Charismatic Chaos

Heartache? In what sense: from a believers position of being in a relationship with him - yet life remains difficult or unbearable even? Or from the unbelievers position of seemingly speaking into a void - where God doesn't respond? The former position would attract a vastly different response than the latter. I'll assume the latter (or it's ilk).A person can be sincere but sincerely misdirected, you would agree. How very often people here say they don't believe in God but wish he did exist 'because it would be great to know there was an afterlife'. Or it would be great 'because good people would be rewarded and bad people would be punished'. Or it would be great 'because it would be fascinating to meet someone able to create all this'. What they don't say is 'how great it would be to be made holy'. And the reason they don't say that is that they don't realise that they are unholy.But IF a persons unholiness is the barrier preventing their entering into a relationship with God, AND God has a means whereby he attempts to break down that barrier, AND if the only way to come into a relationship with God is if he succeeds in breaking down that barrier, THEN all the prayer and worship in the world isn't going to alter anything* for the unholy person.Square pegs will not fit into round holes - no matter how sincere the attempt to hammer the one into the other. * God sees the heart so it isn't correct to say that no aspect of a persons prayer/worship/study is beneficial. But it will only be those parts of the prayer/worship/study that assist the wheels of the mechanism of salvation in their turning. All the rest will fall on deaf ears. God heareth not sinners.- That's a correct belief - although your tone indicates you believe the opposite, in which case you're being led to believe the opposite by someone else. Someone else whose vested interest you should take note of.God is about humility (although humility isn't to be confused with weakness). His way is contra the worlds way. The world encourages us to serve our own needs - God tells us to consider others needs. The world gives us proud false gods who are found in elevated positions far above us: wealth, fame, power. God is humble and is found in the bottom of a mans own barrel - at the point when man can't fall any lower. (Did you hear that: God, the glorious creator of the Universe, gets down into the murky bottom of our evildoing so that if/when we finally sink down that far and despair as we've never despaired before, he can be found. That's humilty on his part - which happens to meet us in a place of our humility). Man sacrifices himself to false gods. God sacrifices himself for us.'The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom'. That fear isn't a craven, shrinking fear - it's an awestruck, wonderous fear. The kind fear than runs down your spine in a (not unpleasant) thrill when you realise that to be last is to be first in the Kingdom of God. And humility, rather than being sign of weakness in the Kingdom of God, is a sign of strength.One step for the unbeliever along the path towards Saving Humility (at the end of which is found God) is to accept that which you have more than sufficient evidence for: your imperfection and your failings. Another is to begin to surmise that there might be a bit more to this God than meets your imperfect eye. You might do well to leave your judgement of him until you meet him. That's a prayer God is sure to listen to. Here's another one I came across once which I'm sure he'd listen to. He did in my case anyway;

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Lord, I don't know you
I don't want to know you
But I want to want to know you.

