GOD IS DEAD

The purpose for which a hammer is made is clear enough. This is not to say it can't be used for other purposes. When it comes to the purpose for which every feature of it has been intended then hammering in nails is clearly it.If God made us for a purpose then his purposes will be the one for which our features have been designed. This is not to say we can't be used for other purposes. It's just that we'd be hammers used as snooker cues.If made in his image and likeness then his purposes won't be onerous to us. Rather they would be harmonious - precisely because we are carved from the same block (as it were). We are free to go our own way and live with the consequences of that. I take it you don't mind that there should be consequences - otherwise there'd be no fun in it.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The purpose is assigned to you by your owner/desiger. It (the owner/designer) considered the purpose relevant and designed the tool for his purpose. If someone else steals this hammer and decides they want to use it to break windows, then that new purpose becomes relevant (to this new owner). It doesn't mean the hammer is best suited to the second task but it can be re-designated in terms of purpose.You're owned by God and he designed you for a purpose. That purpose is what you are best crafted for - not the purpose that your current owner has in mind for you. Sure, you can be used to smash windows in - you're a versatile tool in someones hands. But that doesn't alter the purpose that your actual owner has in mind for you. This is all hammer-in-toolbox deciding on it's own purpose. But you don't get to decide it. Your owner does. Or the person who has misappropriated you temporarily does. The question is misframed as you might now appreciate. You don't get to decide what your own purpose is. You get to (effectively) chose whether your going to be put to the use you were designed for (it's great, honest) or whether you're going to be thrown onto the rubbish tip. They're the only options available; your owners purpose for you or no purpose at all.God is sovereign, whether you like it or not. Me? I like it. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Why I think the purpose my owner considers relevant for me, is relevant for me?Because it would be illogical to think otherwise - and I like logic. Logically speaking, if designed for a purpose then we can no more re-assign purpose that we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Purpose isn't ours to assign.To be in a position to assign our own purpose would require that we were free agents, beings who are in a position to determine these things. But we're not free agents - we belong to him (whether we believe in him or not). Any sense of defining own purpose is illusionary. Granted, God permits us to operate in the illusion - but that doesn't alter it being as it is.Saying you define own purpose is like saying you can print your own money.- It doesn't have to be acknowledged (this side of the grave) - although not acknowledging it doesn't alter things. Nor do you have to care, nor are you prevented from striving for a "better" purpose. It wouldn't be better of course: good and bad are defined in relation to whether or not x action lies within the boundary of activity approved of by God. Your "better" would be his "worse" in fact.The reason why it would be logical and reasonable to acknowledge and care (you are still assuming the model of God I'm using is accurate, I take it) is that God "owns" you. You don't belong to yourself and are not a free agent. The apparent freedom you have to go your own way is due to your being in rebellion against God. Your free in a sense but always constrained by the sovereign in whose realm you reside.- As you might agree, our "higher" and "better" are relative terms. It's when you come face to face with The Absolute that an end of the relative line is reached. Best will be what brings about Gods intended kingdom; it involves love, joy, peace, satisfaction, wonder, patience, fun, hope, rest, kindness etc. If that's what you bring about (under his auspices) and that's what you experience in return then no other purpose could hope to compete.No other one ... except the one that is prepared to forego the above in order to retain a key ingredient missing from the above list.Self-determination.Self-determination is a drug and if a drug you refuse to give up then "better" will indeed appear the purpose containing it.The tragic thing is Stile; the lie that set the sin of self-determination in motion ("you can be like God") hasn't changed in the interim. It's still a lie from the father of lies. Self-determination is an illusion that will disappear on ones last breath. Your rebellion will have been brought to it's knees by your death. Then..Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Some, me included, will do so gladly. Others will do so whilst wailing and gnashing their teeth.It just doesn't make sense to insist on rebellion when all is lost. Not one iota of sense.- As stated, it would the logical conclusion to draw - if you believed in God. If you don't then clearly there is no reason to care.This area is like so many others; the day you find out that God exists is the day when you will have surrendered your rebellion. Having done so there is no barrier (in principal) to God being the one to set purpose for you. You'd be glad to know you are heading in the right direction in fact. Glad that you no longer have to pretend that a purpose you set yourself is a real purpose - let's face it; no one can suppress all of the truth all of the time.- The person who is born again "has eternal life". That is to say, eternal life starts at the point of being born again and Gods purpose for your life commences. Being thrown onto the rubbish heap happens after your life ends (assuming you've refused Gods offer of salvation)As to the stuff you do in the meantime?Well, the reason why you do "good" things, such as saving lives and delighting a child, is down to your being made in his image and likeness. That of him which reflects from you is the driving force behind the good that you do. For example: you have a conscience and it commends you for doing good and condemns you for doing evil. That is the power driving you unto good and preventing you doing evil. That power belongs to God because conscience is Gods truth revealed to you. Naturally, the credit for "your" good goes to him: he's the hammer, you're the nail (if I may be permitted to mix analogies for a minute). You did nothing in fact. Which is why "all your righteousness are as filthy rags" - you have no righteousness acts that belong to you.Your evil, on the other hand, does belong to you. Evil occurs after truth is suppressed and it is an act of your will that achieves this suppression.A self-defined purpose can't possibly trump a God-defined one - for the simple reason that the only thing you can manage to achieve out of your own wills expression is evil.Now if evil is your purpose you might be on to something...The rubbish heap is the only option for those who die in rebellion. God leaves a persons presence - there is no image and likeness of God left remaining in them; their own mother wouldn't recognise them.A more hell-ish existance I couldn't possibly imagine.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

