pop morality

[Drich]

Drich Wrote:[url=http://atheistforums.org/post-1210279.html#pid1210279][/url]

@Dritch

Your premise, god equals righteousness fails initially on two counts:  no one can demonstrate there is a god;

If we could then he would no longer be God... However God has provided a path that if anyone were to follow would indeed Find Him.

and no one can agree about what god is.

I can promise you we (all bible believeing people Jew and Christian alike) agree on what God is.
God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end to all Things.

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I fail miserably at the quote function 9 times out of 10, so I just cut and pasted.

Interested in the purple bolded above. Drippy.  If we could demonstrate that God exists, he would no longer be God.  
Elaborate on that a bit.  Because it's a major premise of mine for atheism.  

When I say that i have the scientific method in mind. More specifically the part where one experiments and as 'proof' can duplicate the experiment. Let's say God (Alpha and omega/All powerful being) could be manipulated into behaving a certain way. So, When one did XYZ God had to be Jonny on the Spot and produce ABC, each and every time XYZ was done. This is essentially the core of the scientific method, why? because it represents complete mastery and control over the theory test subject or phenomena.

So then as a simple point of logic, God can not be Alpha and Omega if he can be manipulated/experimented on. Why? because God would be serving or under the control of man, Rather the mandate God has given is man serve God. So rather, He has provided a way for us to serve Him, where he Himself retains control over who and what we experience yet find or secure what we personally need as the Holy Spirit will provide it. That's the key. We don't produce anything. God provides, If and when He has deemed us worthy.

God wants ALL PEOPLE to know him.  
However, all we have had to go by for the last 2000+ years at least is a set of highly flawed books and a bunch of priests/preachers.

I have studied these books with all that I am for the last 20+ years and yet to have find a fatal flaw in them. However I have found many many flaws in what preachers say. (just about all of them.) But, that's the thing about biblical Christianity. Their isn't a mandate that we must be right in our worship. In fact the core of biblical Christianity (The Version of Christianity described in the bible) is based on the fact that none are right so none can boast about earning his place in heaven.

That is why we have redemption. Fore the Same redemption we have when we willfully sin, is measured out to us 10xs over when we do our best and fail/get something wrong.

 These preachers have managed to convince much less than 1/4 of the people on the planet.  (Actually, if you only count the Catholics, who are the only people going to heaven according to Pope Benedict, the number is 16%.)  This, by itself, is a completely useless system for telling a population "hey folks, I'm here".  In another post, someone pointed out that god shouldn't need prophets OR books.  God is omniscient and omnipotent.  A creature with those attributes wouldn't fuck up sending a simple message THIS BADLY.  And in our day and age, a 10-year-old on Facebook can get a credible message to every nation on earth.  So your god is a complete communications failure, but if we could prove he exists, he wouldn't be god anymore?  Say what?

...And the above statement is why we have the OT...

Think of sunday school or maybe even to the "ten commandments movie" with NRA guy.. 'bright eyes.'

How much more absolute assurance do you think a people could have after witnessing the plagues, the parting of the red sea, the stone tablets that God himself wrote on, water out of stones, mirical healing by looking at a bronze snake on a pole, and on and on and on and on...

Yet these people (millions who witnessed all of this together) doubted God at each and every turn. Even within a few short decades they almost forgot him completely, and given enough time perverted his law So badly that Christ the Son of God himself was killed because they (the holiest of the Holy religious men) could no longer recognize the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

This maybe a supprise, but God does not seek religious worship. He wants us. He wants our core being. He is not interested in meaningless rituals or empty chants or repetitious prayers. He wants more. He wants all of your Heart, All of your Mind, All of your Spirit and All of your Physical strength! Now because we are all different, this will manifest itself differently. by small degrees from person to person, but as we move further and further apart and go into different regions and communities. those tiny personal changes multiplies over nations of people, become major religious differences. And because those differences are indeed different, some will be wrong even while they are worshiping according to God's Greatest command Love God with "all of your Heart, All of your Mind, All of your Spirit and All of your Physical strength!"

So again, if the command is love God with all of your "being" and doing so looks a little different from person to person, and those differences will ultimatly mean some of us will be doing something wrong, God has to then put a system of redemption in to cover those 'wrongs.' (intended/sin or not/worship) That system is redemption/atonement that is at the very Core of Biblical Christianity.

So when you are a follower of Christ you are not measured by a set of religious rules. You are looked squarly in the eye by Him on that final Day and will be judged completely rightly and fully by him and Him alone, not by someone's understaning or mandates set by some/one of the many versions of Christianity. That is the day those of us who are Christians will become Christians. Because religion of any kind does not save us nor define who really are. Fore as you are no doubt aware one could claim to be this or that and have no internal desire to follow anything. there are many many TV preachers who we could use as examples of this. that is why i say 'we' don't get to award ourselves with the title 'Christian.' Only Jesus can. I can promise you that the bible/Jesus points out that many who call themselves 'christian' Christ will condemn to Hell. Likewise the bible also points out a huge number of people who have never heard the term much less followed the "right religious doctrine" will be counted as 'Christian." Christ is the only one worthy to hand out that title, NONE of us are.

That makes Religion, more over christianity a simple tool. it will help those seeking God a way to find Him here in this life, and it will also bind up or be the tool Jesus uses to identify our own evil hypocrisy. Like a wrench it will work to tighen some of us down while it can also be used to loosen/free others of us up.

In that, know God does not want to 'know everyone.' He only wants a relationship with those who seek one from Him.