ShackledNoMore Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 The situation is like this. The "benevolent" person phones his son long distance that an enemy terroristhe (the father) has booby trapped his (his own son's) house and it is about to blow up in 3 hours. But the son does not believe it. He thinks his father is crazy. Well after 3 hours, the house blows up. The son is gone forever. Was the father a benevolent person? There, I fixed it for you. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Since muslim and christian salvation are mutually exclusive, you need to tell me whether I should reconvert to christianity or convert to islam. Logically, I am afraid of both christian and muslim hells and want to avoid them IF either exists. Following mohammed will guarantee me a place in christian hell IF it exists. Following jesus will guarantee me a place in muslim hell IF it exists. What should I do? If you study the official biography of Mohammed, you will find that he was a polygamist, child molester, bandit, rapist, murderer, thief, and slave trader. I cannot think of a capital crime he has not committed. I am pretty sure that Mohammed is in hell. "Official biography of Mohammed?" You're joking. I even googled the term to see if you were referring to something erroneously dubbed Mohammed's official biography. Little is said of him in the koran (like the bible, another immoral book of nonsense), like jesus there are no contemporary biographies written about him, the earliest biographies are of questionable authenticity and the reliabity of the contents are questionable, and it is difficult to sort out what about his life is legend and what actually happened in his life. And of course there is the obviously made up nonsense such as the asencion of mohammed. Muslims, of course, highly revere mohammed as Allah's prophet and would vehemently disagree with all you have accused him of. An honest person would say that true biographical information about mohammed is lost in legend. In summary, mohammed is a lot like jesus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 The OT is harder to understand than the NT. Yet I find most of content to be reasonable. If you are a rational person who thinks otherwise, we can discuss it. One thing at a time, please. Oh I would love to have a rational conversation about why the OT and NT are equally easy to understand and most of the content is unreasonable. Unfortunately JayL is not a rational person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayL Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 The situation is like this. The "benevolent" person phones his son long distance that an enemy terroristhe (the father) has booby trapped his (his own son's) house and it is about to blow up in 3 hours. But the son does not believe it. He thinks his father is crazy. Well after 3 hours, the house blows up. The son is gone forever. Was the father a benevolent person? There, I fixed it for you. You denied the existence of Satan. The Bible is clear that the hell was created for Satan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayL Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Since muslim and christian salvation are mutually exclusive, you need to tell me whether I should reconvert to christianity or convert to islam. Logically, I am afraid of both christian and muslim hells and want to avoid them IF either exists. Following mohammed will guarantee me a place in christian hell IF it exists. Following jesus will guarantee me a place in muslim hell IF it exists. What should I do? If you study the official biography of Mohammed, you will find that he was a polygamist, child molester, bandit, rapist, murderer, thief, and slave trader. I cannot think of a capital crime he has not committed. I am pretty sure that Mohammed is in hell. "Official biography of Mohammed?" You're joking. I even googled the term to see if you were referring to something erroneously dubbed Mohammed's official biography. Little is said of him in the koran (like the bible, another immoral book of nonsense), like jesus there are no contemporary biographies written about him, the earliest biographies are of questionable authenticity and the reliabity of the contents are questionable, and it is difficult to sort out what about his life is legend and what actually happened in his life. And of course there is the obviously made up nonsense such as the asencion of mohammed. Muslims, of course, highly revere mohammed as Allah's prophet and would vehemently disagree with all you have accused him of. An honest person would say that true biographical information about mohammed is lost in legend. In summary, mohammed is a lot like jesus. There are detailed biographies of the prophet composed by muslim historians. Google Hadiths and Sunnah of the prophet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayL Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Jeremiah 23:23-24: Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. (Sounds like he is in a duck's arse) Aha! Think of the context!! No man can hide himself inside a duck's arse. Ergo, God is not present in duck's arse! Another theological question resolved! Uh, seriously, I think it is wrong to translate these verses into 'doctrines of omnipotence and omnipresence'. My view is that we need to work within the Bible ( like my above analysis of duck! ). Building up philosophical categories can confuse people - like some people here! JayL, if you are denying God's omniscience and omnipotence, you are simply a heretic according to any Christian denomination I have heard of. You also have no basis to put all your faith in a god if you hold that there are things that your god does not know or cannot do. But perhaps you only mean that God does not know, and cannot do, that which entails a contradiction - e.g. he doesn't know how to create a square triangle and can't create one. Such