If God is dead, does mankind become God?

The only universe that exists as far as you "know" is your internal perception of the universe.You have no way of interacting with the universe (or with God) except through your on-board sensors and computers.How do you know that the EvC universe exists? Have you ever met another member face to face? Talked to one on the phone? For all you know, EvC could be a very sophisticated bot. Or Percy could be writing every post but yours by himself. Your only knowledge of EvC is what you see on your screen.-------------The question here is, "Do we need an external God?"Does God push the clouds around so it rains here and storms there? Does God whisper in a Muslim's ear, telling him to bomb New York?Does God whisper in your ear, telling you what's right and what's wrong? Or would you know even without a whisper?

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1. I'm not convinced that the Revelation has anything to do with our salvation.
2. Salvation by grace is a given, but the goats can earn punishment by their own behaviour.
3. The goats' punishment does not necessarily negate their salvation.
4. The goats represent a potential outcome - there don't necessarily have to be any goats.

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I reminded him that the devil told Eve in the garden, that on the day you eat of it, 'you shall become as God.'

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Actually, it was the serpent, not the devil. They are not the same.Also, it was a very specific ability that Adam and Eve gained by eating the apple. It was the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic Warning

I said I wasn't going to reread this thread but now I am.Whoever first came up with this and all those including yourself who repeat it as true are wrong. God was created in one or more human images especially Jesus. Then after coming up with the notion of God, it came up with the notion that God created man in God's image.It might be possible to go beyond this. A few Taoist, Buddhist, Hindus, and even Christians have but most keep falling back into a human model of divinity as an autocratic designer.lfen

Rob, here you are defining reality as another term for god. god means reality and reality means god. Two words that mean the same thing.Since you define them as synonymous please give me a definition that isn't circular for god/reality. I personally am fine with the concept that god is another word for reality, but that being the case you need some other words to clarify what you mean.I have asserted and you have simply denied that you confuse the abstractions of reality by the symbolic use of words with the "reality" of the phenomena that the words refer to. They are not identical. Do you need me to demonstrate the the word water can't function the way the fluid that you drink functions? This issue is one that you have not directly addressed but went totally non sequential into just preaching something about the teachings attributed to Jesus.It seems to me you have a difficult theory of language to defend that words somehow are reality. I understand that argument and see the truth of it but it leaves one with relative truths and that seems to be a contradiction in your position.Do you really want to think seriously about these issues? or do you want to create occassion to preach the "gospel" and reguritate the rhetorics that have been shown to be useful sales techniques for your religion?lfenEdited by lfen, : rewrote the third paragraph as I realized it was very unclear

Ravi Zacharius is my favorite philosopher, not that he is one of the classics. But he is classic!He is my favorite simply because he elaborates the same concepts that are were in my head, and actually says them well...I guess I can just relate to him extremely well. And he is very educated and culturally diverse having come originally from India. I learn a thing or to from him about grace and tolerance and patience in the process (not that I have had great sucess in practicing them as yet). He has an uncanny ability to speak the truth boldy, yet in tremendous love. I have little of such balance.Oh wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?

