(April 8, 2013 at 6:43 pm)catfish Wrote:

(April 7, 2013 at 10:31 am)Mr_Dew7 Wrote: Yes I do.

I'll have to pick this up later though.. good night

If you're still willing to pick this up later, I would like to know your opinion on Moses' divorce laws.
You say God commanded the OT laws, Yeshua said Moses gave the people divorce. How do you reconcile your stated position above?
.

(April 8, 2013 at 6:45 pm)Baalzebutt Wrote: And why do you still rail against gays? That was strictly old testament stuff and, by your own admission, no longer relevant.

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(April 8, 2013 at 6:45 pm)Baalzebutt Wrote:

(April 8, 2013 at 6:43 pm)catfish Wrote: If you're still willing to pick this up later, I would like to know your opinion on Moses' divorce laws.
You say God commanded the OT laws, Yeshua said Moses gave the people divorce. How do you reconcile your stated position above?
.

And why do you still rail against gays? That was strictly old testament stuff and, by your own admission, no longer relevant.

(April 8, 2013 at 4:24 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

(April 7, 2013 at 5:48 am)Godschild Wrote: If that elephant disappears that quickly how is it you know he has been there.

Revelation and faith.

(April 8, 2013 at 11:15 pm)Godschild Wrote: Faith leads to belief, belief to knowledge, knowledge to revelation. You must do things in a proper order, please revise your statement.

(April 8, 2013 at 1:45 am)jrsm_10 Wrote: Like most Christians I know... I was brainwashed. My parents took me to church Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I "accepted God in my heart" when I was ten after hearing a sermon that got to me. I prayed every day for long periods of time (sigh), read the Bible all the time, even preached in church (and other churches).

I rejected faith after reading the Bible completely as an adult while doing a lot of thinking. I read... I thought. I read... thought some more. Then I knew. Or... stopped thinking I knew. Whichever makes more sense.

fr0d0 Wrote:*shows Mr_Dew the bible

*shows Mr_Dew the universe

There is the proof. Now all you need is understanding.

archangle Wrote:very true. The universe made the bible. They have it ass backward.

Quote:Here's a fun study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...160400.htm

In two studies led by Assistant Psychology Professor Michael Inzlicht, participants performed a Stroop task – a well-known test of cognitive control – while hooked up to electrodes that measured their brain activity.
Compared to non-believers, the religious participants showed significantly less activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a portion of the brain that helps modify behavior by signaling when attention and control are needed, usually as a result of some anxiety-producing event like making a mistake. The stronger their religious zeal and the more they believed in God, the less their ACC fired in response to their own errors, and the fewer errors they made.
"You could think of this part of the brain like a cortical alarm bell that rings when an individual has just made a mistake or experiences uncertainty," says lead author Inzlicht, who teaches and conducts research at the University of Toronto Scarborough. "We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They're much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error."

Quote:Thank you for sharing, I was interested. One thing you did not address in your statement, adults that come to Christ without the parents teaching them. Brainwashing does not seem to apply to them.

(April 8, 2013 at 11:18 pm)Darkstar Wrote:

(April 8, 2013 at 11:15 pm)Godschild Wrote: Faith leads to belief, belief to knowledge, knowledge to revelation. You must do things in a proper order, please revise your statement.

So you can't actually be convinced that god exists until you already believe he does? Awfully convenient...

godschild Wrote:It would be nice to hear something different, you have any original thoughts on God, if not you do not exist,

Mr Dew Wrote:I dare to say that they are not true believers. And how would you know that it touches believers as much as it does not? Because I am a believer, and I will venture to say that it does not come near me nearly as much as to othes. If you don't believe it, then continue on not believing it. You will not change my beliefs. All you see is the members of the group that do wrong, not the ones that do right, and live right.

Quote:futilethewinds Wrote:
Hey, everyone, True Believers™ do not get raped!

True. Crack open the Bible and see what Christians believe why don't you. Every verse while your at it.

BIBLE Wrote:

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(2 Samuel 12:11-14 NAB)

Thus says the Lord: 'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives [plural] while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down.'
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan answered David: "The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die." [The child dies seven days later.]

(Judges 21:10-24 NLT)

So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin." Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the little remnant of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives. But there were not enough women for all of them. The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel. So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever. But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God's curse."

Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife! And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, 'Please be understanding. Let them have your daughters, for we didn't find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.'" So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnapped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance. Then they rebuilt their towns and lived in them. So the assembly of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes.


(Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)

They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.

Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded. "These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.

(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

(Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NAB)

"When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive's garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife. However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion."

(Judges 5:30 NAB)

They must be dividing the spoils they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man, Spoils of dyed cloth as Sisera's spoil, an ornate shawl or two for me in the spoil.

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Mr Dew Wrote:Since God is omnipotent, wouldn't it be logical to assume that His judgement outranks ours? Rape is evil right?

godschild Wrote:I see God's actions thus I see God, I talk with Him and hear from Him, so your statement is false. By the way God is not a super being, God is more than you can imagine, until you've recognized God's love in your life you have not experienced God and thus can not realize who He is.

