Christ) - as Christians believe - AND come through many many incarnations or avatars as Hindus believe.
Nor can He possibly have ENTIRELY different moral codes for different people - what He fundamentally finds offensive (the ten Commandments as opposed to the procedural parts of Leviticus for example) is for all times and places.
He cannot at one and the same time insist on monogamous lifelong marriage (as Christians believe He does) AND permit polygamy and divorce (as Muslims believe He does).
You make God out to be the sufferer of the granddaddy of all multiple personality disorders - in which case we can never know anything about Him nor discover what pleases Him in order to do it. The question in your case is why do you even bother trying when it’s as impossible as you make out.
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tigers08
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Wow this was not my point at all. All meant was that we are what God wants us to be already. I really don’t think we have free will, and our entire lives have already been planned out from the beginning, so our conscience is what God wants us to do. That is if He is conscious, and if He cares. I in no way meant that every religion was right.
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LilyM
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But take your idea to its logical conclusion - if God’s planned our lives and we have no free will in our beliefs then every Jew is meant to BE a Jew, every Muslim meant to BE a Muslim and so on.
In other words according to you He intends many many billions of people to believe wrongly - to believe lies - and lies about HIM who created them no less, and with no possibility of ever knowing the truth.
Surely such would serve no point at all. Would you ever purposefully hide from your child the necessary information that 2+2=4, or that the chemical formula of water is H20, when without that knowledge they’ll get nowhere in life?
Would you deliberately never even tell your child your true NAME, for heavens sake? Preposterous. And you ask us to believe that God has purposefully done exactly this for billions of people - deliberately telling billions to call Him by a name that isn’t His own? Crazy. What parent tells one child to call him Fred Bloggs, another to call him Dave Smith and a third to call him John Doe?
If you believe God hardwires our brains irrevocably to believe lies about Himself then that’s just as nonsensical as suggesting that every religion is right.
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Jean_Anthony
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This thread has strayed from the original topic. Please stay on topic, people, and take any side discussions to other threads. Thank you.
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tigers08
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Sorry for getting everyone off topic. Last reply:
Yep. I would think so. I don’t think anything is an accident.
It’s preposterous to believe you know why God would do something. It’s also preposterous to believe that God would not foresee the future of the universe when he created. Maybe some people aren’t ready for the truth. Maybe to serve their purpose they NEED to believe the wrong thing. Who knows? Why do parents lie to their kids about Santa and the Tooth Fairy? Why do they lie about leaving them behind when I child won’t follow them? Parents lie to children all the time, because it serves a purpose. Maybe He does it for the same reason.
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LilyM
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Human parents lie to their children because it serves some purpose of the parents, sure. I wasnt brought up believing in Santa Claus and it didn’t do me the slightest harm as a child. Some children believe in fantasies themselves because it serves some need for them, sure.
Point is there’s never a truly worthwhile purpose to lying though, though. We do it because we’re weak and fallible by nature. Anything lying achieves can be achieved just as well or better by tactful use of truth or simple silence. But we’re too intellectually lazy, too proud or arrogant, or too plain dumb sometimes to know the benefits of being truthful. God is none of those things.
And just remember we ARE talking about God here - God who, y’know, IS truth. It’s not just that there’s no real purpose to be served by His lying, it’s that lying is against His very nature. As is evil, sin and all the other nasties.
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joseph_virgen
Guest
The problem with church teachings is that it tries to cope with contemporary issues using itself, sinners by default, as the means to an end. That is why it has become almost obligatory for individuals of conscious to ask: “what would Jesus do?” .
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jmcrae
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If they want to be able to find the answer to that question, they can’t turn to the Jesus of their fantasy world for the answer - they have to look to the Bible and to the Holy Tradition to find out what Jesus would really do, in certain situations.
Jesus was not a pansy-pants who would let people walk all over him, for example - although there are far too many people who think that He was, and who behave accordingly, much to their detriment, I think.
Some friends of mine had a mentally retarded guy following them around everywhere they went, and he was groping them and trying to get them to have sex with him. Finally, I said, “You have to call this guy’s caregivers, and let them know that this guy can’t be with you guys any more. He has to stay home.” They said, “But, is that what Jesus would do? Wouldn’t Jesus accept him, and let him follow along?”
“No,” I said. “Jesus would not allow someone to abuse Him and sexually assault Him, out of some misguided idea of “kindness” just because he is mentally retarded. Jesus loves you, too. Jesus doesn’t think you need to put up with this kind of behaviour. Not from anybody.”
Once I put it like that, they realized that the only right thing to do is to get rid of this guy and make him stop following them around, so they have started to do that. I was glad to hear that at their last get-together, when he tried to follow them, they made him sit in the hallway and wait for his ride, instead of being in the same room where they were.
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kenmd
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This whole argument centers around the “church” being a physical entity.
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estesbob
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There is no such thing as contempory issues. There are no issues that the Church has not dealt with in one manner or another in the last 2,000 years. Why would one ask “what would Jesus do?” when he founded a Church to let everyone for all time know what he would do.?
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jmcrae
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The Church is the Church.
I don’t know what you mean by “a physical entity” - the local parish is an expression of the Church, but it isn’t the whole thing - your local priest can get you started looking for answers, and point you in the right direction, but he doesn’t know everything - and he’s very human, too. But by following his guidance, you can find the Church’s answer to any question you might have.
The Church has been around for nearly 2,000 years, and it has contained everything that we need to know, for that whole time. We don’t have to “look into our heart” for the answer - because in so many cases, it isn’t there.
The idea that we are born with all knowledge, and all we have to do is say “ohm” for a little while until it reveals itself to us is completely false - we have to learn, and in order to learn, we need teachers. The Church provides us with teachers.
Once we have learned what we need to know, then we can start to make good decisions.
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DLC
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Don’t look to any teaching out side of the Bible. You must read the Bible. I suggest you start with the Gospel of John. Here you will find out who Christ is, why He came to earth, and what He asks of us. John 3:16 is the best know verse in the Bible and rightly so. It tells us why God came to earth and how man is to respond to Him.
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bill210
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Our conscience must be formed to the truth. If we cannot believe a teaching of the Church we must conclude that in some way we have failed to comprehend the truth or that the Church is wrong. We know that the Magisterial treaching of the Church is infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit. Therefore we know that our understanding is at fault.
St. Augustine says the same on understanding scripture. When it comes to a conflict between my interpretation and that of the Church I must admit that my interpretation is in some way at fault.
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tigers08
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What does you conscience tell you about slavery? For the longest time, the Church said it was fine, just like the bible did.
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tigers08
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First off I never said He lied to anyone, just let them believe certain things on their own. I don’t think He ever revealed himself to anyone. Second, how could you know if lying is against His nature? If He did reveal Himself to people, and told them He always told the truth, that is meaningless because if He lied He would say the same thing.
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LilyM
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Like I said, God IS truth - that which is not truth is not of God and He has no part in anything which is not truth.
It’s not so because He said so or not, it’s just inherent in the nature of an omnipotent, omnisicient and omnibenevolent deity (aka a supreme being) that He cannot lie nor deceive (ie by telling half-truth).
And what do you mean He never revealed Himself to anyone? In the person of Jesus He revealed Himself to us all! The Bible is full of people who spoke with Him and physically entered His presence. They weren’t all deluded, y’know.
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catharina
Guest
I believe that you, of your own free will, have made a choice to walk a very sad
and very lonely dead-end road. God has promised faith to all who ask for it.
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