A new understanding to an old premise

[Rahul]

I don't know. Someone that is capable of performing such a vast amount of mental gymnastics can't be that lazy.

Probably that scared.

The truth terrifies him.

[Drich]

I find it amusing that your faith lends itself so well to comparison with other works of fiction. Good job, carry on. Tell me more about the wizard, the dragon, the rib-woman, and the magical fruit?

Just following in the foots steps of Christ and the parables He told.

[Minimalist]

n my orginal post I did make reference to BCV that points to several verses that seperate Mind Body Spirit and soul. Are you asking me to provide book Chapter and verse or are you looking for something else?

I insist upon evidence that your god exists at all before we begin a discussion of what attributes it might have. Square #1.

[Drich]

Your assumptions are what drive your understanding of heaven and hell. So, if you have some evidence to show how you know that these places are not of this reality,

I have the words of Christ, is that enough?

then perhaps the Mormons also have similar evidence to support their own doctrine that Heaven is actually a Solar System where God lives and that Hell is located on Earth.

Any 'proof' they would provide would contradict Christ's own proclaimation.

How do you know that your assumption is right, and that the Mormons' assumptions are wrong?

My 'assumption' is only right if one chooses to worship the God of the bible. I do not care to worship any other 'gods.' Not even the Mormon one.

I'm not the person to answer your questions.

fair enough.

That's a strawman argument, and I don't go after those. "I don't know" is all you'll get from me because I'm not too concerned with baseless assumptions. You can believe you existed before you were born, but you still need to provide evidence to your claim. If you cannot, you shouldn't tell others that these ideas of yours are true.

I did not assume anything. I ASKED how did you know you did not ask God, then proceed to give you a reason why you would not remember asking.

If you're equating earth to a prison, and if, as you assert, we are put here by god, then we are condemned to this existence. If a person is in prison, then we can only assume that he/she committed some crime. "Criminal" may have been uttered by me, but it was a word unspoken by you. You just projected your own assertion onto the critic (me), and that is a fallacy of ignorance.

Maybe you should take the time to read the part you previously ignored. Your argument and mislabled fallacy falls apart there.

[Drich]

Read what I said again. The implication is that god was indeed aware of what would happen, and given that he made it occur, he's ultimately responsible for the knock-on consequences.

Sorry about that I assumed you understood God did indeed take responsiablity, with the atonement offered on the cross.

If your concern is making "honest choices" then your theory serves you poorly: by definition one cannot make an honest choice when the factors actually at play are being concealed.

Only if God were concealing something. Again God is into revelation for all of A/S/K. You are Blind. The world is unknown to you because you have not asked to see it. This is not the same as God concealing the world from you. For God to have concealed the world you would have to have spent a life time doing what you have been told to do (A/S/K) and God decided to keep you in the Dark. Which is not the Case. You do not have because you have not A/S/Ked.

And by definition, any god that would deliberately obscure key factors in a decision making process isn't interested in honest choices.

I do not disagree.

Whilst at the same time making it more difficult to do so. Textbook hypocrisy.

If you will not simply A/S/K then how can you speak to how difficult it really is? In this conversation I believe I am the only one who can speak to how difficult obtaining a measure of the Holy Spirit is... And I say it is not difficult. All I had to do is A/S/K and I got more than I knew to even ask for.

Not good choices, or even rational ones. What kind of message does your god intend to send, if he's endorsing important decisions made on the basis of incomplete information?

... That not having complete information is a choice in of itself. A Choice one must make for themselves.

Nothing in that sentence makes any sense. You're posing a scenario with two choices, one of which is not only objectively correct, but also subjectively and morally correct, and yet a selfish motive for taking that path is somehow less valid?

Ok let me try again. Let's say you want to marry a girl who is really good for you who loves you for you and is looking to help and support you and help you to provide the family you truly want. Now let say you were put into a room with two girls one who could do everything mentioned above, and the other would drag you through hell on earth. Here's the kicker you can only choose one, and you can only do so by sight, but it's dark and you can see to well. Do you choose anyway or do you ask someone to turn on a light? What if after you turn on the light and the two look identical? Do you choose anyway or do you try and seek out more information, by any means possiable? What if at first you do not get the response you are looking for? do you choose anyway? or do you keep trying? Remember marriage is till death do you part. So do you throw caution to the wind and make a 50/50 go at it or A/S/K till you find the one your looking for? If you choose not to be ignorant of who you marry, then how can you choose to be ignorant of your God?

