Exactly Why Don't You Believe In the God of the Bible?

If that were the case Brandon, why do they get sick and die?

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LionTamerX Wrote:

Quote:

Only by most christians, MoAn, not everyone.

Most Christians? Okay, I am definitely missing something here. I am under the assumption that the Catholic denomination definitely feels the Pope is God's representative, but are there other demoninations that believe this also?

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Momma, I only just found this thread and I haven't read many response, so sorry I repeat what's been said.

There are many reasons, but mostly they relate to the old testament. God is a complete *expletive deleted* back there.

Wipe out a town because they are all sinners - what, even the newborn babes? Flood a planet because you don't like what's become of the thing you created?

kick A & E out of paradise for eating the forbidden fruit? Hey, you knew they would - you built them! The fault lies with the manufacturer. Ditto with the Babel thing....

In the new testament God suddenly gets completely passive - what happened? Mid-life crisis? Run out of bushes to burn?

My sincere apologies if I've insulted your beliefs, but I think if you wanted understand where I was coming from it would be better to pull no punches. I'm sure your faith is strong enough to cope.

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Momma Angel wrote:

LionTamerX Wrote:

Quote:
Only by most christians, MoAn, not everyone.

Most Christians? Okay, I am definitely missing something here. I am under the assumption that the Catholic denomination definitely feels the Pope is God's representative, but are there other demoninations that believe this also?

I'm sorry that I didn't make that clearer. My point was that the overwhelming majority of christians on the planet are roman catholics.

(How's the foot ?)

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Momma Angel wrote:

If that were the case Brandon, why do they get sick and die?

I agree. But I was asked for things that I would take as evidence of the existence of God, and I am saying that if the Popes never got sick once elevated to Pope, that would be some evidence of the existence of God. Please don't make me spoon feed trivial statements to you.

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hingehead wrote:

Momma, I only just found this thread and I haven't read many response, so sorry I repeat what's been said.

There are many reasons, but mostly they relate to the old testament. God is a complete *expletive deleted* back there.

Wipe out a town because they are all sinners - what, even the newborn babes? Flood a planet because you don't like what's become of the thing you created?

kick A & E out of paradise for eating the forbidden fruit? Hey, you knew they would - you built them! The fault lies with the manufacturer. Ditto with the Babel thing....

In the new testament God suddenly gets completely passive - what happened? Mid-life crisis? Run out of bushes to burn?

My sincere apologies if I've insulted your beliefs, but I think if you wanted understand where I was coming from it would be better to pull no punches. I'm sure your faith is strong enough to cope.

Hingehead,

Thank you for answering my question. No apologies necessary whatsoever. My faith can withstand what you or anyone else says or believes.

Perhaps everyone thinks that I never had a problem with some of the things in the Old Testament? Not so. Yes, God is very harsh in the Old Testament. It took a lot of study and learning for me to come to any kind of understanding about it. Do I completely understand it all? No. I don't.

What I do understand is that God is so far on one side of the spectrum and man is so far on the other that it is very hard to comprehend. So, to Him man's sin is pretty horrible.

The thing is though Hingehead, we have free will. We make our own choices. God knows what choices we will make but as long as we exercise our free will, He will not interfere.

So, do you think God just should have made us all perfect instead? If He had, wouldn't we be like puppets? He very well could have made us perfect. He can do anything. But, I wonder if we would like it any better than the way we are now? I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

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LionTamerX,

Thank you for clarifying that for me. The foot's not too bad. Still a bit numb and the wound is draining. Still no fever in it though. Taking the antibiotics and putting the ointment on it like the doctor said. Thank you for asking.

Brandon,

I am sorry. I am trying to keep up with this thread and I guess I wasn't reading your posts correctly. I am sorry about that. I do understand what you mean and I thank you for clearing it up for me.

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Why build us at all? Why intentionally make us imperfect? Why couldn't he make us perfect and have free will?

We are puppets. God knows everything. He knew everything about my life before I was born. I have no free will.

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hingehead wrote:

Why build us at all? Why intentionally make us imperfect? Why couldn't he make us perfect and have free will?

We are puppets. God knows everything. He knew everything about my life before I was born. I have no free will.

Hingehead,

You don't believe you have free will? Yes, God does know everything. He knows what decisions we will make before we make them, but He does not make them for us. We make our own decisions. I don't understand how we could be perfect and have free will. When using our free will, we decide things like what is right and wrong, don't we? If we were perfect we wouldn't need to make those decisions.

