Freewill and hardened hearts

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
Why worship him if we do understand his ways? He would hardly be worthy of praise if his ways weren't abover ours.

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So.... God makes no sense, therefore we should worship him?Hitting the egg-nog hard this holiday season?------------------
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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
I didn't say God doesn't make sense, only that his ways are above our ways. If his ways were not above our ways then he would not be worthy of praise.

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So you assume that God's ways are rational even though they don't make sense to us. But you formulated this idea as a REASON to worship Him. So, from a human perspective ( What other have we, right? ) we see actions that DO NOT make sense and conclude that these actions are 'above' ours and so the Actor is worthy of worship. How do we know that the actions that don't make sense to us are actually 'above' ours rather than being actions which simply don't make sense? How do we determine which nonsensical actions are 'above' ours and which are the actions of a madman, for example. It seems that we can't. And you are left with the proposition that we should worship what does not make sense. Period. If it makes no sense, then worship it. I should build a shrine to my tax paperwork.------------------
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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
Again I didn't say God doesn't make sense. First line of my post John.

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You think you didn't, funk, but it bloody well seem that way to me. That God does not make sense is deeply implied in what you did say, as I tried to outline for you. It is all in the little turn of phrase "God's ways are above our ways." I've seen this idea before. In fact, it came up frequently in the church in which I was raised. But I guess you aren't interested in explaining.------------------
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The fact that we are limited to a short life span, and an inability to understand anything more than the physical (which we have a minimal grasp on) makes our thinking much below that of God who created everything is eternal and has endless knowledge.

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Assuming the existence of God, I'd say you are right. But you have to assume the existence of God. Without that assumption, the logic is meaningless.Additionally, without being able to understand God, as you say, there really is no way to know if he is good, bad, ugly or just stupid. This is the real problem with your position. It is all assumption-- blind faith, if you will.------------------
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I'm not assuming though John, I'm making an inference based on personal experience.

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I personally cannot deny God's hand on my life when I look back. It's not a wild unbased assumption, or "blind faith".

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Then it is an emotional reaction to circumstances you have been through, but this also you have denied.ummm... unless you can demonstrate THAT God exists everything you attribute to him is based on an assumption and is 'blind faith.'------------------
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God has demonstrated to me that he exists

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How, funk? Something happened and you FELT like God must have done it. Am I close? This is an emotional reaction, like it or not.------------------
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Kind of a substanceless answer hey

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Well... yeah, it is. At least you realize that.------------------
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John, you obviously don't belief funk, and are not interested in finding out if you are missing something in life.

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I believe that funk is serious. I also believe that most people who consult astrologers and fortune tellers are serious-- I was married to one such person for 12 years. But serious does not mean correct. What I want from funk, or from anyone else, is to tell me how it possible to know for sure rather than just-be-convinced like my ex and her astrology.She convinced me, accidentally, that astrology is nonsense by asking me to help her figure out the method of casting horoscopes. I, foolish mortal that I am, tried to figure out how the astrologer's charts relate to the actual positions in the sky of the planets and constellations. Long story short, they don't correlate-- not by a lot. I don't know of anything similar I can do with religion, which makes it worse than astrology to me. It is completely untestable.

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What is the point of arguing? Either 1) you are right and he is mistaken or 2) he is right and you are totally clueless.

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Or 3) I am right and he is totally cluelessor 4) He is right and I am mistaken

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You guys can both debate what you can read in books, but John, you have no clue about his relationship with Christ because you deny out-of-hand that it can exist.

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No offense intended-- sincerely-- but this is typical knee-jerk christian garbage. I grew up christian. It was preached to me like gospel for a decade and maybe a quarter before I started to seriously question it. Even then, the question wasn't "Is there a god?" but "Which God is the right God?" This state of affairs lasted for fifteen years or so before I was forced into the realization that there really isn't a way to distiguish between the various religions. Nor can they all be right. Checkmate.------------------
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That's ridiculous, John. There are a lot of religions, and for the most part they are all unique.

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You have entirely missed the point. That religions have external differences is not the issue. Determining which is correct is the issue. This is the where I cannot tell the difference.

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Christianity makes specific claims that no other religion makes (whatever your stance on its specific claims).

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Sorry. No it doesn't.

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About your formative years, John, nobody "grows up Christian".

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To quote you, "That's ridiculous." You might want to discuss this with a developmental psychologist or a sociologist. For my part, the I see the issue from the point of view of anthropology and primatology. People 'grow up' in whatever enviranment they happen to be raised in.

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When you got to be old enough to make your own decisions, it sounds like you decided that you didn't need God, and cast off your parents' tutelage.

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Dismissive. You make it sound as if I haven't thought about the issue.

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John, there is (only) one way to figure it out and find out for yourself.

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Conveniently for you however, any conclusion not in line with your own will be dismissed. I will be told that I have not asked sincerely or did not listen or did not truly want an answer or some such.------------------
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