Evidence for God being "a superior being" ?

[tackattack]

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ok tack, here is my reply. I hope you're happy now.

1- And the vernacular definition among Christians includes the assumption of "within the universe" I think i stated is well in the other thread.

STOP. Omnipotence already has an everyday working definition and you asserted in a contradictory statement that this all-powerful universe creating deity is not so all-powerful after all. I personally don't mind if you have a different concept of god from most Christians, that's your privilege anyway, but you're not entitled to change the meaning of the word "omnipotent" to help your argument sound more credible. Your current concept of God is either omnipotent or he is not.

It's pretty hard for me to follow all this when it started, it seems to be regarding God's omnipotence as described in the bible.
So, I'll show some verses that talk about God's power, I think that would be best (also, "omnipotence" is not written in the bible, so it's probably best not to invent terms, but simply say how it is described in the bible):
Gen 18.13-14 (the subject was a baby to be born to an old man and an old woman); Job 42.1-2 (regarding Job 40, 41), Jeremiah 32.17, 27; Zechariah 8.6; Matthew 19.23-26, Mark 10.25-27, Mark 14.36, Luke 1.37, 18.27. (that's all I could find right now).

If I missed something important, perhaps you'll tell me.

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I’ll number responses so we can exclude the forthcoming quote vortex.
1-That plenty and covers the basis. If you’re interested [url= http://www.apostolic-churches.net/bible/...tence.html]here are more[/url]
All of them are spoken from within this universe. To say there is nothing God can’t do, would suffice. It would be picked apart for the absolutist terminology because when someone from within this universe typically says the phrase above they’re actually saying there is nothing God can’t do that is possible within this universe. Therefore I simply tried to explain and simplify by saying omnipotence is about the power to do anything that is logically possible to do. If you want to use the Gnostic definition and be tautological and define omnipotent as power to do anything, even the impossible, then I would have to say God would not fit that definition.

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2- And in the later post I was simply trying to get you to answer a question, which you still haven't done.
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if you were given irrefutable evidence (by actually being in the presence) of God, would you have regrets for any of your incorrect life’s view (and the actions caused) from before?

Except I'm not the one making claims that a cosmos deity is going to burn me in Hell for an infinite/finite amount of time for simply not believing in it, asking me, an atheist, for an opinion on how I feel is senseless, how one feels has no bearing on reality and is irrelevant to our discussion, especially when I asked you first to demonstrate your earlier claim with god interacting with reality, yet supposedly subject to the laws of physics, thermodynamics he created. You're changing the subject and shifting the burden of proof here tack.

If you ask me that question tack, I would feel sorry for anything that I realize that I did bad. If I died and found myself in front of Zeus and all other greek gods, and they would ask me "why didn't you believe we are the true gods?" I'd say "well, sorry (as it seems the gods are upset)... but I didn't know". Or if I found myself in the front of Allah, and He would accuse me of not killing infidels or something and refusing to believe the Qur'an, well, He would throw me in hell, but at least I'd have the conviction that I'm innocent (I didn't start to kill innocents insanely).

By the way tack, how exactly do you see this thing with hell? is it an eternal suffering or how do you understand it? (if you do not understand it as an eternal suffering, perhaps you can give me some verses to see how based your point is).

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2-Then the next step would be to determine what you would qualify as evidence of God/gods interacting with you. Answer?
2a- My position on Hell is fairly standard. Hell as is commonly used is the lake of fire (Revelation 20:9-15) at the day of judgment. That coupled with verses like 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Matthew 10:28 and tons of others Biblically support that in the second death your soul is destroyed, not suffering eternally. That’s not to say you might or might not suffer in Ghenna or Hades, and nowhere does it say how long it takes to destroy the soul. My opinion is that the doctrine of the eternalness of the soul is a Platonic influence and corrupts proper exegesis of scripture in its entirety.

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3- While God speaking directly is the exception, not the rule, it would still have to be weighed against the consciousness and in agreeance within the Church. In few if any of the many references in the Bible is confirmation accomplished. It's far more likely that it happens less then even the Bible attributes it and is probably typically of a selfish or negative desire rather than truly God's will. It is up to the individual to confirm that it's God speaking and not the self, or Satan.

