Who was "he" talking to?

[Godscreated]

Interesting, so lets run with that. If I believe in jesus, but don;t suck up to jesus...say..I think that jesus was really real and a real asshole, does that mean that I -won't- suffer punishment..or...did you deign to "correct" someone without actually correcting them...and sucking up actually is the requirement, not mere belief?

Like I said in another post to you try reading the NT and you wouldn't have to ask basic questions. To believe means you are accepting Christ and all He is into your life so you can live a life as close to His as possible.

GC

[The Grand Nudger]

Is that what believing means?  Just like believing in lizard people must also mean that I believe they;re looking out for me and all of mankind with their new world order?  

Cmon..man.....you're making jesusism sound a little bit crazy.......

[Cyberman]

Words are magic!
There's actually some truth in it, communication is about the closes thing to magic we actually have, though I think writing is even greater than speech

The penis mightier than the sword. Autocorrect notwithstanding.

[Tonus]

Yes, Jesus came first to the Jews and then the gentiles, meaning they(the Jews) were suppose to take the message of Christ to the world.

I understand that, but I was just thinking that there can't be such a thing as a Jewish Christian.  If a Jew accepts Christ, he's a Christian.  The rest of your response brings up an interesting question-- if the Jews of the time had accepted Jesus as their Messiah, would he have conquered the rest of the world, instead of saving it?  That is what they were waiting on, isn't it?

I understand your position and why you believe there's no guiding hand but, why blame/or discount God because of the mistakes humans make.

I'm not blaming God for man's mistakes, I'm just realizing that our mistakes are simply that.  We are what we are, and religion is just a manifestation of our desire to form strong social bonds and us/them social groups.  It's a very strong instinct and it shows up in many ways and it clashes with the concept of large, connected societies that we have built over the decades.  It's gone from something that helped us survive to something that threatens our survival.  Very frustrating, IMO.

The Egyptians saw those plagues and did not believe, even to the destruction of the army. If you were to see something similar would you believe that God did it. Or would you look for a scientific explanation and say that we will find it someday.

A string of such large-scale events with no other explanation would make it impossible to deny that there was a powerful supernatural force taking action.  And that is what makes it curious that the people who were there seemed so unimpressed.  The Israelite slaves watched an entire sea open up to allow them to walk on dry land, and yet when they got to the other side they began to complain that God was doing a poor job.  When Moses was in the mountain receiving the ten commandments, they formed a fake god out of gold.  How could anyone behave in such a manner?  Seeing the hand of an actual God work miracles, they decided to worship a hood ornament instead.  That just doesn't make any sense.

There are many on this forum who said they searched and found God but then decided He wasn't real, so you tell me how sincere were they to begin with, how was it they found something they do.not believes exists.

I doubt you'll find anyone who found God and then "decided" that he wasn't real.  I think it's more likely that they beleived for a long time and then realized that they could not verify that God was real, and that the concept didn't make sense as explained by existing religions.  Our willingness to accept things that are told to us, and to cling to those beliefs in the face of thoughts to the contrary, are instinctive and difficult to overcome.  Especially in cultures where belief in God is treated as axiomatic and where nonbelievers face pressure from their community or society.

The Bible doesn't say they ate from the "Tree of Life," they did not have to to live forever. As long as they did not disobey God death would not have come.
You say you took the time to make sense of Christianity, yet you missed this important information. Could it be that you have missed even more important things.

Genesis 3:22-23 says that God banned them from the garden so that they would not eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.  It does not say anything else about the matter of their immortality.  I don't think I missed the information.  If the account requires some additional interpretation to make sense of it, well that's the point I am making.

You say they took a route, do you mean they took a route to death? Why would they do such a thing that would make no sense at all. If that's what you meant maybe you should rethink this position.

Yes, I am saying that their actions do not make sense.  The story does not make sense if we take it as a literal account that actually happened.  Even as a parable, it's a bit weak.

Here's another example of what you have missed.

I don't think that's an example of what I missed.  I think it's an example of how we can insert lots of conjecture into a scripture to make it mean what we want.  It's why there are so many differing interpretations of what various parts of the Bible mean, and why there are so many denominations.  The confusion would have to be deliberate if God and Jesus were real.

In my experience if one is sound in their belief they have nothing to fear from challenges, I think you can see I have no fear of being challenged.