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By your logic God doesn't have free will - ie because he is perfect.

And, to my mind, if all my future actions (and their consequences) are known (by anyone or thing), then they are preordained, therefore I do not have free will. I am an automaton running a course that God has known about since she said 'let there be light'. I cannot get off the rails of fate.

I do not understand why a perfect, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscentient being would bother with us - what are we? A train set?

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hingehead wrote:

By your logic God doesn't have free will - ie because he is perfect.

And, to my mind, if all my future actions (and their consequences) are known (by anyone or thing), then they are preordained, therefore I do not have free will. I am an automaton running a course that God has known about since she said 'let there be light'. I cannot get off the rails of fate.

I do not understand why a perfect, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscentient being would bother with us - what are we? A train set?

Hingehead,

I can understand your thinking on the preordained idea. But, if God does not interfere with your decisions, you don't consider that free will? If God actually made the decisions for us, I would agree with you.

Hingehead, do you think that maybe some people have trouble with even the idea of God because they might feel like "a train set" and are angry about it?

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No, it's not free will because everything is traceable back to initial conditions (to borrow a term from science). And God set the initial conditions - everything flowed from that. Every event chain is traceble back to those initial conditions.

Momma, I can't speak for anyone else so I don't know about the trainset anger theory. But personally, if there is a god, then my existence is hollow. It's like reading a book. There's nothing I can do to affect the end, it's already written. That's OK in a book, but if that was the nature of my life it would be intolerable - I need more than the illusion of random chance and chaos, I need it's actuality.

Needless to say I'm an atheist, I have to be for my own spiritual and mental health.

As a philosophical exercise I accepted the existence of god and worked through the implications, that's how I got to this opinion. Come the day of judgement God better have a really good explanation or a note from his mother or there'll be hell to pay (intentional pun).

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hingehead wrote:

No, it's not free will because everything is traceable back to initial conditions (to borrow a term from science). And God set the initial conditions - everything flowed from that. Every event chain is traceble back to those initial conditions.

Momma, I can't speak for anyone else so I don't know about the trainset anger theory. But personally, if there is a god, then my existence is hollow. It's like reading a book. There's nothing I can do to affect the end, it's already written. That's OK in a book, but if that was the nature of my life it would be intolerable - I need more than the illusion of random chance and chaos, I need it's actuality.

Needless to say I'm an atheist, I have to be for my own spiritual and mental health.

As a philosophical exercise I accepted the existence of god and worked through the implications, that's how I got to this opinion. Come the day of judgement God better have a really good explanation or a note from his mother or there'll be hell to pay (intentional pun).

Hingehead,

I agree it's traceable. So, if God did not know what we were going to decide before we decided it, then would you consider it free will?

I imagine come judgment day, we will all have a lot of questions. But, I don't imagine the answers will mean much then. :wink:

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Absolutely - time is an arrow. I don't mind being able to trace the event chain after the fact, but prior to the fact creeps me out.

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Hingehead,

Creeps you out? So, it makes you uncomfortable that God knows everything we will decide? Can you tell me how exactly?

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Momma we're going over the same ground I just talked about. If God knows what I'm going to do before I do it I have no free will - please see preceeding posts for some really eloquent analogies about trains and puppets.

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hingehead wrote:

Momma we're going over the same ground I just talked about. If God knows what I'm going to do before I do it I have no free will - please see preceeding posts for some really eloquent analogies about trains and puppets.

Hingehead,

Gotcha! Thank you for talking with me. I really do appreciate it.

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Your melcome

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hingehead wrote:

Absolutely - time is an arrow. I don't mind being able to trace the event chain after the fact, but prior to the fact creeps me out.

And how exactly is it that negating theism affirms freewill?
That something might 'know' the chain of causality free of the constraints of linear time does not alter the fact that it is, in fact, a chain of causality.
It would seem that in either circumstance, freewill boils down to a faith based belief, and is without precedent or evidence.
Of course, this is assuming both causality and freewill aren't linguistic constructions or even elements of human perception, existing only within language or human perception(curse you wittgenstein!)....but I digress.

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Hi Dok

Not negating theism, just negating omniscient deities, in my own world view. Now move to the back of the bus and let everyone else on.

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Exactly Why Don't You Believe In the God of the Bible?

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