Screw the appeal to authority (church). Are you seriously arguing the supposedly transparently-clear Bible on "God's love" you've been building your case on isn't even an accurate representation of your God's character? Just because it depicts him whenever he's behaving both morally AND immorally? So when he's being a deplorable bastard it's not really him being a deplorable bastard, oh no, but actually man and/or Satan advocating said acts to god? If that's the case then your argument just went:
…because if the Bible is this skewed, this inaccurate and unreliable then you've lost, you have no valid casual connection to attribute or associate ANY acts committed with this sky daddy in the first instance. Please tell me I simply misread you.

It's pretty hard to figure what this subject is actually about.
A question tack: you say you're an non-denominational christian. how then do you lean on a church??
And what exactly do you say about Satan & God speaking in our minds?
And yeah, I guess there was also the subject of God commanding evil things to be done. If so, I would only answer if we have a specific case we're talking about.

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3-Yes I am non-denominational. That means I’m opposed to the division of the Church (as the body of Christ in the Bible) along dogmatic lines. I lean on the only church I know, the church of experience and scripture.
3a-I say God & Satan can speak in our minds. You would have to determine first if it was actual or illusory communication. Then scripturally and spiritually determine its origins. Then decide whether you’ll listen to it or not.
3b-I don’t think I ever listed a specific case. But I would say, as the morally superior standard, if you followed all of 3a and God commanded an unjustifiable action deemed immoral, than he would be immoral and not God. I’ve yet to see an instance of this in the Bible.

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4- No. The compound defined as your body would seperate and become just atoms. All compounds we currently define as bodies (thusly no longer being a body) will deconstruct themselves to atoms as part of the natural process.

That's oversimplifying it just a tad; my body is not literally a chemical compound (singular) it's made up of many compounds, biological structures and cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition...human_body

About the destroying of the body...
Welsh cake said "Point is my atoms *carry on existing*. Your God concept whether he exists or not *cannot* destroy my body (matter) entirely because".
First off, I think "destroy" (as found in Matthew 10.28) refers to killing, rather than "destroy entirely"
What I've found the word "destroy" of Matthew 10.28 in greek, to mean:
1) to destroy
a) to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to ruin
b) render useless
c) to kill
d) to declare that one must be put to death
e) metaph. to devote or give over to eternal misery in hell
f) to perish, to be lost, ruined, destroyed

2) to destroy
a) to lose

Second off, I don't think you continue your existence (as we talk about religion, and therefore, life & afterlife) here, in this world, through your atoms, but instead, you cease your existence when you die. Some time after you die, your atoms may be parts of plants, of animals, and even other human beings, as they were long before you were born.

also "...because that would violate the fundamental laws of physics with regards to the Law of Conservation of Mass, so this theologian belief is already proven to be false as far as Empirical laws are concerned and you've yet to demonstrate a soul actually exists, let alone god(s)."
So, now we're saying that an all-powerful God that created matter out of nothing cannot destroy matter (so that it would not exist anymore)?
Or I missed something important?

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4a-agreed. Destroy = dead = cease to be useful = to perish
4b-I don’t know if he can actually remove matter. There were a couple instances in the Bible of bodies disappearing (going to heaven) and not degrading on a rare instance. That to me indicates that he can. I see no need where he would normally necessarily have to break the laws of nature to cause us to perish. So to answer: no. We’re saying God can destroy (kill, cease ) both body and soul. I just can’t see him caring too much about a corruptible useless body to necessarily need to remove it molecularly, especially since it is part of a natural cycle. And yes the latter would break the laws of conservation of mass, but not be logically impossible.

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5- How can you discombobulate my ideas that badly? Hell is just as eternal as heaven. If heaven is a state of becoming one with God (which I believe it is) then Hell would be the opposite a "state" of being separate from God. If space exists after the universe's end then it would be wherever God isn't residing.

First off, you are refuting the notion of god's omnipresence not me, so please define him in a clear positive ontology, or have a meaningful characterisation at least if it's not too much trouble. Second, I thought you monotheists assert that only god alone is eternal and there is no other like him? And don't you also believe, by corollary, that becoming one with god i.e. becoming god himself is as impossible as it is blasphemous?