It's an example of how bias can work with something as open to interpretation as the Bible to allow us to hold beliefs in the face of such challenges.

I was once a Jehovah's Witness, which is why I use them as an example so often.  They are a good example of how the Bible can be interpreted to defend many differing beliefs.  Some of them are good examples of people who feel so confident in their beliefs that they do not fear a challenge.

---

No, God can't be anything other than who He is, God can't decide to be terrible, evil or whatever you would label it.

What I am saying is that God cannot be any of those things because the actions that we typically label as terrible or evil would automatically be good if God performed them.  God doesn't perform an action because it is good-- the action is good because God performed it.  Thus, God is good.  Not by our standard of what is good or bad --remember, he is above our moral standards and judgments-- but by his own standard that we cannot question.

I'm not the one who defined God in such a manner.  Apologists have defined him this way in order to deal with the actions that God takes or commands and which can be considered to be wicked.  By putting him above human moral standards, we create a being whose every action is beyond our capacity to categorize.  God cannot be judged for wiping out the world with a flood, or ordering the rape and slaughter of non-combatants and the pillage of goods and livestock, or any other of the things that we might otherwise consider terrible or evil.  So why would you expect him to stop doing such things at any point in time?

What makes you believe God would not be upset of your judgment of Him?

I think this was the end of a string of responses that started when you asked how I could find God if I was always standing in judgment of him.  I don't think this would be an impediment to finding God because he would invite such judgment and would be willing to explain his actions.

What makes you think an omniscient being who is also omnipresent would create the universe any other way than the way He saw to be the only right way.?

The universe he created has seen mankind suffer for thousands of years and visit pain upon one another and many angels in heaven turn wicked and follow the devil.  If this outcome is what God thought of as perfect, I would consider his standards to be very low.  If it is not his idea of perfection but it is what he wanted, then I would question his motivations.  A God who would create a universe that he knew would be filled with so much suffering must like to see his creation suffer.  That's a very scary God.

We are born with a sense of right and wrong which isn't developed except through teaching and experience.

We have the ability to empathize and cooperate, but I don't think that's the same thing.  If we were born with an innate sense of right and wrong, then teaching a child would only require that we tell them "this is right, this is wrong."  But parents who teach in this manner often have problems, while those who explain why an action is right or wrong --often by reversing a situation so they see it from the other person's point-of-view-- are going to have more success in raising children who become good citizens.

God is bound by who He is and God says He is not a liar, so He can't lie. Lying is an impossibility for God.

That one was easy, though.  God doesn't have to lie since he's a being of unparalleled power.  But it's not impossible for him to do so.  If God lied we would not be able to do anything to him.  God is bound by who he is, but he is boundless, so that's not saying anything.  God cannot be limited, even by himself.  That is the essence of his nature.  As you yourself said:

God is not bound by behavioral and moral laws, He is the law by His very nature, God can't go against himself,

This is my point.  There is no action that God could take that would go against himself.  He isn't the law, he is the law giver.  He is above any law because no law can be enforced against him.

If you understood where I'm coming from then why the above statement?

As I said above, the apologist has to come up with an explanation for why God does some of the cruel and brutal things he does in the Bible.  But in putting him above human standards of good or evil, you end up with a God who can do the worst possible things and still be a perfect and good being.  You are trusting that he won't, but there is no basis for that expectation.

You know it's really nice to be able to have a good conversation here and with you, thank you!

Same here, buddy!  Take care.

[Godscreated]

@Tonus, hey buddy I'm busy on another thread at the moment and don't want to try and do two long posts at a time, the screen still bothers my eyes but, I will answer your post soon.
Thanks

GC

[Godscreated]

---

Yes, Jesus came first to the Jews and then the gentiles, meaning they(the Jews) were suppose to take the message of Christ to the world.

---

I understand that, but I was just thinking that there can't be such a thing as a Jewish Christian.  If a Jew accepts Christ, he's a Christian.  The rest of your response brings up an interesting question-- if the Jews of the time had accepted Jesus as their Messiah, would he have conquered the rest of the world, instead of saving it?  That is what they were waiting on, isn't it?

I see what you're thinking. I was thinking more of a nationality, maybe saying Israeli-Christian would work better.

---

I understand your position and why you believe there's no guiding hand but, why blame/or discount God because of the mistakes humans make.