It had nothing to do with the Bible or Religion or Philosophy. Rather it was through reading a little book called "The Easyway to Stop Smoking" by a guy called Allen Carr ..that I got to understand something of the nature of truth. Long before I heard the truth of Jesus Christ and him crucified.Allens method differed from other methods for quitting in that he simply told the truth about cigarette smoking. What it involved, why people smoke, why they find it hard to quit, how nicotine works, what withdrawal is, why we think we enjoy smoking, how and why it's actually very easy to quit etc.Probably millions have quit using his method.What I learned of truth was that ita) is self evident when you're primed to receive itb) frees you from lies clutches (in that case: addiction to nicotine)It's Gods job to present the truth in a way that it becomes self-evident. He'll use whatever means he can to prime you to receive it.
You are wise not to take anything I say on trust - such a view will keep you clear of the cults. When and if it all becomes self evident then you won't want to steer clear and you won't need anyone to convince you. The truth itself will do that:"and you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free."

I don't see how it is possible to hold to this! If I am to suppose my own evaluation of x potentially suspect then adding the evaluations of others, which are potentially suspect too, can't be said to increase the probablity that x is true.All that 10 people concurring in conclusion about x says, is that 10 people view x in the same way as each other. No statement is made about truth-ness.- When stating truth to be self-evident I pointed out that this would occur when a person was primed for it.In his book on smoking, Allen Carr mentions that the only people who can't be freed from smoking by his method are the young-to-smoking. Although as much in the smoking trap as anyone else, they have far less reason to appreciate the fact that they are trapped. They have the illusion of invincibility of youth, good health, death a far-into-the-future concept, no hacking cough or stained fingers. The anti-social aspect of smoking - which weighs down on the older addict - actually suits a young persons book.All in all, smoking youth are not primed to appreciate the self-evident truth about smoking.Not so the old-timer. The carefree days are long since past and he is now under no illusion about his smoking. His life consists of constant dark shadows in the back and at times forefront of his mind: the horrible diseases that threaten to go off like hand grenades at any time. Then there's the sheer slavery to the weed: having to "go to the toilet" during meetings so he can nip out for a smoke. Heading out a midnight to a 24 hour shop because he's run low. Then there's the agony of trying to quit by application of willpower - the days dragging out with the mind constantly turning to his "little friend". Only to finally cave in when the craving becomes too much, knowing that it will be years until the courage can be assembled to make another, probably failed, attempt at quitting.Thus primed, most who walk into an Allen Carr clinic or read his book will emerge a few hours later happy, laughing ex-smokers. No willpower, no patches, no problem: the truth has set them free. He claims a 90% success rate or so. I've been there and can confirm that the only one of my party who seemed to struggle and doubt was the one who wasn't paying attention to what was being said.It's a bit like that with God. Gods goal is to convince the world of sin righteousness and judgement. He uses truth in the attempt. But if you're not primed, if you're not completely convinced that "something bad" has gotten a grip of you and that you're completely entrapped by it then the truth will not be self-evident and you will not be freed by it.