And how do you know that we'd all default to the selfish option anyway?

Because there are only two options. Either we live for God or we live for self.

Doesn't your knowledge of god cause you to be a better, more charitable person?

One can be charitable and give for selfish reasons.

You've got the knowledge that hell exists, and yet I doubt you'd claim the sole reason you do what you do is to avoid it, to benefit yourself.

Actually as bad as Hell was. I was content in the knowledge that I knew I belonged there. (Even though I did not want to be there with every fiber of my being.) It is not the fear of Hell that fuels my desire, but the briefest of moments that I felt the full and complete Love of God as if I were one of those welcomed in. That is why 'we' Seek the "Well done my good and faithful servant enter into my Father's rest." welcome from Christ more than anything.

Is the asking for it really that much of a game changer?

It's not the asking, or the seeking or the knocking. It is the humility one must put on to do these things. even if it mean we must do this for the rest of our life, that is the key that unlocks the flood gates of Heaven's blessings. As soon as you give yourself over to God completely and freely (meaning with no honest expectation) God will be able to truly communicate with you.

'We' do not sit in silence muttering to ourselves as most of you tell yourselves. I am not one who is into waisting my time with crap that does not work. That is why I am here and not supporting one of the other 'religions' I looked into.

Isn't knowledge of your god supposed to inspire better actions, anyway?

Better than what? Didn't you just tell me 'we' don't all default to being selfish? What if I was a giving person/charitable, before I knew God? If I was then the only thing that would change is the reason why I do what I do. Not what I have always done.

If that's the case, why make rationality to begin with, and more importantly, why make it the most accurate way to discover the truth of everything else in the universe besides god?

Maybe Rationality is not the issue, but the pride in the idea than one can turn our rational onto any aspect of the universe 'including God' and unlock it's mysteries. If I were a Jelous God type I would say F-You Danny Mcbride, and your "Rational," you will come to me on your knees especially after all of the BS you put me and my boy through to forgive your sins.

Why create a tool that works wonderfully for everything except the most important question in the whole of reality? How is that not just a mean spirited trick?

Indeed, Now ask yourself who could benefit from such a trick?? Who could possiably benefit.. from such a trick... I don't know could it be??? Could it be SATAN?!?!?!

Actually church lady aside, the only the proud see a trick being played. The Humble see an easy path to follow. One that does not require social standing, education, membership in a exclusive club or anything like that. All one has to do is A/S/K, and God freely gives. All you have to do is be faithful to what you have been given and you will be given more. How easy can it be?

And how do you know god is so different from those earthly tyrants?

Do you want a bible verse? Hebrews tells us God will lay out whole lives out in deli thin slices to where nothing is hidden and we must give an account for all of it.

Someone can know the whole of a thing and still judge unjustly based on personal reasons and biases.

No one can know everything. They can not know your mind or the intentions of your heart. Hebrews 4 says all of that will be laid out and judged.

Complete knowledge doesn't necessarily entail that the correct actions will be taken based upon it.

Only if you believe there is a 'standard' greater than God. if there is one who created it, and wouldnt they be by definition God? and if the creator of that defination was God is the 'new' standard now greater than the creator who created it? why?

Now this is a red herring, because the idea that's being potentially transmitted in this case is not only very simple- there's a heaven- but is already being transmitted just in a less than convincing way. I'm not asking for the moon and the stars, just that one very simple concept be made self evident, rather than being related through the terrible means it's currently being told through.

Then A/S/K for something better. I did. I did not like church for a while and I A/S/K for a personal tutor and got one.

You say that, but hell is definitely an objectively bad choice, thereby making heaven, at the very least, the lesser of two evils. Or are you positing the idea that hell could be the preferable option?