---

I'm not blaming God for man's mistakes, I'm just realizing that our mistakes are simply that.  We are what we are, and religion is just a manifestation of our desire to form strong social bonds and us/them social groups.  It's a very strong instinct and it shows up in many ways and it clashes with the concept of large, connected societies that we have built over the decades.  It's gone from something that helped us survive to something that threatens our survival.  Very frustrating, IMO.

Don't you think that eliminating God without factual proof is the real threat to society. I've seen all the good God has done in peoples lives. I've seen the problems people have made out of religion too, but that's not the fault of all the Christians who try and live a proper life.

---

The Egyptians saw those plagues and did not believe, even to the destruction of the army. If you were to see something similar would you believe that God did it. Or would you look for a scientific explanation and say that we will find it someday.

---

A string of such large-scale events with no other explanation would make it impossible to deny that there was a powerful supernatural force taking action.  And that is what makes it curious that the people who were there seemed so unimpressed.  The Israelite slaves watched an entire sea open up to allow them to walk on dry land, and yet when they got to the other side they began to complain that God was doing a poor job.  When Moses was in the mountain receiving the ten commandments, they formed a fake god out of gold.  How could anyone behave in such a manner?  Seeing the hand of an actual God work miracles, they decided to worship a hood ornament instead.  That just doesn't make any sense.

It does seem incredible that they would act that way but, they paid a price overtime they rejected God. Their finial rejection came at the highest price. When as a nation they rejected Christ and persecuted the Christians, that's when God's judgment came upon them and He disbanded them until they were scattered across the world but, as people He made sure they survived, they were never assimilated into another culture. Then came WWII and the Soviet Union and the terrible atrocities committed against them, the world became sympathetic and they regained their land as God had promised. No other peoples have ever survived that long and regained their country. It was given to them by the world's nations, no war, God's promise restored then to their lands. Yet unbelievers do not see God in this tremendous miracle. So I guess we should be careful how we criticize others.

---

There are many on this forum who said they searched and found God but then decided He wasn't real, so you tell me how sincere were they to begin with, how was it they found something they do.not believes exists.

---

I doubt you'll find anyone who found God and then "decided" that he wasn't real.  I think it's more likely that they beleived for a long time and then realized that they could not verify that God was real, and that the concept didn't make sense as explained by existing religions.  Our willingness to accept things that are told to us, and to cling to those beliefs in the face of thoughts to the contrary, are instinctive and difficult to overcome.  Especially in cultures where belief in God is treated as axiomatic and where nonbelievers face pressure from their community or society.

That's what I've been trying to tell the atheist here who claim they were Christians, if one doesn't. Come I to a relationship with Christ they are not a Christian. When a person truly comes to know God one can't deny Him unless they are lying for some reason.
There are Christians in the Middle East who face death daily, Christians that were once Muslims.

---

The Bible doesn't say they ate from the "Tree of Life," they did not have to to live forever. As long as they did not disobey God death would not have come.
You say you took the time to make sense of Christianity, yet you missed this important information. Could it be that you have missed even more important things.

---

Genesis 3:22-23 says that God banned them from the garden so that they would not eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.  It does not say anything else about the matter of their immortality.  I don't think I missed the information.  If the account requires some additional interpretation to make sense of it, well that's the point I am making.

You did miss something, God told them if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that disobedience would bring death. Until that point they were immortal and didn't need to eat from the Tree of Life. After their disobedience sin brought death into their lives and God banished them from the Garden. God wouldn't allow them to eat from the tree because they would have lived forever in their sin and God wasn't going to allow that that's reserved for the unbelievers.

---

You say they took a route, do you mean they took a route to death? Why would they do such a thing that would make no sense at all. If that's what you meant maybe you should rethink this position.

---

Yes, I am saying that their actions do not make sense.  The story does not make sense if we take it as a literal account that actually happened.  Even as a parable, it's a bit weak.

We have the advantage of hindsight, so we can see their action that came from selfish reasons. People make terrible mistakes all the time because of selfish actions, and then wonder later why they had done something so stupid. Hindsight before the act would help us all but, we are not God and hindsight isn't ours to use. We have trouble learning from those in the past, we do the same things over and over. The literal account is the only way we can take it, it shows how humans are vulnerable to their selfishness and that there is a price for tat action.

Here's another example of what you have missed.

I don't think that's an example of what I missed.  I think it's an example of how we can insert lots of conjecture into a scripture to make it mean what we want.  It's why there are so many differing interpretations of what various parts of the Bible mean, and why there are so many denominations.  The confusion would have to be deliberate if God and Jesus were real.

