RE: What is a god?
December 13, 2008 at 7:58 pm
(This post was last modified: December 13, 2008 at 8:03 pm by Daystar.)
(December 13, 2008 at 3:32 pm)CoxRox Wrote: Yes, I am aware that is the first prophecy. God stepped in regularly, into the human situation, during the period from Adam through Abraham, Isaac, Moses, etc, all the way to Jesus' day. So there were plenty of interventions of various kinds from Genesis through to the first century.
Yes. But always for a reason that may not be apparent to the casual reader. In other words God doesn't just pop in now and then to save dieing children. Dieing children are a part of sin and God has done all that he can to end that. He did all he could to prevent it.
(December 13, 2008 at 3:32 pm)CoxRox Wrote: Jesus didn't seem to give this impression when he said 'whatever you pray, ask for in my name and it will be given you, or granted you' words to that effect.
The Hebrew and Greek words translated as prayer mean to ask, make request, petition, entreat, supplicate, plead, beseech, beg, implore favor, seek, inquire of, as well as to praise, thank, and bless. Not cosmic cash machine, or ticket to immortality. At Genesis 44:18; 50:17; Acts 25:11 the same words are used in application to men. Notice the humility in those acounts. The men praying to the other men would not be so disrespectful as to ask for something contrary to the nature of the person they are addressing.
Paul said: "In everything by prayer and supplication along with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God." - Php 4:6, but only so long as you are in agreement with Gods will and purpose. Proverbs 15:29; 28:9; Isaiah 1:15; Micah 3:4.
Daystar Wrote:The case of the flood was a case of supernatural proportions. The Nephilim. Did the JWs teach you of them? Most probably had God not destroyed most of the world the world would have been destroyed entire.
(December 13, 2008 at 3:32 pm)CoxRox Wrote: That's a matter for debate. The Genesis account seems to put the blame purely with humans and how their hearts were bad (no mention of hybrid angel/human problems. Peter compares the final 'destruction' with the flood and compares the wickedness of man. Seems we can commit enough evil now without hybrid complications.
Notice that at Numbers 13:31-33 and 14:36, 37 the men who bring back the report want to strike terror in the Israelites and use the Nephilim to do it. Nowhere else other than that report, which cost the reporters their lives, is there any mention of the Nephilim. As far as the matter being up for debate? Okay, but Genesis 6:11 says: "And the earth came to be ruined in the sight of the [true] God and the earth became filled with violence."
(December 13, 2008 at 3:32 pm)CoxRox Wrote: The fact is that when God chooses, He supposedly intervenes into human affairs. There seems no evidence of this in the last 2000 years which does seem suspicious or convenient.
I think that you overestimate man and underestimate God. Think about when God was with the Israelites. I mean directly there. They still did horrible things to one another. Those sorts of things happened. You blame God when you should blame man and in doing this you contribute to the problem rather than contribute to the solution. You are, in effect, endorsing the evil. I don't understand why you can't see that.
Proverbs 1:30-33 - They did not consent to my counsel; they disrespected all my reproof. So they will eat from the fruitage of their way, and they will be glutted with their own counsels. For the renegading of the inexperienced ones is what will kill them, and the easygoingness of the stupid is what will destroy them. As for the one listening to me, he will reside in security and be undisturbed from dread of calamity.
Ecclesiastes 9:11 - I returned to see under the sun that the swift do not have the race, nor the mighty ones the battle, nor do the wise also have the food, nor do the understanding ones also have the riches, nor do even those having knowledge have the favor; because time and unforeseen occurrence befall them all.
(December 13, 2008 at 6:12 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote:(December 13, 2008 at 4:06 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:Daystar fails to make the distinction between first person assessment and third person assessment. Only an all-knowing entity can assess the truth of a claim on absolute truth.(December 13, 2008 at 2:11 pm)Daystar Wrote: Those with more knowledge on the subject, you mean.You are an expert on a book that certainly does NOT mean that book is self-evident to be the truth of God. Or at least his existence. How could it be?
To say that you know that statement X is absolute truth is to say that you can validate absolute truth. To be able to validate a statement for absolute truthness one would need absolute truth in the first place. Otherwise one is validating a statement with fallible faculties.
To say that (A) you believe it to be absolute truth is quite different from (B) asserting that it is absolute truth and using that assertion as evidence. One will have to be able to read the mind of god to truthfully state (B).
As Daystar is human and fallible however he can't use argument (B). His only option is to join the rest of infallible mankind. He might be able to understand this argument but if he is willing to I'm not sure.
What I was saying was a great deal more simple than that. One who has studied the Bible knows more about it and what it says than one who doesn't.