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Old 01-13-2016, 11:17 AM
 
10,077 posts, read 5,709,414 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ View Post
So, Jeff.

How is it possible that God HAS created a place that isn't fraught with dangers, where one DOESN'T require bubble tape in order to be safe, indeed, where danger just doesn't exist, YET there isn't "tremendous interference with free will"?

I believe you call this place heaven.
It is possible because such a place is void of sin. It doesn't have the curse of sin which was placed on this world and the reason for all those dangers and negativity.




Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ View Post


I'm pretty sure you believe God created it.

So...what you say about God not being able to accomplish such a thing is false even per your own teachings. PER YOUR OWN TEACHINGS He already has.

If He doesn't create it on earth it's not because it would be a huge problem for Him. It's not because He hasn't figured out a way to have people free of any dangers without turning them into robots. It's because He wants pain to be a huge part of human (and animal) life...period. Your God desires pain, blood, suffering and horror...by its very nature, not because it "has to" in order to "not interfere with free will".

Your own beliefs (specifically regarding heaven, to say nothing of the Garden of Eden) prove that.
If God desired pain and enjoyed watching people suffer, why did He sent a part of his own being to endure hours of extreme physical torture on a cross just to save the very mankind that spits in His face? If God desired pain, He would take away all the pleasures in this physical world and just keep on creating new humans to suffer here over and over again. God created man because He is so full of love that He wants to share that love. He created the world as a gift to man giving us ownership of this realm. Man gave over the keys to Satan when he chose to betray God. That's our fault, not God.
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Old 01-13-2016, 11:17 AM
 
17,966 posts, read 15,926,084 times
Reputation: 1010
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ View Post
Oh, that's possible.

If so, then given the fact that the religious tend to think of "just being robots" without "free will" as some terrible cruel torture God could inflict, then I'd be surprised that any of them would want to get to heaven, where apparently just exactly that is going on...and forever, no less.

Robotically following an exact protocol for eternity without any input from oneself at all? Apparently, heaven is peopled by storm troopers...

Sin up, folks. Avoid an afterlife where you're just a robot without free will.

OTOH, given that most people say it's God who doesn't want to refuse people free will, then it would be odd to also believe that He created just that situation later (in heaven).

I'm kind of thinking it's one or the other...can't really have this both ways (free will is terrible, intrusive and controlling, yet bliss and an ultimate goal).

Unless...

...unless it IS possible for God to allow free will without horrific suffering.

If it's possible in heaven that God made, then it's possible on earth that God made. If it's impossible on earth that God made, it is impossible in heaven that God made.

Since, well...apparently, God made it all.
JerZ, it is my understanding that we all have wills. But the Scriptures say it is the will of the flesh or the flesh's will. That doesn't make us robots. It is just that our decisions are controlled mainly by our flesh. Our wills, being controlled by the flesh, are not free to please God.

Of course God created us flesh and God knew well in advance that "those in flesh are not able to please God" (Romans 8). And those in flesh cannot do God's law (Rom.8). So, in effect, God did make it so the human race cannot please Him unless He intervenes.

This all gets back again the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God deemed it necessary for humanity to get a knowledge of good and evil. It isn't a sinister plot. All God does eventuates in good for He is working all together for good.

In heaven people's will will be ruled by the spirit rather than the flesh. We will be freed from flesh's will.
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Old 01-13-2016, 11:18 AM
 
1,490 posts, read 1,210,566 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eusebius View Post
And why should God create a perfect earth where skittles fall from the sky and every wish is granted?
Because I would and he is supposed to be a more perfect version of me.

Instead, if your god is to be believed, we have a giant toddler for a god who throws his toys around and sometimes gets angry and kills some of them. And yet some of the toys see that and think "well, he must have had a good reason for it". No...its called a temper tantrum and it is the very definition of immaturity and selfishness.
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Old 01-13-2016, 11:19 AM
 
17,966 posts, read 15,926,084 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinEden99 View Post
Because I would and he is supposed to be a more perfect version of me.

Instead, if your god is to be believed, we have a giant toddler for a god who throws his toys around and sometimes gets angry and kills some of them. And yet some of the toys see that and think "well, he must have had a good reason for it". No...its called a temper tantrum and it is the very definition of immaturity and selfishness.
I'm sorry you think that way.
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Old 01-13-2016, 11:26 AM
 
Location: USA
17,156 posts, read 11,350,636 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
It is possible because such a place is void of sin. It doesn't have the curse of sin which was placed on this world and the reason for all those dangers and negativity.
Haven't you been saying that sin is a product of free will? So, if a place is free of sin, it would have to be void of free will as well, yes?
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Old 01-13-2016, 11:27 AM
 
1,490 posts, read 1,210,566 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eusebius View Post
I'm sorry you think that way.
Well your goddunnit.
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Old 01-13-2016, 11:34 AM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,927,258 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
It is possible because such a place is void of sin. It doesn't have the curse of sin which was placed on this world and the reason for all those dangers and negativity.
Which never had to be, and which according to your religion God planned. Earth could have been "void of sin" too, if that's what God wanted. God CREATED the sin, HE CREATED the tree, HE CREATED the serpent, HE CREATED THE SERPENT TO WANT TO GO INTO THE GARDEN and/or placed it in the garden itself, HE CREATED the people to WANT TO eat the fruit, HE MADE them innocent enough to believe the serpent (that they would be as gods...like their god that they loved and therefore would naturally want to be like), HE CAUSED the fall.