Man, you've given me alot to deal with here, but how can I resist your clever positioning of the issue. Let us reason together... My understanding is that the beast is ultimately spiritual (the Devil :mad. However, he manifests himself (or perhaps it is better to say herself) through man. So the combination of these helps me to see that the beast is Babylon. The false system that was the first religion, is now not, but is to come. In that religion, man will become as God. We already see the roots being laid by the false prophet, as per many different religions and sub-cultures of religions. They will reunite under their common thread. A thread that was continually frustrated by God's direct intervention; in particular by the confusing of languages in the original Babylon, and most strikingly by the death and resurection of Jesus christ. Not all are saved... God wills that none should perish, but He does not force Himself upon us. We have a choice to appropriate that saving grace. As Lewis said, 'humanity is already saved in principle.'
But we must seek Him with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind. Behold, He is already knocking, but to open the door requires that we want the truth more than anything else.'He who tries to keep his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.' Yes, and that is not good! We're all in the same boat. God is the master equalizer. He made the standard for entering perfection, i.e. righteous, and sinless so that goodness was not relative to evil but righteous by it's own authority. We like to prop ourselves up by pointing out the faults of others. When we do, we use evil as the standard by which we measure our condition. In that world, some are better than others. On the other end of the spectrum is perfection, and by that standard all of us fall short and all of us are equal, because it is not a matter of better than, it is a matter of righteousness.So since righteousness is required to enter 'righteous' heaven. After all we wouldn't want to screw it up like we have here. We need someone who is perfect to show us the way. By Christs righteousness, man was able to achieve his true state. We finally get a glimpse of 'real life'. That is why he said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' And then added, 'No-one comes to the father except by me.'NIV writes:
Rev 3:5-- He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.See how He points back to Himself? The only way we can overcome is because He did overcome. We must have Him as our righteousness.This again levels the field, because it is not because I am more moral than so and so, but because I admitted to Him that I had sinned and was trapped by it. I became weak enough by exposure to His word to admit defeat in having my own way. I stopped pretending to be God, and in control of my life. I was out of control, and didn't recognise truth from fiction. I was plain lost in my own environment. I was blind, and could not see reality, but saw only my invention of reality and all it's idols. I was a walking graven image... I was sick of it and He took it from me when I offered to trade it for his life.So what is it that we are supposed to overcome?The world, religion, pride, sin... myself!To do that, I needed Him exclusively. Only he Could defeat me with His love and His sword of truth. As God said to Job:Job 40:15-24
15 "Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; He eats grass like an ox. 16 See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in his stomach muscles. 17 He moves his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. 18 His bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron. 19 He is the first of the ways of God; Only He who made him can bring near His sword. 20 Surely the mountains yield food for him, And all the beasts of the field play there. 21 He lies under the lotus trees, In a covert of reeds and marsh. 22 The lotus trees cover him with their shade; The willows by the brook surround him. 23 Indeed the river may rage, Yet he is not disturbed; He is confident, though the Jordan gushes into his mouth, 24 Though he takes it in his eyes, Or one pierces his nose with a snare.The beast within, (the other part of our triune selves created after God's own image) will not be overcome by our better half...Who among us has mastery over the self? Anybody?And without God, we never will! Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

I agree with that. It is in fact, an inevitable reality. After all, something has to be true, whether it is that we are all alone in this vast universe or not... There are many interpretations (some of which you and I would both agree are utturly absurd, such as the Hail Bob Comet cult).So the point I would make is that only one thing can be true even if many religions overlap on many concepts, morality in particular. It doesn't seem that there is really much dispute on what our hearts tell us is right and wrong.So which one has the most pieces of the puzzle? I personally believe it is the Biblical perspective, as portrayed by the whole Bible. It interprets itself, and the consistent thread throughout is that man is fallen and out of his mouth come blasphemies and bitterness. In our rage we are like dragons who will not be tamed. Absolute rebels!Furthermore, if we want to understand and gain wisdom, we must go back to God. We are seperated from Him in our sin, and cannot find the way. There are too many forks in the road. The picture is too vast. There have been too many liars (not the least of which is in our own mirror) And we are bitter that we cannot figure it out! We inevitably blame God, but as Neitzsche said in his parable, we have done it ourselves...God made the way for us, because he does want us to know. And in so doing, left no roam for boasting and our pride. If God saves, then I cannot claim superiority over you because I did nothing. I am not elevated in knowing the truth, but am humbled and will crawl on my belly to plant any seed in your little toe that you may find and see as your own and eventually find God. And when you do, you will see that he found you!The only thing we can do is listen and respond with legitimate searching... Seek and find. When we do, it is only then that we realize that God was leading us by the nose the whole time. And we worship Him for being so merciful to a wretches...He would be in the right to pull the plug on us right now! His grace (patience and mercy) is unfathomable to me. Like a father who must correct his child and lead him, sometimes with loving discipline, but patient and hopeful that he will come to understand.

