The Results are in...There is a God! - What now?

I don't think I could react until God drew me to Him. In other words, IF we assume that God started the relationship in our hearts, the issue then becomes our relationship with God. So within the context of your hypothesis, you and God have a lot to discuss. It seems to me that a fair and just God would offer us humans some sort of plea bargain, don't you agree? After all, if mere human D.A.'s can do it, why can't God do it?GOD: OK, OK. You don't have to grovel on the ground and you dont have to give up your personality. What I DO want you to do is to get to know me, allow yourself to open up to me so that we can love each other, and go and do likewise to your neighbor!HUMAN: Do you mean that I just have to try as hard as I can to love you and everyone else?GOD: Yes. I will help you by giving you MY Spirit.

I think that the only way that we can know God is if He first knows us. And I think that this scripture covers that reality. Notice that Paul is saying that it is God who begins the "good work" in us. It says nothing about us having to know Him first.

I would agree with you unless this God is more than what we have been led to believe. There are three kinds of dependence and only one is healthy.1) Independence is unhealthy. IMHO. We were designed to relate to others. Assuming that God is one of those others, perhaps we could trust Him as we got to know Him.2) Co-dependence is unhealthy. IMHO. Co-dependence shackles us to a relationship that we can't break free from.3) Interdependence...when it means communion, community, and cooperation, is healthy IMHO.

Good point. Consider, however, what worship actually is. Worship involves a full expression of ones lifeforce towards the celebration of a communion....a united effort and purpose of a group of people in alliance with a worthy leader!I can understand your reluctance, however! We have not seen any leaders so worthy that we give them our full support, expression, and unabashed adoration!

Lets get Mr. Dictionary in on this action! I should clarify in that I see humans being interdependent on each other while being dependent on God.Of course, in relation to this topic, we have yet to arrive at a consensus as to the character of this God that we would be dependent on.Its like being at a job and having a new boss. You are used to doing things your own way and you had the other boss "trained" to allow you room to thrive. Suddenly we have a new boss and new rules.Our strategy?

OK, Iano...lets follow my scenario about being at a job and having a new Boss.The Boss announces that he is making changes in the company and that the company will change and follow the new paradigm. The Boss announces that this change can be smooth or it can be difficult, depending upon the attitude of the employees.With me so far?Now...are you gonna go around telling the other employees that not all of them are gonna get along with the new Boss?That seems a bit like spreading negativity and strife!Iano You gotta do things the way that the Boss wants, because in His world, its MY way or the Highway!I am not suggesting that you would necessarily be so blunt with your fellow workers! What I am suggesting is in encouraging the workers to get to know and trust the Boss.The new retirement plan is very good in this company, as well! This message has been edited by Phat, 04-13-2006 05:54 AM

OK.....so we are now back to agreeing on the hypothetical definition of the God that exists, right?I maintain that by definition, God imagined/created us long before we had the consciousness to imagine or define Him.Of course, thats my definition.Whats yours? That God is a product of the human imagination?Just to clarify who it is we are dealing with, here! Lets go back to your O.P. for a moment. So are we going to hypothesize that the evidence exists and that God is an objective reality or are we going to hypothesize that God is still very much a subjective concept?

Lets assume for the hypothesis that God wishes to include everyone in an equal measure. For the moment, lets not limit this discussion to the God of fundamentalist/orthodox Christianity. We can always refer to those concepts, (as I of course will) yet lets not limit ourselves to the "Born Again" club....just yet.

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Thats a bit like our company scenario where the new Boss fires a bunch of workers who have not yet read the company guidelines and manuel. I seriously doubt that God is that cruel. If He were, why not just wipe us out right now? Larni! (Hello, by the way) For the purposes of UCCMC's hypothesis...which we are still clarifying, lets assume that chance is not involved in regards to this God. This God is how He/she is, and thats all we can know......so far.Now comes the fun part about getting to know the new Boss!

Again, a philosophical issue: Did God give us the ability to distrust, or did we choose to have this right?I really have to read this whole thread before I can make a good reply, however! (Gotta go to work, now!)This message has been edited by Phat, 04-18-2006 03:03 PM

Not necessarily. God may have the ability to control all aspects of reality, but that does not mean He is obligated to do so.Lemme try a parable. If I had a fishie and I gave my fish free will to be able to jump out of the confines of the living environment that I provided for him, would I scold him if he lay gasping for air on the table next to the tank?Indeed, I would expect that the fish would eventually do such an acrobatically defiant act! If you say that God should waive the right to punish us if we exercise free will outside the parameters of His environment, I would agree---with the stipulation that we also forgo the right to blame God if our best laid independent thoughts lead us into quicksand.Some folks say that we are under no obligation to acknowledge God even if He does exist. These same folks would then have no room to blame God for the evils and misfortunes that plague society.

Are you challenging Gods right and position to be whatever He wants to be?I would think that we should be grateful that God cares about us enough to want (or need) to have us around.IMHO, however, God knows us better than we know ourselves, and is not the mean vindicative God portrayed in our literature by our own overactive imaginations.(If God were mean, however...there is not much we could do about it! )see...the whole perspective originates with the idea that we are a product of Gods imagination as the OP suggests...God is not a product of our imagination and cannot be defined and explained according to our whims.Whats so problematic about a source (force) or character that exceeds anything that humans can control? We are in awe of natural phenomena like black holes...why are we always so skittish about God?HINT: We don't like to face our own limitations and be accountable to God.

The gift is our ability to reason and decide for ourselves!

Allow me to run with this a moment! Take two hypothetical people. Bill and Bob. Lets assume that both of them live in a culturally diverse environment..(rather than a Southern evangelical community, for example.)Bill has an epiphany that God exists. He says to himself, "Wow! I don't really understand you, God, but I know enough to know you are in charge! Take my life...Please!"Bob is a bit more rational. He says to himself, "I know that God exists, but what I don't know is how to live any differently than I have been living. I'm doing my best and my best is all I can do. If God wants anything else from me, I'll know it."Is Bill any more "saved" than Bob? Would that they be judged, would they be judged based on their willingness to surrender their right to make rational decisions and their acknowledgment that God knows best?

This sounds a bit like the parable of the talents! So in the context of that parable, lets say that the gift is the gift of freewill and the knowledge between right and wrong.I don't quite understand how you are applying the parable to the context.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.