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- As per above. A person can be sincere, but sincerely wrong. The one who directs a useless 'prayer' to the right God is as misguided as the one who sacrifices himself to the wrong god.How does 'the conscience saves' tie in with 'salvation by faith'? Well, faith in this saving context is the same as 'believing what God says' (Abraham believed God and was justified vs. Abraham had faith in what God said and was justified. It's the same thing: to believe God what God says/have faith in what God says). So how does the conscience produce salvation? Well, it's aim, as I have been pointing out, is to bring a man to the conviction that he is a desparately sinful, wicked, evil, rotten creature. But the conscience is, as I have also been pointing out, the 'voice of God' to which we are exposed. Combining those two notions we see that a man convicted by his conscience is a man who has ..... believed what God says (even if he doesn't yet believe in God)And having believed God, he has done just as Abraham did. And so God does with that man the very same thing that he did in Abrahams case: He justifies/saves that man. A man who is convicted by conscience, is (in other words) the man who has been brought, by God - through application of conscience, to the point where he satisfies Gods criterion for saving him. And so God saves him.- As per above we can see that saving faith isn't to be confused with blind faith. Blind faith might pray, study, worship - fly into buildings. But it's not saving faith. Saving faith involves an earnest conviction about the state of oneself. And that earnest conviction is based on anything but blindness. No, no! It's got all the evidence it needs at it's for it's sustanence - that evidence involving all the rotten dealings done over a whole lifetime.- God didn't create sin. He created freewill and so created the potential for sin. The freewill creates the sin when it expresses itself contra-God (which is our working definition for sin/evil/wrong. Sin = that which goes contra-God). God is responsible for sin in the one-step removed sense of having created the potential for it.A free will without anything to choose from isn't a free will. It's a free will in seed form. Only when there are options to choose from - with the freedom to choose from them - can the free will be said to be free. Indeed, it's only at the point of actually choosing that the free will can be said to be fully realised, fully free. And so God provided the necessary choices to realise free will.His knowing what man would choose doesn't necessarily affect the freedom of the choice: we cannot assume God's foreknowledge is determining because we don't know the nature of the mechanism of God's foreknowledge. Suffice to say, the justness of any consequences that follow hinge on the choice being free.- I've pointed out two things:- promised consequences delivered to Adam, which includes his children being infected.- Adam not to be blamed for doing wrong because he wasn't a moral creature at the time of his choosing the way he chose.Failing a mechanism by which blame can be laid at the door of God, I don't see how you can lay the blame there. Rethoric won't do it. Insisting won't do it. Feelings won't do it. You need a mechanism.- Ditto the above.- God cannot make an object too heavy for him to lift - his omnipotence/omniscience being unaffected by his inability to do so. Nor can God create a being who (effectively) freely wills to come into relationship with him without giving that same being the potential not to come into relationship with him.God has higher designs for man than he has for angels. Angels serve God and his adopted children. We're to be his adopted children .. or not. That the process by which angels decide for/against God is different than the process whereby potential children decide for/against God is to be expected: horses for courses.- It's the nature of God that acting contra-God brings suffering. To act contra-God is to act contra your Creator, is to act contra-the preferred design goal. Have you ever seen what happens when you throw spanners into works? It's just the consequential nature of things - not a plan.- I agree. I hate that 'come to buddy Jesus' gospel. It completely sidesteps the reason why Jesus came: mankind lying under the furious wrath of a holy God and needing saving. That partial gospel is as likely as anything else to produce false professions.It's as if the Old Testament doesn't exist. It's as if Jesus didn't issue stark warnings to a sinful world.- Eh.. when it comes of unveiled warnings to flee the wrath to come, Jesus is your only man. I've no difficulty with the 'difficult' parts of the Bible. It comes from my beginning to have an appreciation for;a) how unholy I am*
b) how holy God is (how much God hates sin) * technically I'm fully holy. Practically I'm not yet, but will be.- I'm afraid I don't agree with you in the case of Adam and Eve. We can't prove things either way but might agree that the Bible (and this life - assuming God exists) begins to make some kind of sense if they had. If they hadn't then we're left talking a nonsense.But you are right that our (effective - not Adamic) free choice is limited to a particular end goal: where we spend eternity. We don't get to choose to exit the game altogether (by opting to become an angel/ existance destroyed).- We were always in need of him. And we still are. We rely on him for everything and there is no way to avoid our relying on him for everything. That's simply the nature of being a created being. Although God didn't create sin, he utilises sin in the process of letting us determine which eternal destination we'll plump for.It's brilliant really! God can't be morally attached to sin - other than by being responsible for creating the free-willed potential for it. His hands are clean in the creation of sin/evil - the free will is responsible. Then he uses sin (which was created by a lower being, an angel) for the purposes of achieving a laudible goal in the case of the most high (or potentially most high) creatures he has created (us) giving those creatures the free (or effectively free) choice to become children of God or no.- Consequences positive and consequences negative don't need to have a moral dimension (good/evil) attached to them in order to be decision drivers this way or that. We make decisions every day that have positive and negative consequences but have no moral element attaching.I can stay up late and watch a movie and be tired the next day as a result: negative consequence but no moral element (so long as it's not a naugthy movie )- They had a sense because they understood language. We can't say what they understood of "surely die" but to suppose they had no understanding of it involving negative consequences is to suppose they had no understanding of language at all - when it is clear they did. Beside, Eve responded to the serpents temptation to eat with a "..but God did say" indicating she understood a prohibition.Understanding a prohibition means understanding negative consequences attaching to disobedience.Foreknowledge has been dealt with above. Not necessarily determining.- Consequences followed. Negative consequences. Promised negative consequences.- All hinges on free choice. If Adam and Eve had it, the rest follows: God isn't to blame, Adam and Eve aren't to blame. It is how it is and we get on with it. Now, quite how God can create an undetermined freewill is beyond me - but that's all that's required.- Ah..okay.Supposing Eli to be a Christian (as defined by God), we can see the possibility of him worshipping at the altar of false gods. In which case he can expect to be disciplined - unto sickness, even unto death (as Paul tells us). God disciplines those who he loves (the saved).Make no mistake about the holiness of God, Hyro. God will not be mocked: not by an unbeliever, and certainly not by believers. If it takes the shredding of a believers psyche to wrest a man from the altar of a false God then God will do that. He tells us that "He who began a good work in you (the believer) will bring it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ". Began.. will complete. A promise - come what may.Then there are the people who should be torn apart by events but who reflect the power of God operating in them mightily.