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Let's have a look see at how grounded in rationality your opinion is. A man can be jealous of his regiments honour. A man can be jealous of his families safety. Neither are green eyed monster variety jealousies. Neither could be considered evil by most folk. That's the context of Gods jealousy. Jealous that his 'bride' Israel would be led astray by evil. Innocent? No one's innocent. "For all have sinned an fallen short of the glory of God". Death is merely removal from this realm. It doesn't mean your destruction (necessarily). You seem to forget that God will remove everyone from this realm at some point in their lives. In that he is democratic. He didn't do anything to Job, satan did. All God did is remove his 'protection'. Seeing as God is not obliged to anyone to provide protection.. He's given me eternal life. But it's not because of this alone that I worship. It's because he's fantastic. Me having eternal life just puts me in a position to appreciate that.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Other than invoking convention, could you explain how precisely? If I can't trust my own observation then on what basis do I trust the next persons or the next? What puts any individual one of them in a better position than me to observe more truthfully than me? There is nothing that achieves this in fact; each of theirs is a single observation as probable as mine in terms of accuracy of truth observance.1 x 50/50 chance is a 50/50 chance of truth100 x 50/50 chance is 50/50 chance of truthIt's like saying tossing a fair coin 100 times and coming up heads means the 101st toss that comes up tails isn't truly tails because the first 100 were heads.Other than trusting my own observation that such an event improves probability of truth I can think of no reason to do so. But I can't trust my own observation to render truth ... apparently.Circular reasoning in evidence?later..Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Were it so simple.We're assuming I see everything else; the ground, the view, other people - but just not this balloon. If only me not, then there is something very strange going on. And if something very strange going on then it can be affecting 100 people and not me - as easily as it can be affecting things the other way around.All that can be said with any certainty is that 100 people reporting common observation share something. There is no truth value in that - just commonality of observation.- A poor way to make a point on my part.The point I was trying to convey was the inappropriateness of extrapolating what is the case into what isn't. The hard facts are this: the probability of any single observation reflecting truth (assuming only true/false options) is 0.5. Multiplying by 100 doesn't alter things - at least not unless you decide to adopt some convention (majority rules) which has no way of demonstrating itself to be the case.Your position is understandable because it seems to work on so many fronts. But this..- ...is an assumption.It assumes no God and thus no God "sight". But what if "God observation" is a little like a car wreck. Many people observe the wreck but no two accounts are the same. Rather than dismiss there having been a car wreck at all, the sensible thing to do in the face of overwhelming majority observation is to consider the fact that the majority report there to be one.The issue of wildly differing accounts shouldn't deflect you from the underlying issue - the car wreck Or: most are spiritual.Did I say "what the majority report"? Oops! - You are arguing it reasonable to suppose yourself mistaken about "majority rule" on the issue of truth-giving. And on the issue of majority rule w.r.t. probability of approaching truth.

The sense of a man reaping what he sows is conveyed well by the principle conveyed in that 2 Thessalonians section:

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2 Thess 2:9The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

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The only thing to be done when faced with truth is find yourself loving it - because it is intrinsically lovable (no act of will required). Or refuse to love it (act of will required). Nietzsche's refusal is a case in point: the extremity of it is reflected perhaps in the extremity of his perishment.The truth overwhelmed Nietzsche that day and he was compelled by it to hug that horse. It was the truth that crumpled his argument and along with it, the man.God will not be mocked. He wields a truth sharper than any double edged sword.Phew! Edited by iano, : No reason given.