So it seems that the main discussion is about where and what heaven & hell are.
The interesting thing is that in the bible heaven & hell are not used as we use them: The "heaven" is what we call spiritual world (though I'm not very sure how people understood "spiritual world" 2000+ years ago), i.e. the 'dimension' where God & angels are (I use here "dimension", because no matter where you seek on earth or in the sky, you will not find anything, so we must be talking about some kind of two different worlds, other dimensions or something). On the other hand "hell" is usually used in KJV to translate the "hades" or "sheol", which is the place where people's souls go after people die (so hades is in heaven, because heaven = the spiritual world). On the other hand, "kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God" is used for what people now call "heaven", and when people say "X will go to heaven", that should be translated as something like: X will become a 'citizen' in that kingdom - he will belong there, etc.

ok, now if we try to speak about what people currently understand of "hell", that's a bit hard for me, as hell was not the most interesting thing for me to study. But, it seems that we have a term "lake of fire" (as in Revelation 20.10; though in Revelation 20.14-15 it sounds as if that lake of fire has a rather destroying effect - because death will exist no longer). We also have "Gehenna" translated in KJV as "hell" in verses like Matthew 10.28, for which I found a short description saying "This was originally the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the filth and dead animals of the city were". It appears that in this valley "was so called from the cries of the little children who were thrown into the fiery arms of Moloch, i.e. of an idol having the form of a bull. The Jews so abhorred the place after these horrible sacrifices had been abolished by King Josiah (2 Kings 23.10) that they cast into it not only all manner of refuse, but even the dead bodies of animals and of unburied criminals who had been executed. And since fires were always needed to consume the dead bodies, that the air might not become tainted by their putrefaction, it came to pass that the place was called ...". And I don't know from where tack got the idea that hell must have been eternal (to have existed since eternity or something)

As about "becoming one with God", I don't think the concept in the bible is the same as in hinduism ("all are one"), i.e. it's not a merging. I think in the bible it rather refers to becoming more in the likeness of God - in morality and other things of the mind and 'heart'.
As about "God not present in hell" idea you were talking about, I don't know any verse to say that God's omnipresence is impeded by hell.

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5a- Hell- See 2a. Yes there’s a Hades, Ghenna, Hell , Valley of Hinnom, Sheol, Lake of fire depending on what you’re talking about and your translation. I’ll break it down simply.
Place X; commonly referred to as Hell in the vernacular. X is the lake of fire experienced by some at the final judgment, commonly called the second death. It is a lake that burns eternally. It could be metaphorically or literally trash dump, but most Christians (including myself) feel it is a real place for judgment of the damned. Revelations 20:10 tells us it’s a place where the beast and the false prophet will suffer eternally. These are the only 2 known entities that would survive the destruction of the flames and suffer eternally.
Place Y; commonly referred to as the place we go after we die. There’s a lot of speculation on this. Some feel the soul just rests there in the ground. Some feel it returns to Heaven. Jewish stance is that you go to a waiting room like place that’s dark and silent and in the Earth, only to be bodily resurrected in Jerusalem. Me personally, I am with Thomas Aquinas on this reward or punishment should not precede the judgment. I think we cease to be until the second coming at death and it’s like our souls are sleeping there. They’re incorporeal so it’s really irrelevant “where” they are or where “there” is. We’ll all get rewarded or punished whenever we all are judged, no need wasting a life looking forward to either.
5b- Heaven- There’s 3 Heaven the scripture talks about. Heaven = sky, Heaven = universe, Heaven =
Where God sits. Typically in the vernacular almost everyone is speaking only of the third instance. Also called "kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God" as you stated. As no one really focuss on this too much, for brevity I’ll leave it here.I think the term “becoming one with” stemmed from the Jewish concept of “Abraham’s bosom” and being united with the other saints and family.
5c- As far as God in Hell, it’s logically impossible. God has no need to judge himself, so why would he have need to send himself to destruction. If Heaven is the kingdom or oneness with God, then Hell would be eternal absence of God… logically exclusive.

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6- I also don't see why you can't contribute your lacking relationship with God to the "wrong doing" in your life.

