John V Wrote:This is a false dichotomy. God can deceive in judgment of sin and rejection of truth:
2 Thes
9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
???
Am I reading what I think I'm reading? It's almost implied here that God is apathetic towards those that choose darkness, but on top of that he approves of it by selling that lie to us himself???
Quote:You also fail to factor in that men can delude themselves.
Romans 1
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
True, humans are good at self-deception, with over 3 000+ gods ever imagined I'd say you've got a point.
Can you be more specific as to where we are deceiving ourselves? Is it through using God's willed universe to learn about God's willed universe or do we have God's willed word all wrong? Given what I said in the OP, I'd say the latter.
Quote:A more esoteric point is that you don't factor in Satan and the possibility that he deceives people.
So, you don't have basis to conclude, "Given that when we take the universe he created and we yield results with it that are a cause of the laws of his universe, we can rest assured that the interpretation of the universe is exactly what he willed."
If you're suggesting that Satan deceives through the physical world, then I have to conclude God isn't all-powerful or isn't all-knowing. God created Lucifer and he knew what would happen. But wait...you proved before that God deceives and sells the lie like Satan.
Why call him God?
DoubtVsFaith Wrote:Not if the parts that you believe he "couldn't control" were actually just allegorical parts. Jesus may exist literally having been sent to earth as God incarnate, and "God" may have still created the universe and everything else could just be allegory.
That basically brings us back to square one; what is this Original Sin that Jesus is saving us from?
Quote:"God works in mysterious ways". What's "sloppy" or not is subjective.
Works in mysterious ways that are synonomous to his non-existence. That apologetic line is evasive and a cop out.
Sure, the "sloppiness" is subjective, but it nontheless shows God isn't all-powerful and couldn't will his word how he wanted to. Again, this particular property of his seems to be synonomous with his non-existence. In other words, it's the tales of Bronze Age fanatics that we're dealing with, not some divine being.
@Drich & Undeceived
I'll get to your posts later on today. I've got a full day of study ahead of me and I don't want to procrastinate any further.
Thanks everyone for the responses so far. I've been craving a debate of this depth for a while.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