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Gordon Wilson held his daughter's hand as they lay trapped beneath a mountain of rubble. It was 1987, and he and Marie had been standing watching a peaceful Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, when a terrorist bomb went off. The rescuers dug them out of the rubble and rushed them to hospital. But, by the end of the day, Marie and nine other people were dead.

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A few hours after the bombing, when interviewed by the BBC, Gordon Wilson forgave the terrorists who had killed his daughter. He said that he would pray for them. He also begged that no-one took revenge for Marie's death. "That", he said, "will not bring her back."

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The loss of Marie shattered Gordon Wilson and his wife Joan, but, they were anxious that bitterness and hatred should not rip apart the small town of Enniskillen. Before the bomb, Protestants and Catholics in Enniskillen had lived side by side, and the Wilsons wanted it to stay that way. The bomb had done a lot of damage, not just to the buildings in the town but in the relationships between Catholics and Protestants. As Christians, the Wilson wanted to help repair this damage between people.

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After his television interview, Gordon Wilson received many letters from people across Britain and the rest of the world. Many supported him, but many others criticised him. Even though he insisted that terrorists should be punished for their crimes, people accused him of excusing them.

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Throughout the rest of his life, Gordon Wilson worked hard to bring reconciliation between people in Northern Ireland. The Irish government rewarded his work by making him a Senator in the Irish parliament.

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Gordon Wilson came face to face with the people who had planned the Enniskillen bombing. The terrorists apologized for killing Marie. But when Gordon asked them to stop bombing and shooting, they refused.

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Gordon Wilson died a few years ago. After his death, many people in Northern Ireland carried on his work. Today, in Northern Ireland, the bombings and shootings have stopped thanks to the work of people like Gordon Wilson.

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- A little regard for the holiness of God, a little appreciation for the sheer distance between us, who are awash with evil - and him, in whom there is no darkness at all - would clear most, if not all of those misapprehensions of yours away.Perhaps there's a little cognitive dissonance going on in your own mind: an inner conviction that there is such a thing as absolute right and wrong, an inner conviction that you fall far short of that ideal. A knowledge (somewhere inside) that God does, or should, exist. A knowledge that (somewhere else inside) demands rejecting.And so you remain able to stay standing before him - by bringing him down to our level. He's holy Hyro. And the nature of holiness is to be furious wrath against evil. Which explains so much.That's the only fly in your ointment. Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I fully agree.I do want love, peace and happiness (available to all) without any other attachments. That's the whole point. If God is not capable of providing such (as you seem to imply) than He is not worthy of our utmost respect. Therefore, God is not worthy of worship. You're proving my point. Again, sure, I fully agree. Call my idea Sin, call it Shit for all I care. That doesn't change the fact that my idea of the afterlife is more loving and caring and wonderful than the one you're promoting that God is preparing for us.Therefore, either God is incapable of creating a better afterlife (in which case He is not omnipotent) or God is just not a very nice being. In both cases, I'd rather stand for the virtues of love, peace and happiness than this God you're presenting. In either case, your God is not worthy of the respect you're defending. I very well may be. That's what the disclaimer is for. You quoted it yourself in your reply to me, have you forgotten it already? All we can ever do is make decisions and judgments with the information we have at the time. We must remember that when more information is added (if ever...) we are able to adjust our decisions then.You need to provide facts to be convincing. Spreading fear and worry doesn't add any confidence to your views. You may find some people to agree with you, but it will be a vacant, superficial agreement based on fear. In order to obtain a valid, rational agreement, you must provide facts.As long as you continue to not provide us with any facts, your promotion of your God will simply remain your own pet theory.

