I think we're talking past each other Drich. I find your examples over step the mark just as you do mine. I can see no difference between our viewpoints, taking an impartial view.

I can't read your links as they won't format correctly on my phone. And by what I can make out, they're overly technical and unclear. I have no problem in accepting your point.

Yes, again, I agree that unconditional is incorrect.
Yes God hates, but not in the sense that I presumed: hatred equalling biased dislike.
Money changers: no it was still the act and not the person condemned.
Our commands are Gods will for us. "Love seeks the welfare of all, Romans 15:2, and works no ill to any, 13:8-10; love seeks opportunity to do good to 'all men" - we imitate God who seeks opportunity to do good to all men.
I thought the wiki definition was interesting. I already explained my misuse of the term.
No second chance: in the afterlife too? I don't believe that is scriptural which is why my understanding maintains traction.
Yes there's the elect, but that then contradicts the verse I quoted about all people being drawn to God, if you include post mortem. I believe that justice is fully served only post mortem. When it's done, what happens then? If experience is frozen then there cannot be reward or punishment. If experience is felt, then both are possible, and punishment that needs to last a very long time still comes to an end. What then? Does love fail? Is God not able to conquer evil? I believe that he is. I believe that love is the dominant force.
I also don't believe that omnibenevolence is a mainstream Christian doctrine.

(September 15, 2014 at 9:29 am)Chas Wrote:

(September 14, 2014 at 11:13 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Frodo says that according to biblical Christianity God's love is unconditional and inseparable from his creation.
Drich says that according to biblical Christianity God's love is conditional and separable from his creation.

How will this conflict ever be solved? Part of my problem with theism is the very trouble of defining God in the way we have just witnessed.

With swords and fire as always.

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(September 14, 2014 at 5:13 pm)Drich Wrote: You don't seem to understand the meaning of the word rational.
It means to simply have a reason.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rational

You are wrong. Reread that definition. It's not "a reason", it's "reason".

Your argument fails.

Do you not understand a simple majority belief in a given society defines reason for that society?

There were 72 million people who lived in Germany at the start of the war. The vast majority supported the nazi party and what it believed. Therefore in that time for those people they had a sound 'reasoned' belief, and solution.

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: what I have said repeatedly is we as Christians have the freedom to build whatever picture of God we can fathom so long as this picture is continually evolving to match that picture found in the bible.

And apparently, whether or not it matches the "picture" in the bible is also open to interpretation.

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: That is why we have so many different legitimate denominations.

Can you name a few illegitimate denominations and the reasons for their illegitimacy?

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: well maybe string a few together and start a thread, and we will see if we can't take care a few of those for ya.

There is a multitude of threads all over the forum and you haven't been able to take care of them. I'm not holding my breath here.

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: who am I to judge who is ready for a deeper understanding and who is not? My task is to simply provide clarity when asked.

And the fact that your fellow Christians are apparently muddying the waters and making false claims about your god doesn't bother you?

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: who says? I have pointed out frodo is well with in his rights to be at whatever level of understanding he is at, as a Christian. It is only the wicked who need fear the wrath of God.

But doesn't your god consider not worshiping him to be wicked? And how does he react to spreading incorrect information about him?

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: Please explain your logic there.

I thought it was obvious:

You claim that your god's morality cannot be used to justify all the raping and killing and pillaging and that only man's morality can used to do that and yet, here we have a specific instance of raping and killing and pillaging being commanded by your god and those actions are justified based on that command.

I see only four options here:
1. The whole thing is made up. There was never an actual command and the events, if they happened, were the result of people doing terrible things in your god's name. In which case, the whole fantasy of bible being true and accurate runs into reality.
2. He did command it, but his moral views have changed since then.
3. He did command it and his morality remains the same today - in which case it doesn't matter if your god no longer issues such commands, they are still consistent with and can still be justified based on your god's morality.
4. Your god commanded something that was contradictory to his morality - which would make him a hypocrite.

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: that statement is proof positive that you do not understand basic biblical Christianity.

Are you claiming that your biblical morality is not absolutist and authoritarian?

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: are you really so ignorant of history you do not know of the propaganda campaign hitler under took to dehumanize the Jews? It may have started out in anger, but the nazis quickly fabricated/provided fact and reasoning to justify their final solution. It started with 'natural selection/Darwinian' arguement that say they were a genetic throw back/cave man who was holding the Arian race down and keeping it from being a world power to the reason Germany lost the First World War, to the reason Germany could never afford to pay all the reparations for loosing the war, to their economic situation. The Jews had to go and it was every red blooded Germans moral obligation to ensure that not one Jew was left.

Are you really so stupid that you can't read your own argument. By your own admission, they fabricated the facts and reasoning. There so-called moral obligations were not based on any actual facts. Which is what makes it irrational.

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: Facts have nothing to so with truth. Facts are statement that can be proven or disproven. The German people were overwhelmed with 'facts.'

Facts have everything to do with the truth. A fact (derived from the Latin factum) is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. If something is disproven, then it is not a fact. Truth is a statement that corresponds to facts. The Germans were overwhelmed with lies presented as factual, which were not facts.

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: actually no. Interpretation of a definition has no bearing on whether or not the definition is well defined.