Which he didn't NEED to do. He had to want it...or it could not have happened...period.

Earth could have been "void of sin" as well and indeed according to your book, started out that way, yet more proof that yes, it's possible for such conditions to exist on earth. No curse WAS EVER NECESSARY. EVER. FULL STOP.

Unless God wanted a curse, and suffering, and tears.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
If God desired pain and enjoyed watching people suffer, why did He sent a part of his own being to endure hours of extreme physical torture on a cross just to save the very mankind that spits in His face?
Because it - God - loves pain, blood and suffering. Being God, this never needed to happen for "salvation" (or any other reason). It's God, it can do anything. If its son suffered horribly, bloodily, thirstily, dying skinny on a cross in horror and pain, it's because that was what God lusted for. That was the sort of pain GOD WANTED. Badly enough to make it happen. And happen it did.

NO person, God's son or otherwise, "had to" die, much less suffer and then die, in order for "salvation" (from the conditions that God himself conjured up).

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
If God desired pain, He would take away all the pleasures in this physical world and just keep on creating new humans to suffer here over and over again.
Nope. Because then NOBODY would worship it. Period. If there were NO possibility of happiness, full stop, nobody would bother following because everything would be horrible whether we tried to force ourselves to "love" the pain-giver or not.

Psychotics know what they're doing. They know how to give just enough to keep people coming back. How much better then than they must Biblegod be at this sort of M.O.? Much better, obviously. Look how many people continue to follow it no matter how cruel and brutal it continues to be.

Nothing, NOTHING (according to your belief system) can happen unless God wants it/created it/allows it and therefore yes, God desires, perhaps even loves, torture and suffering.
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Old 01-13-2016, 01:08 PM
 
Location: USA
18,461 posts, read 9,108,050 times
Reputation: 8495
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
It is possible because such a place is void of sin. It doesn't have the curse of sin which was placed on this world and the reason for all those dangers and negativity.

If God desired pain and enjoyed watching people suffer, why did He sent a part of his own being to endure hours of extreme physical torture on a cross just to save the very mankind that spits in His face? If God desired pain, He would take away all the pleasures in this physical world and just keep on creating new humans to suffer here over and over again. God created man because He is so full of love that He wants to share that love. He created the world as a gift to man giving us ownership of this realm. Man gave over the keys to Satan when he chose to betray God. That's our fault, not God.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eusebius View Post
JerZ, it is my understanding that we all have wills. But the Scriptures say it is the will of the flesh or the flesh's will. That doesn't make us robots. It is just that our decisions are controlled mainly by our flesh. Our wills, being controlled by the flesh, are not free to please God.

Of course God created us flesh and God knew well in advance that "those in flesh are not able to please God" (Romans 8). And those in flesh cannot do God's law (Rom.8). So, in effect, God did make it so the human race cannot please Him unless He intervenes.

This all gets back again the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God deemed it necessary for humanity to get a knowledge of good and evil. It isn't a sinister plot. All God does eventuates in good for He is working all together for good.

In heaven people's will will be ruled by the spirit rather than the flesh. We will be freed from flesh's will.
And the BS pile just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Threads like this are a perfect illustration of the Law of BS Asymmetry, which states that the energy required to refute BS is an order of magnitude larger than the energy required to produce it.

The Law of BS Asymmetry is one of the primary weapons in the Fundamentalist Christian Arsenal.
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Old 01-13-2016, 01:13 PM
 
10,077 posts, read 5,709,414 times
Reputation: 2892
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleroo View Post
Haven't you been saying that sin is a product of free will? So, if a place is free of sin, it would have to be void of free will as well, yes?
Not if the inhabitants are all abhorrent to sin. It is simply inconceivable to imagine that a believer in fellowship with God in the afterlife would choose to commit sin knowing it means death and destruction.
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Old 01-13-2016, 01:17 PM
 
10,077 posts, read 5,709,414 times
Reputation: 2892
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80 View Post
And the BS pile just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Threads like this are a perfect illustration of the Law of BS Asymmetry, which states that the energy required to refute BS is an order of magnitude larger than the energy required to produce it.

The Law of BS Asymmetry is on of the primary weapons in the Fundamentalist Christian Arsenal.
Listen, I have been polite and respectful to answer you and your buddies questions, but to then see a post like that calling it a pile of BS only fuels my anti-atheist sentiment and shows me that you just want to play games and not have a thought provoking discussion. Nice job.
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