And if your very desiring love, peace, happiness is a function of the image of God in which you are made (ie: if it's God-in-you harking for (re)union with God: who is the source of love, peace, happiness - being by nature; love/peace/happiness)?God cannot create an object too heavy for him to lift. Nor can he create music without a creator of music. You're desiring an irrational and illogical form of God. It appears.- See above. By doing away with the musician you do away with the music altogether. Yet you suppose this musicless environment more musical? How so. If God is love and the source of our being able to love ... and you exclude God..then were do these supposed virtues go.I mean, how can you have something without the source of something. It's completely irrational Stile.- That's a rather black and white way of looking at it - especially considering how difficult it is for even agreed facts to be contructed into a compelling case.My approach isn't to construct a compelling case in any objective fashion. Rather, my approach is to present elements of the gospel of God (as I understand it) in the belief that the gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation. Not my abilty to argue same.I've made previous mention of the fact that my tactics involve the application of a Trojan Horse: rational/intellectual debate is the horse, the gospel message (or element of same) being the contents of that horse.Generally I remind folk that I'm discussing from the point of view of supposing God to exist and the Bible to be his word. And generally my conversations with others look at the workings of the mechanisms of God from that standpoint. My apologies if I've led you to suppose I'm attempting to make any absolute statements which would be supported by facts (that said, I frequently base my arguments on what I figure would be areas of commonly held belief: notions of what constitutes just actions, etc)Fact? As my somewhat cynical journalist friend is wont to state:

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Never let the facts get in the way of a good story

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Quite!

Well, that would be God, of course.I also agree that if my desiring of love, peace and happiness was a function of oscar the grouch, then the source of love, peace and happiness would be oscar the grouch."What-if" games are fun, but not really worth basing a rational position upon. That's where facts are required. I agree, you can't. But you are forgetting to connect the dots. You're just saying that God is the source. You haven't provided any facts. And I have provided many facts to show that God is not a necessary addition. That's what all those links to other threads were for: Apologies accepted. You've certainly presented your beliefs. I just don't see any reason to take them as a part of reality. The only reason I post these responses is so that others do not mistakenly take your claims as truths about this world. Truths about this world stand on their own factual foundations.Of course, this doesn't mean you're wrong. You certainly could be right on the mark. Many a man has died from a shot in the dark All this means is that we do not know that you're right, as we equivalently do not know that any other religion (or perhaps none at all) is right.If using the facts available to us in order to make the decision we can is our priority, then it needs to be pointed out that (currently) no facts point towards your (or any other) particular concept of God.

Why not? I thought your god was omnipotent, yet it appears you think it is constrained by the logical bounds of our universe. An omnipotent god could make an object too heavy for it to lift, as well as be able to lift it. It simply would be illogical by our standards, and we would not understand how it is possible.Why can you not understand that your god is limited by your imagination? A god that exists only within your own mind is nothing worthy of worship. You are very happy to admit that your god does things that you don't know the reasons for but when it comes right down to it, if you don't understand it it cannot be part of your god.Your god is make-believe. This is the root of the problem it seems. Most of the posters on this board are seeking the truth of matters. You are not seeking truth, you are trying to push an agenda that you at times call "the Truth".The distinction here is that the primary concern of truth-seeking posters is that their position is correct, and then conveying how they determined that conclusion. Your primary concern seems to be wrapping your agenda in just enough logical buzzwords to be considered, and the justification for your position never enters into your process. This is why it is a problem when we ask for facts; truth-seekers have found them to be the source of truth, yet you simply have a story to tell regardless of the facts.Regardless of the truth.