Yes, it does. The whole point of a definition is to convey the meaning of the thing it refers to and if that communication is so bad that it can be interpreted in many different ways, then it was poorly defined to begin with.

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(September 15, 2014 at 9:27 am)Drich Wrote: Please use the source and refute, or your assertion will be dismissed.

Sure.

Here are your definitions:

Sin : anything outside the expressed will of God.
Evil : a willful endulgence or delight in being outside the expressed will of God.

Here are your links:
Sin : http://studybible.info/vines/Sin%20(Noun%20and%20Verb)
Evil : http://studybible.info/vines/Evil,%20Evil-doer

Go to the page and see if your definition is given there - should be easy, you just press ctrl+f and do a search.

If you can't find it, then your source doesn't support your definition. Hence, refuted.

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(September 15, 2014 at 9:52 am)Drich Wrote: Do you not understand a simple majority belief in a given society defines reason for that society?

Do you not understand that argument from majority is a logical fallacy and therefore not rational?

(September 15, 2014 at 9:52 am)Drich Wrote: There were 72 million people who lived in Germany at the start of the war. The vast majority supported the nazi party and what it believed. Therefore in that time for those people they had a sound 'reasoned' belief, and solution.

Wrong. Majority support does not make a belief sound. For a proposition to be sound it has to be logically concluded from factual premises. Theirs', as you said, wasn't.

(September 15, 2014 at 9:54 am)genkaus Wrote:

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: That is why we have so many different legitimate denominations.

Can you name a few illegitimate denominations and the reasons for their illegitimacy?

(September 15, 2014 at 8:53 am)Drich Wrote: who am I to judge who is ready for a deeper understanding and who is not? My task is to simply provide clarity when asked.

And the fact that your fellow Christians are apparently muddying the waters and making false claims about your god doesn't bother you?

Can I chime on these two?

Jehovas witnesses:
Claim to be Christian. Don't believe in salvation through faith but in works. Don't believe that Jesus was God.

Mormons:
Call themselves Christians. Add Joseph Smiths book to the bible, together with all sort of weirdness. Don't believe that Jesus was God.

Both can be categorised as non trinitarian Christians. A nonsense to me as a trinitarian Christian, but I've had to make that distinction on this forum to people who are unaware of the distinction.

The mainstream Christian churches do talk together and so reach consensus on what constitutes mainstream Christianity. The core component is adherence to the Nicene creed (a particular iteration). There are more marginal groups on either side of the divide, and some churches have their own councils to make such decisions. I know that the pentecostal churches do, for example.


It is by this kind of deliberation that Christians will consider if others can be called partners in Christ. There's a line of non acceptance, and a huge variety of denominational differences incorporated into the mainstream. None are contradictory.

(September 13, 2014 at 4:47 am)fr0d0 Wrote: What is it about the nature of hell that "restricts" an omnipotent God from allowing a person to repent after they have experienced the terms of his punishment? Or is hell a place where its occupants will have no desire to do so? Or is God simply unwilling to forgive at that point?
I believe people choose to stay in hell. Before and after death. Eventually everyone will be drawn to God. Is the inevitable conclusion.

So you're saying on an infinite time line, everyone ends up in heaven?

Yes RP

I added: I believe that justice is fully served only post mortem. When it's done, what happens then? If experience is frozen then there cannot be reward or punishment. If experience is felt, then both are possible, and punishment that needs to last a very long time still comes to an end. What then? Does love fail? Is God not able to conquer evil? I believe that he is. I believe that love is the dominant force.

(September 15, 2014 at 10:20 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Can I chime on these two?

Jehovas witnesses:
Claim to be Christian. Don't believe in salvation through faith but in works. Don't believe that Jesus was God.

Mormons:
Call themselves Christians. Add Joseph Smiths book to the bible, together with all sort of weirdness. Don't believe that Jesus was God.

Both can be categorised as non trinitarian Christians. A nonsense to me as a trinitarian Christian, but I've had to make that distinction on this forum to people who are unaware of the distinction.

The mainstream Christian churches do talk together and so reach consensus on what constitutes mainstream Christianity. The core component is adherence to the Nicene creed (a particular iteration). There are more marginal groups on either side of the divide, and some churches have their own councils to make such decisions. I know that the pentecostal churches do, for example.


It is by this kind of deliberation that Christians will consider if others can be called partners in Christ. There's a line of non acceptance, and a huge variety of denominational differences incorporated into the mainstream. None are contradictory.

I keep seeing the words "mainstream" and "trinitarian" - Is being regarded as not part of those sufficient to regard them as non-Christian?

No. They're all Christians but not what mainstream Christians are referring to when they talk about those that share their beliefs.

(September 15, 2014 at 9:52 am)Drich Wrote: Are you really surprised that God would favor and forgive the saved/believers over the unsaved/non believers

Given the pseudo-intellectual basis by which Christians such as yourself distribute labels such as "saved/believer," YES... quite surprised.

(September 15, 2014 at 12:32 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: No. They're all Christians but not what mainstream Christians are referring to when they talk about those that share their beliefs.

Then that really doesn't answer my question, does it?

According to Drich, your god is okay with people interpreting scripture/christianity differently and finding whatever meaning they want, but only to a limit. I'm asking what that limit is. At what point would you say to someone who is "creatively interpreting the bible" that he is not a Christian.