Most denominations agree on the basics, it's through our selfishness we interpret some of the Bible differently. If the different denominations were to set down and reason with each other we might come to a better understanding of the scriptures, no denomination has everything right.
God can't deliberately confuse the people in their understanding of scripture that would be dividing His house. Jesus told the Pharisees when they accused Him of working for Satan that a house divided against itself can not stand. God's house is an eternal one so it can't be divided, meaning God is not an agent against His own self.

---

In my experience if one is sound in their belief they have nothing to fear from challenges, I think you can see I have no fear of being challenged.

---

It's an example of how bias can work with something as open to interpretation as the Bible to allow us to hold beliefs in the face of such challenges.

I was actually referring to the belief in God but, my belief in the infallible Bible has not been shaken here either.

I was once a Jehovah's Witness, which is why I use them as an example so often.  They are a good example of how the Bible can be interpreted to defend many differing beliefs.  Some of them are good examples of people who feel so confident in their beliefs that they do not fear a challenge.

I thought you might have been. The JW's haven't just misinterpreted the Bible they had to rewrite parts of it to fit their beliefs, so the book they use isn't the Bible God has given us. It is a different book made up by man to satisfy man. The book God has given us wasn't given to us to fit our beliefs it was given to us to conform to what God wants us to be. Misinterpretation will be a problem always, man's desires seem to be a problem when incomes to God. God's not responsible for our mistakes so there's no reason to blame Him.

---

No, God can't be anything other than who He is, God can't decide to be terrible, evil or whatever you would label it.

What I am saying is that God cannot be any of those things because the actions that we typically label as terrible or evil would automatically be good if God performed them.  

You're wrong, God can't be any of those things because of who He is, those things can't ever be part of God. Good is what God does because that is what God is.

God doesn't perform an action because it is good-- the action is good because God performed it.  Thus, God is good.  Not by our standard of what is good or bad --remember, he is above our moral standards and judgments-- but by his own standard that we cannot question.

You're right we have no right to question God nor judge Him, because He is beyond our understanding. God says, " My ways are not your ways and my understanding is not your understanding." God says, "My understanding is as far above you as the heavens are above the earth," and we know that that is eternal for mortal man. Their are things God does because of His providence as creator and those who do not believe see these things as wrong.

I'm not the one who defined God in such a manner.  Apologists have defined him this way in order to deal with the actions that God takes or commands and which can be considered to be wicked.  By putting him above human moral standards, we create a being whose every action is beyond our capacity to categorize.  God cannot be judged for wiping out the world with a flood, or ordering the rape and slaughter of non-combatants and the pillage of goods and livestock, or any other of the things that we might otherwise consider terrible or evil.  So why would you expect him to stop doing such things at any point in time?

Some Christians do that but, does that make them right. When we apply our moral values upon God we are judging Him and I think that we agree to this from the above statements. Humans moral standards are suppose to come from God, but we seem to disregard them when they are not to our convenience. God as creator does have rights and privileges that we shouldn't question. They are not evil nor terrible because they come through His judgment.

What makes you believe God would not be upset of your judgment of Him?

I think this was the end of a string of responses that started when you asked how I could find God if I was always standing in judgment of him.  I don't think this would be an impediment to finding God because he would invite such judgment and would be willing to explain his actions.

How can anyone find anything if they are always in judgment of it, judgment is not questioning, asking questions of God is expected by Him. To judge Gods is to disagree with Him, the all knowing God. How are you suppose to find what you are always disagreeing with.

GC

I'll answer the rest later my eyes are bothering me.

[The Grand Nudger]

I constantly disagree with my mother...for some odd reason..I have very little trouble finding her. That bit above was a positively -silly- piece of jesus-speak.

[Godscreated]

What makes you think an omniscient being who is also omnipresent would create the universe any other way than the way He saw to be the only right way.?

The universe he created has seen mankind suffer for thousands of years and visit pain upon one another and many angels in heaven turn wicked and follow the devil.

No, this is the universe that man corrupted through the sin of disobedience. Before man's fall God called His creation, "very good."

 If this outcome is what God thought of as perfect, I would consider his standards to be very low.  If it is not his idea of perfection but it is what he wanted, then I would question his motivations.  A God who would create a universe that he knew would be filled with so much suffering must like to see his creation suffer.  That's a very scary God.

