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Member (Idle past 3627 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
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Author | Topic: What if Satan reformed? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Reality isn't black and white. "Reforming" means deciding to choose whiter shades of gray.
As an additional thought, why is it that humans, who already have the capability to reform, occasionally and persistently refuse such an option?
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
The worst kind of faith does. The worst kind of faith motivates people to doubt their own senses and reject reason entirely. The point is that faith requires abandonment of logic and reason, to a degree. The best kind of faith is applied only when logic and reason have abandoned you. As long as they're working, you should be using them. When they reach a dead end, then faith is your backup. Using faith indiscrimainately is like spraying a fire extinguisher around when there's no fire.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
So what you're saying is that Satan doesn't actually make any difference.
Evil would still potentially exist, but only for those who chose to actualize it. Humans would still be responsible for themselves.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
So the leader is gone and the gang continues as before. What's the use of a leader?
The gang leader of the rebels may have repented, but the rest of the bunch still has to have the free will to even be rebels in the first place.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
He's your Get-out-of-Hell-free card.
Which is why I want Jesus in charge. The buck stops with Him and not with me.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
There's that twelve-step nonsense again. "Acknowledge a higher power. You can't do it on your own." Wanting Jesus to be in charge is not abdication of responsibility. It is freedom from the bondage of addiction, the idolatries of our modern world. But in the end, you have to do it on your own. Nobody's going to do it for you, least of all your wishful-thinking sky daddy. If you fail to do it on your own, he's going to send you off to spend eternity with the spirits which chose to have no need nor want of heaven. He may not have "initially created" it for you but he's sure as hell going to use it on you if you don't measure up. That kind of "freedom" you can keep.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
I don't know. What languge is it? We may complain that we are not allowed an option to build our own destination---and road--for ourselves and that this is unfair and not true freedom, but I would ask if it is unfair that an eternal God is logically going to foreknow whatever destination we would choose and that we would either choose wisely...which would end up being Heaven..or we would choose on our own...imperfectly by default..and thus end up building our destination and road in the same subset that encompasses option 2 by default. Does that make sense? So God gives us two roads, one that leads to the beach and one that leads to prison. If we go off-road, we go to prison. How is that a choice? Edited by ringo, : Fixed quote.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
And yet He has the gall to talk about "choice".
God won't simply change the nature of the reality of the source of life in order to give you the power to create your own water supply.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Of course it's His fault. He created the situation and all of the choices. He can't claim to give me a choice and then punish me for the choice I make.
Its not His fault that you always decide to go offroading on the day He sends His Son to your house to bring some water over from the beach next to the lake. Phat writes:
Only because He deprived me of the choice by creating it that way.
...you just cant live forever away from the water supply.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
So how do you decide which argument is right? How do you know Satan is the bad guy? He isn't the one who's threatening us. Thats satans argument...not yours. If he does reform, should we cave in too or should we continue to fight the good fight against that God guy?
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
Nonsense. It's the opposite. Jesus said:
If satan and Jesus were together in a lineup, satan would be the one accusing Jesus of being the real bad guy. Jesus would utter nary a word.quote:
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I'd be suspicious of any club that wants me as a member. soooo...which one would you pick? And of course the third option is neither.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
That's why I said that not choosing either A or B is the third option. The problem is that your sadistic "god" takes a damned-if-you-choose-and-damned-if-you-don't-choose attitude. He gives no real choice. Commentator Not to choose is choosing..... He offers nothing but slavery. Even if the chains are soft and fluffy, you don't dare break them.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
I've answered that question for you many times. All I want is to be left alone. Just don't fry me. And I don't want to live for ever and ever with somebody who fried my friends.
What sort of choice would you imagine He should offer...to your satisfaction? Phat writes:
Your point is unfounded. I could say the same empty thing to you: After half an eternity in heaven you'll miss the friends that He butchered.
You claim to want to be given the choice to grow up and leave home, but my point is that you will find...after building your own home/country/universe that you miss having a Fathering Spirit around. Phat writes:
For every man in that boat there's one who had an abusive father who's gladder than glad that the bastard is gone.
Men who grow up without a father never outgrow the emptiness that the reality causes.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Broadly speaking, my friends would include the members of EvC. If you're right, then you and Faith won't get fried. (If Faith is right, you might get fried. ) Most of the rest of us seem to be fair game, according to your theology, because we have "chosen" to be without God.
Who were your friends? How did they get fried? Phat writes:
H.E.L.L.
We need some info for the autopsy report...how exactly did these people get butchered? We need an outline....
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