Wow, this is a long one. Heartache in the sense of a believer trying to find reasons to stay faithful when prayer is not a dialogue but rather a monologue. They don't know what that means, and I doubt anyone could because there are none that are holy. No one is holy, so then prayer would not work for anyone. Then God hears no one for all are sinners, including the saved. Who? Satan? If so, that's very presumptuous to assume that if I test the spirits, that I'm being led by Satan. How can God sacrifice anything if he's perfectly contained within himself? What does he stand to lose? You can say, "Us," be wrote his own rules. Again this all goes back to how HE chose this all to be, for at any given time he could make us like the angels. You'll have to forgive me but I'm beyond banal platitudes. As Paul said, he didn't want us on milk anymore. I want the meat and dime-store apologetics don't do anything to answer my questions. So I'm just supposed to just kind of wing it until death? Why should I not do the same for, say, Islam? Faith alone cannot stand on its own, because if it were we would be expected to simply believe everything for face value. You don't think I've said this prayer a billion times? You don't think I've looked at it a hundred different ways?"He doesn't answer because maybe it's me. He doesn't answer because maybe I'm not faithful enough. It doesn't answer because I'm still in sin. He doesn't answer because he is trying to teach me a valuable lesson, so I will lean not on my own understanding. And then at some point you say, he doesn't answer because he's.... not.... there." And how do you know it is not you that is sincerely wrong and misguided and sacrificing yourself to a wrong god?See that's always the problem. You have 8 trillion people giving advice on the same subject with diametrically opposed and contradictory answers. Yet they all speak about "faith." Well, if I were to take everything on faith, I would be in contradiction would I not?So therefore on a very basic level we all need some sort of definitive evidence. Useless. Extremist Muslims conscience instructs them, by faith, to martyr themselves and kill the infidels. Platitudes and bible stories aren't going do it, friend. I've heard it all and read it all. I don't want to sound condescending but I'm not exactly a spring chicken here who just sort of came to these conclusions by happenstance. Jesus said that if we had just a tiny bit of faith that we'd be able to instruct a mountain to throw itself in to the sea. That's never happened. Ever. Are we all then unfaithful? Or is it that it's just complete bullshit? Again, and if you had earnest, saving conviction?(Here comes the veritable, "I guess you weren't earnest otherwise you would know.") If not God, then who?[i]I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and [color=red]create evil[/color=red]; I am God, that doeth all these things.[/i] - Isaiah 45:7By the creation of holiness and allowing unholiness, God therefore created for himself the contrast of holiness, which is sin. It therefore makes God responsible for sin.Nothing exists without its counterpart, otherwise they make no sense in relation to one another. It's that yin-yang principle. Light makes no sense without darkness to contrast it. Question this deeply, as nothing can happen outside of the will of God. God has a perfect will (optimal circumstances) and a permissible will (what he allows but doesn't like), but it is still HIS will. Same damn thing if he creates beings who are purposely drawn to it, think about it. And designated choices isn't really making a choice if you are limited to what can be chosen. I cannot choose to remove myself from the sin-infested world without the greater consequence of being eternally tormented.Just like the computer, I can choose between functions but I can't choose not to play and I cannot choose what functions exist. I can only choose between the lesser of evils. Sure we can. If you cannot alter the course of history (iow, he's ALWAYS known what would be) then we cannot escape our ultimate destination. In other words, it is predestined. True or not true: According to Genesis (God's unfailing Word) Adam and Eve had no concept of right and wrong BEFORE eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge and evil? He was blamed. God cursed Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. He blamed everyone but himself. The mechanism is God's own omniscience. That God and only God could have created anything makes him directly responsible. That isn't rhetoric, that's simple logic. Angels didn't have a choice whether or not they'd be in his presence, surrounded by him all day long as irrefutable proof of his existence and love for them. Man on the other hand had no choice in being thrown in to pit of scum and have to fight everyday against sin and temptation and unbelief with a looming fear of eternal damnation.So lets talk about this awesome freewill and how lucky we are to have it considering our very limited and bleak options from which to choose from.What dime-store apologetics about "choice" and "freewill" are there for my questions? Jesus stated that he was designed to be lower than the angels, insinuating that man is beneath the angels on the pecking order, also something we have no choice in. We suffer no matter what we do, Iano. Your unfettered love for God won't ease the suffering of being tortured. It won't end the suffering of watching a loved one die before your eyes, to see their agony and to have it become your own.You keep insinuating that we only suffer if we go against God's will (which, again, we cannot remain sin free so its a futile point to make). We suffer because we are trapped in the confines of his will; a will that includes death and misery as part of his master plan.The most godly person in the universe will still hurt when someone has an anuerysm behind the wheel and careens in to his whole family. And that has jack shit to do with sin.So, again, we suffer because he wants us to. There's no way of getting around that, otherwise he'd have made it an impossibility. What then are we left with? Our choices are to follow a silent mystery that may be true or risk perdition for daring to question its reality. That's hardly a choice, and evidently he likes it this way. Or he just doesn't exist and God didn't create man, but rather man created God. Or he exists but man has tried to speak on his behalf, yet his real nature is nothing how we expected it to be like. Either that is true or the bible is not infallible, which leaves all of the bible open to interpretation. As I've already quoted in Isaiah, he CREATES evil according his own Word.You therefore cannot occupy both positions. You'll have to reject one or the other. That is irrelevant since they had no concept of consequence whatsoever. Again, God played against their naive nature (supplied by God) and then blamed them when their curious nature (supplied by God) went against what God didn't explain to them. All she said was, "but God did say," that in no way means she understands what consequence is. Not that it matters.What I suspect it all really means is that the author(s) of this really tall tale of talking snakes and naked people eating a fruit from a magical tree that supplies knowledge of good and evil in a garden where God walks around is that he/they didn't think it through all the way, or that the story is totally and completely metaphorical and was in no way intended to be believed in actuality. Either way it is a contradiction. Either they did understand good/evil or they didn't. You can't have it both ways. If God is omniscient, nothing just sort of happens without clear deliberation. Think about it. It's good to be king of the theocracy. If it requires me to accept things blindly and not to question things utilizing the brain that he gave to me, why even provide the possibility? Yes, of course. I'm just honest enough to speak about the 2 ton elephant sitting in the room and not scared to examine things critically and honestly. Upon examination of what is written compared to what I see and live, I see a clever ruse, a sham, a scam, perpetrated under the guise of love and goodwill towards men. Well, maybe he shouldn't have created it then. Heaven forbid he has lie in his own bed.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

