The C.C.O.I. (Christian Cult Of Ignorance) and Willful Ignorance

jar writes:If God knows the end results then all of the responsibility for the end result lies with God.

jar writes:If God knows the end result, the decision is not independently made.

jar writes:Do you believe that GOD creates all that is, seen and unseen?

jar writes:So you have no problem with a God who knowingly creates life just to then damn that critter to eternal torment.

jar writes:Satan, if Satan exists, is just God's servant and does nothing that God does not command. You can most certainly indict God for creating you. If you foreknew my decisions and still created me then yes, you can and should be indicted, not for damning you but for creating you.

Phat writes:3) Despite being the Creator of all seen and unseen and being so unlike a human that a human likely will never understand Him, God has, in my belief, allowed a bridge...a mediator...a way for humans to become aware and thus responsible for making the right decisions, loving God,and loving others.

jar writes:Again, what the fuck does that have to do with the topic? If man has a way for humans to become aware and thus responsible for making the right decisions should we not expect God to have some similar capability or is God, like Adam and Eve before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge simply amoral?

jar,from an earlier discourse writes:But Jesus is not some Masked Man. The power of the Jesus saga is that He is human.A God cannot be tempted, Jesus was. And Jesus resisted. And the message is "humans can resist evil".A God cannot be threated, Jesus was. And Jesus did not respond with more violence. And the message is "humans can try to find ways other than violence".A God cannot die, Jesus did. And Jesus rose from the dead. And the message is "all humans will rise from the dead".

jar writes:How do you tell that the experience is a reflection of reality and not hallucination?
You have never told how to test that the experience of meeting God or being saved or being born again is real.

DWise1 writes:Some years ago, I stumbled upon a British atheist site that carried a wonderful story; I really wish I had saved that URL, but alas I had not. The story involved a village whose inhabitants were atheists by default, since they had never any contact at all with any religions, including Christianity. Into this village walks a Christian missionary. As he starts conversing with the first inhabitant he meets, he learns of the village's great ignorance, so he starts to tell that person about Christianity. The fellow is very interested to hear this great message and he calls over everybody nearby, who in turn call over others, so that the entire village is soon standing there eager to hear what this stranger has to say. Before this group, the missionary began to preach the Gospel. The village listened attentively and with great interest, but they had questions. In fact, everything the missionary said raised a question, so they had to interrupt him repeatedly with their questions. They were puzzled about the things that the missionary had long taken for granted and, when they asked for explanations, the missionary's answers just raised even more questions. Faced with having to provide answers about the most basic tenets of his faith, questions that he himself had never asked and hence could not answer, the missionary simply turned and left the town despite the cries and pleas from the villagers to remain and teach them. As I recall, the villagers finally simply shrugged their shoulders, forgot all that foolishness, and went about their lives happily and prosperously.Of course, the author of that story had a lesson he was wanting to impart, which I believe was that an honest and direct examination of Christian doctrine would reveal its faults which believers cannot see because of their indoctrination and conditioning. The application I can see for it here is in how you and other "true Christians" have to be carefully trained and thoroughly indoctrinated in order to view everything as being consistent with your particular narrow theology, whereas someone without all that careful training and indoctrination, someone viewing these things through the eyes of someone seeing and hearing these things for the first time, would see something completely different.

Ringo writes:To be clear, the Satan in the Bible is like the Big Bad Wolf in those other fairy tales. The Big Bad Wolf who tried to eat Little Red Riding Hood was not the same Big Bad Wolf as the one who tried to eat the Three Pigs. After all, they both got killed.
Similarly, the Satan who tested Job was not necessarily the same Satan as the one who tempted Jesus. In another story, Satan's role was given to a snake (apparently it was the regular Satan's day of rest).Satan is a plot device, not an entity. He represents the bad side of us. Interactions with him represent the conflicts within us. There was no historical "war in heaven". There is only a perpetual conflict within us between our good impulses and our bad impulses.

jar writes:If man has a way for humans to become aware and thus responsible for making the right decisions should we not expect God to have a way to make moral decisions?

jar writes:The idea that humans will have a life after death is not in anyway supported by a God rising from the dead (which would just be a joke at best) and says nothing about humans.

jar writes:So you have no problem with a God who knowingly creates life just to then damn that critter to eternal torment.

jar writes:...it is the Bible that says we have the same capability as God to determine right from wrong and that we should judge God's actions.

Rom 3:10-12 writes: As it is written:"There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."

No where have I ever said or implied that we are capable of renouncing and correcting all of our sins and in fact on numerous occasions I have said that we are fully responsible for our sins and that only we are responsible for our sins.

If Jesus was God in the flesh when living among us it tells us nothing about whether or not humans will rise from the dead or experience an afterlife. And a God rising from the dead is no big deal.

jar writes:What does that even mean? What does "Jesus--fully alive today" mean?

Will he water my yard, pull weeds do anything that can possibly be seen as helping?

some folk will not accept responsibility for their actions and want someone else, anyone, God, Jesus, Bankruptcy Court to shoulder the debt.

a god raised from the dead is just ho-hum, of no real relevance.

If Jesus was God/Man then his resurrection, his Ascension are meaningless and worthless.

jar writes:Sorry Phat but you failed to answer or even address any of the questions.
Let's try and see if you can address just one.What does "Jesus--fully alive today" mean?

What exactly are the tests used to determine if the presence you think you are experiencing are Jesus and not Satan or just a bad burrito?

ringo writes:The same could be said of Shakespeare.

ringo writes:Job said nothing about "bodily" or "flesh". And his redeemer would not have been Jesus.