What "wrong doing" is there in my life tack?

This topic you're talking about sounds a kind of "what the hell??"
I mean to all this:
6- I don't see why God wouldn't be accountable. I also don't see why you can't contribute your lacking relationship with God to the "wrong doing" in your life. I attribute both the good and the bad in my life to God and am frequently amazed how from the slightest to the largest bad thing can be used for a selfless and righteous purpose. Accountability lies in the fruits of words and actions. If evil overcomes good then God's plan was flawed and he should be accountable, if good overcomes then God's plan was right.
Or perhaps I simply didn't understand tack's point.

As about what welsh cake said, namely: "If God doesn't believe in Gods does that make him an atheist too? Will he be condemned by some higher God/deity for simply not believing without evidence too? ;P"
well, God is not an atheist: God knows that Himself exists and that He is [a] God.
There was also a theory of the existence of a God, a creator of the God of Abraham (which is, the biblical God). That Goddess (it was a woman) was called Sophia and was the goddess of the spiritual world, while the God of Abraham was the God of the material world, and was ignorant of His creator and boasted Himself that He is the only God - this was gnosticism, by the way, in some gnostic views & theories, the God of Abraham was evil, but only in some.

Anyway, the fact is: If God existed in nothingness and everything that came into existence was created by Him and by Him alone, and He existed for an eternity (without a beginning), then it is logical to say that He is the only God.

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6-This topic I guess would be God’s nature. OK we can agree that God feels he exists and that it’s logical to say that he is the only God due to his omnipresence, existing causally prior to time and his creative power. I’m familiar with the Gnostic view and “she” was the female aspect of God. The male and female aspects (along with all of the other aspects) would form the Pleroma. That would be the colloquial use of the term God the creator (which has many aspects in Kabalism, orthodoxy, Christian Mysticism and throughout contemporary Christianity), and thus the point of bringing “her” up is moot.

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If evil overcomes good then God's plan was flawed and he should be accountable, if good overcomes then God's plan was right.

Good and evil don't exist in reality objectively they are merely subjective labels used to describe people's actions or inactions. If god is intelligent then surely he likewise is capable of both?

Isaiah 45:7 'I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.'

Know that "evil" does not mean "injustice" or "diabolical" or something else. It's simply "I do evil to you" = "I harm you" - whether I leave someone to beat you or I send a meteor to crush you (it is "evil" I do to you). Also consider the whole verse: peace versus evil! so evil it is distress, trouble, problems, war, etc. - evil things that may happen to someone. On the other hand "wickedness" seems to refer to morality.

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6a- Here we can discuss whether God does evil. It’ll be short, God can do evil, but it’s counter to his nature (good) and can any of us mortals envision doing anything outside our very nature (if we knew it in its entirety).

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7- A soul is the hypothetical immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. You either have a materialstic view or one that allows for the immaterial. I'll assume you're a materialist?

Depends on the subject matter; I suppose you could ordinarily call me a naturalist, but within philosophical debates I tend to use materialism and physicalism interchangeably. Back to the soul: can you demonstrate to me its existence? Can you falsify or refute it? Or is this all mental masturbation with metaphysics?

so here it's about the soul... the fact is that I don't know for sure how people 2000+ years ago understood the "soul", they used it for a kind of "the inner man - who you are, leaving out the body" (at least in the New Testament, as in 2 corinthians 4.16 - as about the old testament, it seems they only describe it as continuing your life after you die). Anyway, I don't think the existence of the soul can be demonstrated, at least for now. It's rather like this: you believe in one God or in many gods, who teach by the specific religious books the existence of soul => you believe that the soul exist. So if you're christian, you believe in life after death, if you're a muslim, you believe in life after death, etc. and if you're a deist, you believe what you want (which is most surely something like "who knows?").

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7- Well first we need to establish a definition of a soul. I’m not really interested in a 2000 year old definition, just yours. I’ve stated mine, we can go with that or you could state one and we could come to a consensus. I’ve listed several times and places on this site that to my definitions the existence of the soul can be demonstrated, if necessary I’ll rehash those. Definition first, though.


By the by- reasonable discussion always make me happy.. so here are some more.