There are various ways to understand the word omnipotent. I apply one that supposes God constrained to operate according to his own nature. His being constrained so doesn't impinge on his omnipotence.- All any theology hopes to do is to understand what it supposes Gods revelation regarding himself to say. It is like a scientific theory in the sense that if the theology successfully accomodates all the 'observations' then it is a sound theology. If it cannot be modified to accomodate an observation then it is scrapped.- You sound like a Dawkinsian7 - Indeed. And I've stated what my intention is on more than one occasion. It's not a problem in order that it can have a root.- I would disagree. I very frequently argue a justification for my position. But rather than basing it on facts (which don't apply to a case "built on the assumption, for the sake of argument, that God exists and the Bible is his word"), I base it on areas where I expect there might be common agreement.Perhaps if I argued a Creationist position your demand for facts might be relevant. Not as much so in Faith & Belief however.

It isn't a constraint if it is something it is capable of. Superman *could* cut people in half with his laser vision, he just does not. It isn't a "constraint" on his power, it is just something he does not do.You have stated that your god *cannot* be illogical. Would you like to reverse that statement? Or any other atheist? Or didn't you know that is what every atheist thinks? So you base your persuasive writing on assuming the reader already agrees with you. How has that been working out for you?

Rather than reverse it, let me reword it: according to the theological model I am using (based as it is on the nature of God revealed in the Bible), God cannot be illogical. Being logical is part of his nature.Clearly, the God revealed in the Bible could be hiding part of his nature and could in fact be lying when he says he's incapable of lying. Or be capable of illogic when revealing himself to be logical.- Few atheists would score themselves 7 on Dawkins scale. Or make statements indicating that they score themselves 7 on that scale. Declaring 'your God is make believe' is a Dawkinsian7 style statement.- Not bad. Most folk are prepared to believe the Bible is the word of God - for the sake of argument. Which allows discussion to progress along channels of common agreement. For example, folk think that God should act justly in order to be considered good. And I think God should act justly in order to be considered good. There's also a lot of agreement on what constitutes 'good' - which allows discussion to progress on the issue of Gods goodness.Of course, the wheels always fall off at some point. I am talking to unbelievers afterall and unbelievers are at root opposed to the things of God and find them foolish. But I'm not too put off by that - given that that's an expected. Given my post count, it appears they aren't too put off either. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