The Devil is a spiritual creature... a fallen angel. The serpent is his manifestaion inn to the flesh.It is my understanding that the serpent is multiheaded. He breathes fire. What comes out of his mouth makes him unclean! he comes up out of the sea of humanity. The mortals totally ruled and enslaved by his cunning. He fools us by telling us what we want to hear.NKJ Rev 20; 1-3 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, Having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He layed hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the botttomless pit, and shut him up..." Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made...Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic Warning

Ifen, don't look to me to change your mind. I am not capable of wrestling you to the ground. I refuse the burden...I don't mind you disagreeing. But instead of just saying that I am making a mess of things. Please take a quote of mine and show the problem. Then we can reason together...I don't expect the word 'water' to actually 'be water'... I only expect it to conjure up in another's mind, the qualities of water that they have become familliar with by their own experience.It is as though you are saying that words are inadequate to reveal God. I disagree! You just make things far more complicated than they need to be. I know, because I do the same thing, and am a slowly recovering basket case myself. I thank God, and His clear, simple truth for that. though I often wish the process were faster. But doing a job right takes time, patience, and a master craftsman.Shall I craft myself? Or is that what got me in trouble to begin with?If I don't know the truth, reality, or the ability to say what is right, then how do I begin to build myself into who I should be (when I don't know what it means to be)?Luke 14; 28-35, Jesus said:“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first,
and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he
hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to
mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or
what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth
whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty
thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an
ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you
that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Salt is good: but
if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for
the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

Rob,When responding to me, you can save yourself the trouble of all the sermonizing.
I've heard it all before. Let's see if I can find anything in your post that's on topic: You're stuck on absolutes again. I thought you just agreed that we can only "know" what we perceive. If so, it doesn't matter if something is "true" or not - only whether we perceive it to be true. "Something has to be true" is a useless statement. Which misses the point completely. If we can not "know" what is utimately "true", then we can not say that "only one thing can be true" - another useless statement. Yes, it is our hearts that tell us what is right and wrong - not an external God. We can only blame an external entity if there is an external entity. We have done it ourselves - it is our responsibility. We do what we do, we make the mistakes and we are responsible for fixing them."God" is not a crutch for saving us from ourselves.

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The Devil is a spiritual creature... a fallen angel. The serpent is his manifestaion inn to the flesh.

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Where does it say that the serpent of Genesis and Satan are one in the same in the Bible?

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It is my understanding that the serpent is multiheaded. He breathes fire. What comes out of his mouth makes him unclean! he comes up out of the sea of humanity. The mortals totally ruled and enslaved by his cunning. He fools us by telling us what we want to hear.

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NKJ Rev 20; 1-3 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, Having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He layed hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the botttomless pit, and shut him up..."

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Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made...

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It seems to me that the serpent of Genesis is merely a "crafty" animal. Nowhere in Genesis does it say or imply that the serpent is Satan, or the embodiment of Satan. The serpent has a forked tongue and crawls on it's belly; it's a snake.It doesn't mention anything about the serpent being a fallen angel, nor a spiritual entity. It's a snake.It's not a dragon, either, nor does it breathe fire.And God and Satan are able to chat with each other over Job, you know.Me thinks you are interpreting the Bible inappropriately. Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic Warning

I'm saying words are inadequate to discribe or model god, yes. Words are a useful tool for many tasks including talking about issues raised by religion and spirituality, but the answers lie beyond words.I specifically am saying that the fundamentalist's attempt to claim that a literal interpretation of the Bible is true leads to falsifications of several orders. I am claiming that literalism is at it's inception a flawed approach to the the truth of What Is and leads to the contradictions and non sense that we read on this list. These misunderstandings are based among other things on errors of improper semantics.lfen

Rob, is it possible to boast by being humble, or are you sincere?Personally, I think that it is better to not even mention God at all and allow the Spirit in us to draw people rather than us putting on some act of benevolance in the hopes of performin our duties so that we get a pat on the head someday when the Boss says "Well Done, O Good and Faithful Servant"But then again, what do I know? (I think I know who I know, so its all on Him! )

I know you are not under my control. So it has nothing to do with me."Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Job 41:1-10