Mr Dew Wrote:Omnipotence is impossible due to paradoxes

Another way to disprove the almighty god is that omnipotence leads to paradoxes. Can god make a rock that is too heavy for him to carry? Can god build a wall that even he can't tear down?

Paradoxes by definition are things that contradict themselves but are true. And yes, while it may seem impossible to you and I, wouldn't you expect an omnipotent Creator to be able to do the impossible? The human definition of impossible should be expected from someone with ultimate power. Omnipotent is defined as having ultimate power, which means that one who is omnipotent is able to do whatever He desires. If He desires to create a rock that is too heavy for Him to carry, then one with ultimate power would be able to do so. But then the impossiblity of Him being able to lift said rock is also possible to an almight and all powerful being.

Also, if god knows everything, he knows what he will do in the "future" (in any dimension, not necessary the time dimension). He must have known that from the very start of his own existence. Thus god's actions are predestined. God is tied by faith, he has no free will. If god has no free will god is not omnipotent. Another way to put it is that to be able to make plans and decisions one must act over time. If god stands above time he can not do that and has no free will. Indeed, if god stands above all dimensions god is dimensionless - a singularity, nothing, void.

He does know everything yes, because He is the creator of everything. You understand that a being capable of ultimate power, can do anything inside and outside of human beliefs and expectations, right? And also God created the existence of everything and everything in existence. I hesitate to use the human definition of existence because it is defined as the fact or state of continued being, and we know that to continue doing something one must be under the law of time! So I can say that God doesn't exist in our limited understanding of what is possible. He is as He names Himself in Exodus when He calls Himself "I AM". It means that He is, simple. And I see your line of reasoning here, and to my mind it makes some sense, until I take into account the "impossiblity of impossiblity". To us, it is impossible to do the impossible, to God, the impossible is possible. He created both possible and impossible courses of action. Everything that humans have done or have ever thought of, is only inside realm of what we view as possible, aside from those who perform miracles with the power of the Holy Spirit. When our limited scope of things runs into the unlimited power of God, we automatically take a stance of defense, because obviously in our eyes this is impossible, and therefore not real. God is not held by any predestination. How can an omnipotent being be held by any thing that He does not wish to be held down by? God is not tied by faith, and is above both faith and free will. How can you question whether or not someone of ultimate power, which is more power than anything else, is held down by something as trivial as free will? Yes, HUMANS must act over time to come to any sort of logical conclusion or course of action, but how can an omnipotent being who is outside of time and who created time, be held by time's laws, and how can said being be subject to any of His own creations if He does not wish to be? To our minds a dimensionless being would be actually nothing, but again, wouldn't an omnipotent being be able to do anything He wishes? To be outside of all created things is, I'm sure, a trivial thing for an a being of ultimate and unequaled power.

Besides there can exist no free wills at all if god is almighty. If you had a free will, god wouldn't know what you would do tomorrow and wouldn't be omnipotent.

So you suggest that an omnipotent God could not see every line of reasoning, every possible path? Again, omnipotent is defined as having ultimate power. Ultimate power is the power to do anything, whether it seems possible to our frail and fallible human minds or not.
And wouldn't said omnipotent being, who created time and is outside of time, be able to view all of time? Wouldn't He be able to allow creation the free will to decide for itself what it does and doesn't believe in? There are no limits to ultimate power, you know.

The void creator

If everything must have been created, then god must have been created as well. If god is not created, then everything mustn't have a creator, so why should life or cosmos have one?

God existed before creation. Creation is a concept that we use to categorize the world and universe around us. We conceptualize everything, and file it into little categories, and all of these categories fall under the titles Possible and Impossible. Can your mind fathom what was before creation? No, because it is a human mind, an imperfect mind; a fallible mind.

Besides this argument has another leap. If everything has a source and god is that source, then god must have existed without it before he created it. So if god created time and space, he must live outside of time and space. Thus he is non-existent. If all life must come from something and that is god, god is not alive and hence non-existent. If morality must come from god, god lacks morality. If logic comes from god, god is illogical. If nature comes from god, god is unnatural. If existence comes from god, god is non-existent. If god is the cause of everything, god is void

Yes, in our defintion of existence, God is non-existent. Because to be in existence, you must be in the realm of the natural universe, where time flows, and because time flows you can exist, as existence is defined as I stated above the fact or state of continued being. And by your assertions as well as my own one cannot continue being if they are outside of time, correct? So to your mind and my own, God is non-existent because He is outside of what we define as existing. God does not fall under the categories of our definitions of alive, moral, logical, or natural. Wouldn't you expect an omnipotent being to be above and more than these things and outside the limits of what we can fathom in our ever so limited state of being? Your arguments do not make sense to me, because God is outside of everything that you use to deny His existence.