So you don't believe in the god of the Bible? Or are you continuing to be dense on the difference between "cannot" and "will not"? That would only be so if I had also declared myself to be infallible. A 6 on the scale is sufficiently convinced to make such statements but recognizes the potential to be in error.Your above statement sounds like a Dawkinsian1 style statement. (A thick one, who claims to be incapable of error and assumes the same claim in others.) I suppose the wheels fall off when you try to go from common agreement in "ought" to common agreement in "is". Making that leap without evidence must be difficult, perhaps you could clarify?

Hy Hyro,Sorry about the delay in getting to reply to your post. It's a long one to a long one - and I'm tight on the time it'll take to deal with it.asap, okay?Ian

Indeed. I'll try to cut to what I think is/are the chase(s). If I've left out a point you think important then by all means..Having just finished writing I see it's still long. Perhaps read it through first and figure out which, if any, points you'd like to plough on with?- Ah, okay.I was supposing the case of a believer (but not a believer as defined by God). If actually supposing the case of a believer (as defined by God) then surely the 'sincerity of the study' put in over the years would give some indication as to why the seemingly cavernous distance between believer and God. Discipline? Proving of faith?- If pointing the finger at some deficiency in God rather than deficiency in yourself - after years of sincere study, then I find it difficult to suppose anything else.- God forsakes his beloved son and neither the father nor the son suffer because of that?I'm not of the opinion that God loses in the case that man maintains his rebellion. Either God is love will have a man, or God is wrath. God is satisfied either way.Angels aren't the raw material of children. It takes something into which God has breathed his own spirit to be that kind of raw material. And if the nature of God is to want children, then it seems fair enough that he should try for them.- I agree. Which is why I was supposing you a believer, perhaps, of non-biblical type (albeit in the biblical God). Then again, it can be too that the believer (as defined by God) is running on an empty faith.Biblical faith holds you up because biblical faith gives you the evidence you need to stand. It, biblical faith, is what permits a person to move mountains. Or stand at street corners when all point and say 'fool'. Biblical faith enables people to resist satan and counter their fleshly desires and do work pleasing to God. Biblical faith is the fuel that keeps a believers engine running. If there is none of this faith then the person either isn't a believer, or they are, but are running, as I say, on empty.- Yet you'll have learned that God disciplines some unto sickness and others onto sleep (death). I'm not saying it's easy (I'm not one for drawing all that near to God so as to enjoy soaring myself) to undergo what you are (let's assume for the sake of argument) undergoing. But it's hardly that much of a mystery.- Faith.- Forgive my switching suppositions in your case - I'm back to supposing you an unbeliever (as defined by God) for the purposes of dealing with what you say above. Faith, we have seen, is a kind of fuel and is not at all blind (which you are supposing). If you've never had exposure to this kind of fuel, the only kind of faith you'd know is the blind type - the one that relies on your own power for it's hangiung-in-there power.I'm not able to imagine how someone could at some point in their lives know (by God supplied faith) then at another point, unknow what they knew. God might be distant - but he can never be gone.Knowledge, if knowledge, cannot disappear totally.- The simple argument would be that extremist Muslims aren't being instructed by God-given conscience. Rather they are being instructed by hate masquerading as Gods-voice. The Crusaders fell for the same voice it would appear.- I think he was speaking figuratively. People of faith have thrown mountains into seas: William Wilberforce being one rather obvious example, the apostle Paul another, Jesus himself achieved so much this way.Gordon Wilson (of Enniskillen bombing 'fame') might better reflect the kind of case Jesus was referring to: regarding the moving of huge personal mountains: expressing love where hate had every right to manifest. Expressing forgiveness when an eye for an eye could be demnaded- If you had saving conviction then you are saved. And are struggling with a lack of faith.- Again, God created the potential for sin via free will. And so he is indeed creator of sin, and end responsible for sin - but in once-step removed fashion. A fashion that means the existance of sin impinges not at all on his goodness. Nor on our culpability for our sin.