an example doesn't tell us anything about God. It only tells us that the person is literally speaking nonsense who voices such demands. But if you're trying to solve the Problem of Evil by denying that God knows all truths over all time frames, or by denying that God can do all things (materially false ideas like "make something so heavy He can't pick it up" don't count as "things"), no one will take you seriously as a spokesman for Christianity. If you would like to develop an argument for denial of God's omniscience and/or omnipotence (and/or his omnibenevolence), that would be interesting and probably best done on a new thread. Define omnipotence for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayL Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Jay, it is My personal wish for you that you lose your faith and never regain it. Perhaps then you'll gain the intellectual and moral insight to understand why we are Ex-Christians, and why we don't want to be like you. You can keep your intellectual and moral integrity. I will keep my faith in Jesus Christ. As I stated before it is not intellectual matter for me. It is a personal commitment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sirelien Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Define omnipotence for me. Omnipotence simply means to have unlimited power - or to put that another way, the ability to do anything. The Bible clearly attributes this trait to God, as demonstrated by the following Bible verses: "Jesus looked at them and said, 'This is something people cannot do, but God can do all things.' " Matthew 19:26 "God can do anything." Luke 1:37 (The speaker is the angel Gabriel, who presumably would know!) "Is anything too hard for the Lord? No." Genesis 18:14 (And this time, the speaker is God himself). So according to the Bible, God is clearly omnipotent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 The situation is like this. The "benevolent" person phones his son long distance that an enemy terroristhe (the father) has booby trapped his (his own son's) house and it is about to blow up in 3 hours. But the son does not believe it. He thinks his father is crazy. Well after 3 hours, the house blows up. The son is gone forever. Was the father a benevolent person? There, I fixed it for you. You denied the existence of Satan. The Bible is clear that the hell was created for Satan. Yeah, yeah, Matthew 25:41: "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." ...a New Testament corruption introduced with a new religion. Bear in mind that the Contradictary Book of Myths that you cite lacks any credibility. So you say hell was prepared for satan? OK, I'll fix it again: The situation is like this. The "benevolent" person's son disobeys and rebels against his father, so he traps the son in his house. He phones his sonother children long distance that an enemy terroristhe (the father) has booby trapped his (his ownfirst son's) house and it is about to blow up in 3 hours. But the son doesother children do not believe it. HeThey thinks histheir father is crazy. Well after 3 hours, the house blows up. The son isHis children are gone forever. Was the father a benevolent person? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Since muslim and christian salvation are mutually exclusive, you need to tell me whether I should reconvert to christianity or convert to islam. Logically, I am afraid of both christian and muslim hells and want to avoid them IF either exists. Following mohammed will guarantee me a place in christian hell IF it exists. Following jesus will guarantee me a place in muslim hell IF it exists. What should I do? If you study the official biography of Mohammed, you will find that he was a polygamist, child molester, bandit, rapist, murderer, thief, and slave trader. I cannot think of a capital crime he has not committed. I am pretty sure that Mohammed is in hell. "Official biography of Mohammed?" You're joking. I even googled the term to see if you were referring to something erroneously dubbed Mohammed's official biography. Little is said of him in the koran (like the bible, another immoral book of nonsense), like jesus there are no contemporary biographies written about him, the earliest biographies are of questionable authenticity and the reliabity of the contents are questionable, and it is difficult to sort out what about his life is legend and what actually happened in his life. And of course there is the obviously made up nonsense such as the asencion of mohammed. Muslims, of course, highly revere mohammed as Allah's prophet and would vehemently disagree with all you have accused him of. An honest person would say that true biographical information about mohammed is lost in legend. In summary, mohammed is a lot like jesus. There are detailed biographies of the prophet composed by muslim historians. Google Hadiths and Sunnah of the prophet. Yes, they are considered unreliable. The basic story, as I understand it is as follows: As an infant, mohammed sucked only one breast of his foster mother, leaving the other for his foster brother. He cared for his uncle, Abu-Talib, at age 8. Mohammed became well known locally for the integrity of his disposition and the honesty of his character. He became very spriritual and prayed and mediated a lot, spending the entire month of Ramadan in a cave in Jabal-an-Nur, and sharing what little he had with travelers who passed by. An angel visited him and announced that he has become a messenger for all mankind. Next, there is three years of radio silence from allah when mohammed becomes more and more spiritual. He started preaching. His following grew, but he also encountered opposition. Although he preached against evil practices, he was tortured. He was orded to death, but protected by some. Finally, mohammed saw a vision and ascended to heaven. Whatever the original story may have been, it is clearly embellished