Since neither of the above are true then God's not scary nor did He ever want to see the suffering man brought into the creation. Because of love God could not keep free will out of His creation. We had to have a choice, if not the creation would have been sterile, bland and boring, wouldn't you think so.

---

We are born with a sense of right and wrong which isn't developed except through teaching and experience.

---

We have the ability to empathize and cooperate, but I don't think that's the same thing.  If we were born with an innate sense of right and wrong, then teaching a child would only require that we tell them "this is right, this is wrong."  But parents who teach in this manner often have problems, while those who explain why an action is right or wrong --often by reversing a situation so they see it from the other person's point-of-view-- are going to have more success in raising children who become good citizens.

Having a sense of right and wrong doesn't by necessity mean a child would only have to be told and not taught. I fully agree with the teaching you described and we are in agreement with the Bible. The OT tells parents that they should teach their children and that the mother is to make that a matter of great importance with her children.

---

God is bound by who He is and God says He is not a liar, so He can't lie. Lying is an impossibility for God.

---

That one was easy, though.  God doesn't have to lie since he's a being of unparalleled power.  But it's not impossible for him to do so.  If God lied we would not be able to do anything to him.  God is bound by who he is, but he is boundless, so that's not saying anything.  God cannot be limited, even by himself.  That is the essence of his nature.  As you yourself said:

I've said God has providence over His creation, I have never said God is not limited by who He is. If God lied and we knew it we certainly couldn't punish Him but, we could reject Him as being untrustworthy. He then wouldn't have the one thing He created us for, to love Him. God doesn't need our love He had already existed forever without it. When God decided to create man He wanted a being He could have a mutual loving relationship with and give us everything we could need and more, He certainly wasn't looking for a one sided affair, if He was He sure wouldn't have gone through all the trouble with us that He has.

---

God is not bound by behavioral and moral laws, He is the law by His very nature, God can't go against himself,

---

This is my point.  There is no action that God could take that would go against himself.  He isn't the law, he is the law giver.  He is above any law because no law can be enforced against him.

I can't see that in anyway. First God is called the law giver because He set down a moral code for us that shows us who He is, the law gives us understanding of God. God can't be above the law, not because we can or can't punish Him, it's because He wouldn't be the trustworthy God that He tells us He is. Like I said above if man doesn't find Him trustworthy then He would lose the very thing He created us for, love. The law is based on God's nature pure and simple.

---

If you understood where I'm coming from then why the above statement?

---

As I said above, the apologist has to come up with an explanation for why God does some of the cruel and brutal things he does in the Bible.  But in putting him above human standards of good or evil, you end up with a God who can do the worst possible things and still be a perfect and good being.  You are trusting that he won't, but there is no basis for that expectation.

God is the creator and He has providence over His creation, in essence He owns all of it lock stock and barrel. When God takes a life it's not murder the life belonged to Him to start with and when He does it is only the physical body that dies not the living spirit that is who we are, the body is only there to house the spirit. Like Paul said of the Christian, "to be absent from the body is to be in the presence of God." God has always existed and He was not created, God created life and thus has a greater understanding of what life really is. We on the other hand cannot even define what life is. We cannot create it, recreate it nor can we control it all life on this planet dies and there's not a thing we can do to stop it, but God can. He's created it, destroyed it, resurrected it only to die again and has resurrected it for eternal life. God brought life into being because He designed it in His mind and spoke it into existence. There was no such thing as life before God created it, that is besides the life He is whatever that might be.
I think that you as most nonbelievers do is confuse what God does with what man does to each other. Often there are passages quoted that the person quoting them says God does which is not necessarily true. God often tells what is going to happen in the future to the Jewish people mostly and that He's not going to stop it, He allows it as punishment for His judgment. I've seen a verse in Psalm quoted a few times every year about babies dying a terrible death and that God did it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, the passage is a man cursing another nation for what they had done to Israel. The man was wishing that those things would happen to the enemies children because that is what they had done to the Israelites. It is this kind of misuse of the scriptures that is inexcusable especially for those here who claim to be so smart, yet they cannot understand the simplest writings in the Bible.

I may have to slow down on our postings because I need to get back to my shop and work on some furniture however I will respond to your post as soon as I can. We certainly have managed to stretch this conversation out a bit and that's alright with me it's enjoyable.

GC