- Goodness can exist before evil - if evil is brought about by a freewill and that freewill has yet to be created.I agree that nothing can happen outside the will of God. Even that which God doesn't want. I'd see it as the ranking of Gods will. His primary will is that free will express (which necessitates making provision for evil). His secondary will is that the freewill would do as he pleases. His primary will trumps his secondary will.Gods secondary will succumbs to his primary will.We do this all the time (me, currently, with my primary will to laze on front of the tv trumping my secondary will which would like to rid itself of this hint of flab eminating around my middle)- If you were tormented by the urge to murder or rape and feared as nothing else your actually succumbing to that urge - and killed yourself so as to prevent such evil happening then I'd be convinced you'd be saved. Great love hath no man..If, on the other hand, you killed yourself to escape the pressure that would bring you to your knees before God..- I'm afraid those bets are off once God is removed from the contraining influence of time. When the Bible speaks of predestination, it speaks (I'd argue) of what is predestined to occur to that category of people called the saved. Not that they are predestined to become to belong to that category of people.- True .. answer to your question Consequences for choice .. delivered as promised. "Because you have done this thing..."- Were not angels cast from heaven after exercising choice? It's not that relevant how a freewilled being is given an option so long as option is given. Irrefutable proof of his existance and love was patently countered by God in some way shape or form.Else angels are just dumb.- What's bleak about the prospect of a realm in which only righteousness dwelleth. I can only think of one thing in a person that would perish at the thought. And that thing is called Sin.- Suffering is indeed part of this life: for believer and un.In the unbeliever it's aim is punishment from a wrathful God who promised consequences and will not be mocked. In that same unbeliever it's aim is to cause terminal despair so as to cause the unbeliever to fall to his knees before a God who loves him enough to suffer and die for himThe believer too can expect the wrath of God to fall on his sin. And he can expect discipline from a father who loves him and knows better than to spare the rod. Suffering for the believer is designed to produce perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope.It's God at work in the believer ensuring suffering has this goal. And God at work on the unbeliever attempting to ensure suffering has that goal- That's the singular flaw in your argument throughout this post of yours: blind faith vs. biblical faith. You labour, it seems, under the one, supposing that this is the kind of faith you are supposed to exhibit.- I'm afraid her understanding a prohibition is extremely important. It indicates something else on the scales besides the serpents temptation.Granted, we can only suppose the weight of understanding of the consequences attaching to the prohibition ("you will surely die") matched the weight of the temptation, so as to render the choice equally balanced and thus, hers. An equally weighted choice makes the argument contained in the rest of the Bible possible. A determined choice made by skewing the result makes discussion of the biblical mechanism pointless.We have to assume one or other for the sake of argument. And the former to continue arguing. - Good/evil doesn't have to attach to a prohibition. A prohibition can simply carry amoral negative consequences.- That brain should begin with what you're told and try to figure out an answer from there. Else it must begin to juggle with the notion that what it's been told is inaccurate. Which means the brains got nothing to work on at all. And is truly stumbling around in the dark.- Perhaps you could highlight 1 or 2 particular difficulties and we can see whether this notion hold true of them. If they can be defended or stalemated then the elephant will become less elephantine

Hi iano, Ah, iano, it's almost sad hearing this come from someone like you. How is getting your son back in a day and a half "forsaking" him?I direct you to my Did Jesus Really Suffer?T&UEdited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.

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I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
- Stephen Roberts

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I'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in
- Dan Foutes

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A day and a half? Isn't God eternal? And if so, won't the forsaking be experienced in the units of the existance of father and son - rather than in (h)ours?The issue is forsaking and if that's the word used we need good reason to suppose that shouldn't be the word used (or the experience experienced). Shoehorning your units into Gods units is not a way to sidestep the point. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Ah, so Jesus didn't return to Heaven and is thus in Hell or possibly Purgatory (with those Catholics you never know...), and is forbidden from returning by God?Isn't that "forsaking?"From what I gather, you seem to be saying that Jesus spent an eternity being crucified/dead, is that correct?T&UEdited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.