through myth and legend, and I have not heard any of the early "biographers" who recorded the stories making any of these claims. Since you are making a positive, tangible claim that should be verifiable, you should be able to point to references from the Hadaths and Sunnah that declare mohammed a polygamist, child molester, bandit, rapist, murderer, thief, and slave trader. Please provide specific references for these claims. I will say I am no expert in islam, and after reading all about the christian god(s) first hand, I consider it possible that, as with xianity, there is stuff out there revered by muslims that considered critically would cast mohammed in a less than ideal light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Define omnipotence for me. Omnipotence simply means to have unlimited power - or to put that another way, the ability to do anything. The Bible clearly attributes this trait to God, as demonstrated by the following Bible verses: "Jesus looked at them and said, 'This is something people cannot do, but God can do all things.' " Matthew 19:26 "God can do anything." Luke 1:37 (The speaker is the angel Gabriel, who presumably would know!) "Is anything too hard for the Lord? No." Genesis 18:14 (And this time, the speaker is God himself). So according to the Bible, God is clearly omnipotent. Good luck reasoning with him. He already suggested that these verses are out of context, and that "we need to work within the Bible ... Building up philosophical categories can confuse people" -- whatever that means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prestissimo Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Ummm...sorry to say Prestissimo, but I don't think you can nail Jay down by focusing on the Book of Genesis. [..] Sorry again about this but I'm sure that (unlike Jay) you'd rather not waste your time persisting in a fruitless, futile activity, ok? All the best, BAA. You are right. I overestimated Jay again, there is no sense in discussing proof if he is not willing to consider evidence as a means to understand things. Define omnipotence for me. Let me add to the few marvelous explanations you already got, that I explained this to you already. Yet you choose to ignore it. As you do with any post that shows you why your view is delusional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Realist Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 You can keep your intellectual and moral integrity. I will keep my faith in Jesus Christ. .... now that was quite simple wasn't it? You stay like you are ... and we will stay like we are! 65 pages of shit to come to that momentous decision! Now piss off! 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thackerie Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Jay, it is My personal wish for you that you lose your faith and never regain it. Perhaps then you'll gain the intellectual and moral insight to understand why we are Ex-Christians, and why we don't want to be like you. You can keep your intellectual and moral integrity. I will keep my faith in Jesus Christ. As I stated before it is not intellectual matter for me. It is a personal commitment. Then why don't you keep it personal instead of filling up pages and pages with your personal opinions that are irrelevant to every other person here? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Define omnipotence for me. Omnipotence simply means to have unlimited power - or to put that another way, the ability to do anything. The Bible clearly attributes this trait to God, as demonstrated by the following Bible verses: "Jesus looked at them and said, 'This is something people cannot do, but God can do all things.' " Matthew 19:26 "God can do anything." Luke 1:37 (The speaker is the angel Gabriel, who presumably would know!) "Is anything too hard for the Lord? No." Genesis 18:14 (And this time, the speaker is God himself). So according to the Bible, God is clearly omnipotent. Good luck reasoning with him. He already suggested that these verses are out of context, and that "we need to work within the Bible ... Building up philosophical categories can confuse people" -- whatever that means. It means that our village idiot is confused by the Bible and discussions about the Bible. Not for his sake but rather for the sake of everyone else participating in this thread who may later want to have this conversation with a real opponent: omnipotence doesn't need to be all powerful. In the context of God, omnipotence only needs to mean the power to stop the suffering we see in the world. Omnipotence would certainly include the power to do the things the Bible states God did. And having the power to do something means having the power to not do it. So having the power to send a plague means you have the power to not send it. In Exodus when God chooses to have the last few plagues against Egypt home in on just the Egyptians and spare the Hebrews that implies that the early plagues could have been "smart" as well and God choose to have everyone suffer - even the very people who God wanted to benefit. Anytime the Bible says or implies God has the power to prevent or stop something that falls within Bible God's specific problem of evil. If we see that suffering today then Bible God choose evil or is ignorant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 You can keep your intellectual and moral integrity. I will keep my faith in Jesus Christ. .... now that was quite simple wasn't it? You stay like you are ... and we will stay like we are! 65 pages of shit to come to that momentous decision! Now piss off! I would give you all my +1's if I could. Yes that sums up the whole thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 The situation is like this. The "benevolent" person phones his son long distance that an enemy terroristhe (the father) has booby trapped his (his own son's) house and it is about to blow up in 3 hours. But the son does not believe it. He thinks his father is crazy. Well after 3 hours, the house blows up. The son is gone forever. Was the father a benevolent person? There, I fixed it for you. You denied the existence of Satan. The Bible is clear that the hell was created for Satan. For the sake of clarity, the Old Testament Bible says no such thing. Lurkers need to be aware that whenever you write "Bible" it only means the New Testament. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bornagainathiest Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Jeremiah 23:23-24: Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. (Sounds like he is in a duck's arse) Aha! Think of the context!! No man can hide himself inside a duck's arse. Ergo, God is not present in duck's arse! Another theological question resolved! Uh, seriously, I think it is wrong to translate these verses into 'doctrines of omnipotence and omnipresence'. My view is that we need to work within the Bible ( like my above analysis of duck! ). Building up philosophical categories can confuse people - like some people here! Sorry Jay, but it is YOU who are confused. Read verse 19 from this qoute. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers%2023&version=NIV Your resolution of this theological question fails, because God is not a human. Your solution only works if God is a man - and the Bible says He isn't. Fail! You tell Shackled to look at the context (the only source of information we have about God is scripture, so that's where we should look), yet you won't look at the OT - because it's too hard for you to understand. Ooops! So you're not practicing (looking at the Biblical context) what you're preaching, unless it's one rule Jay and another for anyone else? Fail! You say it's wrong to translate certain verses in a certain way. Morally wrong? Linguistically wrong? Wrong...how? You're not defining your terminology and not justifying your assertions. Fail! Three strikes and you're out, buddy! BAA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Most of people here are too confused about 'omnipotent God' concept. I said repeatedly that is contrary to the Bible. Once again, you are not a painting. Because God created a universe with imbedded freedom, things can get out of hands. Jay, you asked me to define "omnipotent." Shackled, Sirelien and others have already done so, with scriptures. "omnipotent" means exactly the same thing as "almighty," just using Latin word roots instead of Anglo-Saxon. "Omni-" in Latin means "all" and "potent" means powerful. When God in Revelation is called the "almighty," the Greek word is "pantokrator," which means the same thing. "pan" = "all" and "krator" means "one with power". So you have to deal with "omnipotent" as a synonym for a word in the Bible that is said of God. I'm curious - do you belong to a church? The Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed put "God the Father the almighty" right at the beginning. If you want to deny that God is omnipotent you either A. are in opposition to all historic Christianity, including the mass of Protestants, i.e. are a heretic, or B. need to develop an argument to justify using "omnipotent" in some special sense, according to which you deny that it applies to God. If it's A: then you are coming on here claiming to represent Christianity (or faith in Jesus, to put it personally) but you actually are representing your idiosyncratic version of it. Your method of picking a sample of Bible verses and arguing a theology from them -- even if you deny it's a theology -- itself goes against what the Bible shows as the believer's job. The NT does NOT say that each individual is to make up Christian teaching by using his private judgment on Bible verses. The individual believer is to be guided and instructed by the bishops and elders, who themselves must maintain the traditions handed down by the apostles. 2 Peter is very emphatic against people who take verses that are hard to understand and twist them. We don't want Jayism. Sorry. If it's B: you've got to do the hard work. You need to find a way to reconcile verses like what you quoted from I John 4 with verses that say that "I the Lord create light and darkness, I create good and evil," or "shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it" (I'm quoting from memory so may get a few words wrong). It won't do to say that assertions about God's nature in Isaiah and Amos are set aside now by the NT. To say that they are is Jayism. And Paul's epistles in any case are quite clear that God destines some people as vessels for destruction. "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Paul applies that to predestination in general. "Shall the pot say to the potter, why hast thou made me thus?" I don't expect you to drop your faith in Christianity now, Jay, but I'd at least hope that you do some serious theological and philosophical work before you set about trying to convince people who have already spent much time and thought doing that work. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 JayL, I should add: I understand from this thread that you have had a very deep experience. I also understand that you are very concerned about death. Indeed, our mortality is always the backdrop for our reflections on living. Some of your remarks about notions like omniscience or omnipotence make it sound as though you see discussions about such things as distractors that take people away from the direct message of the Bible and maybe also from spiritual experience. I don't think a philosophy vs. scripture/experience dichotomy is a real one (maybe you don't think so, either, but it often sounds as though you do). The writers of the scriptures were already confronting philosophical questions. I think your conceptualization of your experience, and your discourse about it, also is molded by theological constructs. My guess, if yours was anything like mine and that of lots of others on here, is that your experience was not simply a brute psychological event, for which later you sought explanation and eventually came up with Christianity. My guess from what you have said is that you understood that you were having an experience with Jesus already, when you were having it. Christian theology was already a structuring element in the form that your experience took for you - no? So my suggestion is, don't push away methods for making sense of the Bible, of life, of language... follow the argument where it leads. If that's what you understand yourself already to be doing, then - dude - get serious! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bornagainathiest Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Ummm...sorry to say Prestissimo, but I don't think you can nail Jay down by focusing on the Book of Genesis. [..] Sorry again about this but I'm sure that (unlike Jay) you'd rather not waste your time persisting in a fruitless, futile activity, ok? All the best, BAA. You are right. I overestimated Jay again, there is no sense in discussing proof if he is not willing to consider evidence as a means to understand things. Hey Prestissimo! Yes, I agree. There's no sense in discussing anything resembling evidence or proof with Jay. Nor will he share his 'scientific' proof for the existence of God with us. If he's not going to offer up any evidence or proof of anything, maybe we're just supposed to accept what he says - blindly and with absolute faith? Ummm... but that would mean treating Jay's word as gospel, wouldn't it? So wouldn't we then be putting our faith in him, rather than in Jesus Christ? By accepting what he says (without any evidence or proof) we'd become the faithful followers of Jay and his church of Jayism, wouldn't we? Oh and when in comes to matters of faith, his reply to Astreja... "You can keep your intellectual and moral integrity. I will keep my faith in Jesus Christ. As I stated before it is not intellectual matter for me. It is a personal commitment." ...is very revealing. See that? His faith in Jesus Christ is not an intellectual matter. Maybe that's the way he approaches scripture - by switching off his intellectual powers? That seems to fit. Thanks, BAA. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 If it's A: then you are coming on here claiming to represent Christianity (or faith in Jesus, to put it personally) but you actually are representing your idiosyncratic version of it. Your method of picking a sample of Bible verses and arguing a theology from them -- even if you deny it's a theology -- itself goes against what the Bible shows as the believer's job. The NT does NOT say that each individual is to make up Christian teaching by using his private judgment on Bible verses. The individual believer is to be guided and instructed by the bishops and elders, who themselves must maintain the traditions handed down by the apostles. 2 Peter is very emphatic against people who take verses that are hard to understand and twist them. We don't want Jayism. Sorry. Really that is what all Christians do. Each has their own imaginary friend who tells them something slightly different. So they each have their own slightly different interpretation and slightly different religion. When they become aware of these differences they brand each other as heretics, misguided, not Real Truetm Christians and so on. If they didn't have us as a common enemy they would turn on each other just like Christians did in all the thousands of sect divisions Christians have had in history. So yes JayL is peddling Jayism just like Thumb is peddling Thumbism and the author of James peddled Jamesism and St. Paul was selling Paulism all of which was different than what the rabbi Yesuah was selling. And of course whatever the rabbi Yeshuah was selling was branded as heresy and destroyed by the Roman church. Everybody is shouting that we should listen to the voice that doesn't exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bornagainathiest Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Jay, it is My personal wish for you that you lose your faith and never regain it. Perhaps then you'll gain the intellectual and moral insight to understand why we are Ex-Christians, and why we don't want to be like you. You can keep your intellectual and moral integrity. I will keep my faith in Jesus Christ. As I stated before it is not intellectual matter for me. It is a personal commitment. Jay, If your faith in Jesus Christ isn't based on anything intellectual (like proof or evidence), why you are so jealously guarding your 'scientific' proof of God's existence from us? Surely, if you didn't need this proof to have faith in Jesus, then neither do we - right? So why not just share it with us? What harm is there in us seeing it, if we don't need it to have faith in Jesus? BAA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prestissimo Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Really that is what all Christians do. Each has their own imaginary friend who tells them something slightly different. So they each have their own slightly different interpretation and slightly different religion. When they become aware of these differences they brand each other as heretics, misguided, not Real Truetm Christians and so on. If they didn't have us as a common enemy they would turn on each other just like Christians did in all the thousands of sect divisions Christians have had in history. Given the sheer amount of different breeds of Christians, in a way they help us understand evolution. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 You can keep your intellectual and moral integrity. I will keep my faith in Jesus Christ. And there you have it, folks, though few xians will concede this truth so baldly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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