For satan and those who openly follow him, yes. It is the better of two options.

But he'll drag you into a matrix- style pocket universe?

Again how do you know you did not beg to be here? To be given a second chance?

Except that heaven's supposed to be an eternal reward for good deeds, no?

No. Your thinking of Mormonism or Islam. Christians know they do not deserve Heaven. Heaven isn't really even the destination unless you catholic. It a relationship with God. to be welcomed home to be reunited with our father after wandering off with our inhearitance like the prodigal son did. 'Heaven' as majestic as it is made out to be is a distant second to the reason a Christian wants to go "Home." It is the boundless and eternal love and warmth of our God that we seek.

And hell's a punishment? At least, from your point of view, even the "separation from god" angle would be an unhappy ending for a person, no?

It depends on the person. Hell is only 'Hell' for those who want to be with God. I would think being forced to serve God for eternity would be a fate worse than Hell if one was eventually consumed by Hell fire as I understand it.

Why does a god that already knows the answer need to set up the game in the first place?

This question has been asked a lot and each time I answer I say: The "Game" is not for God's benefit. It is for our benefit. God knows what we would do if given enough rope. We simply need the space/place to be allowed to hang ourselves with it, in order to believe we would do such a thing. Which again is the point of this life/Matrix. So we could understand the natures our hearts. Again I believe we have been put in this "Matrix" because in the presents of the knowable Glory of God we are blinded and can not see our true natures. It is only after we are blind to God that we get to see our true natures/hearts. So again when in the presents of God we are all like we love you and we want to worship you, and when God's Glory is out of sight (for 70 or so years) we are like there is no God only man's rational/science. One last time, God's glory: Blindness in the matrix: At least for some of us.

[MindForgedManacle]

God (traditional sterotype aside) is by defination is a transdimensional being. and if He is able to offer an eternity with Him or an eternity in Hell (which either way is still another realm) then that means we (or at least apart of us) are transdimensional beings as well. So the question would then become what is this reality? This for the lack of a better term, This 'reality' then becomes "the matrix." It is reality apart from the automatic known glory of God. When have been placed in the matrix to make a choice, and to gain experience. Maybe the part of us that is to be judge (our soul) is not apart of this body at all. Maybe our soul is plugged into some 'supercomputer' or the heavenly equivalent, and we are linked to these bodies. The bible does seperate our being into Body, Mind/Spirit, and Soul. Paul makes an excellent arguement in romans 7 about this if anyone is intrested.

If we have souls and thus can go to either Heaven or Hell, that doesn't make us "trans-dimensional" anymore than it makes Neo trans-dimensional because he can enter and exit the Matrix.

The key difference between the movie version of the matrix and the one we live in is that death here does not result in death in the "real world." When one dies here, we simply wake up in the real world.(Absent from the body present with the Lord.) We wake up to eternity and the choice we made here. God simply holds us accountable to the choice we made.

About as much a choice that a Mafia boss gives a restaurant owner about paying him for "protection".

This part of Christian and Islamic theology has always bern poorly thought out and never reallt defended well at all.

Why is any of this important? I give us proper perspective. Life, death, pain, happiness, all of it in this life is really meaningless when view from an eternal perspective.

If it was "meaningless", then by necessity it was also pointless to do so, therefore God (in your worldview) has made pointless decisions that merely caused countless individuals unbearable agony and some get an eternity of punishment afterward even if they were ignorant of their apparent sinful plight.

So when someone asks why did God allow that child to die or how can a loving God command the death of women and children?? What are they really asking?

They're asking why God put us through that, when you yourself have already admitted it was meaningless, and there was no necessity in Him having allowed such trauma to occur at all.

How can God wake that person from the Matrix sooner than the rest of us? Why do we have to suffer here for 70, 80 or 90 years when that person get to wake to reality only after 9 or 10? Why wouldn't God make that person suffer a life time as I want and wish to suffer for a long life?

By your own admission of it being meaningless with respect to eternity, it is also because for some that eternity is further, infinite torture after a life with rife pain and torment. Meaninglessness abound.

If you remember the matrix was a prision, not saying there aren't those who have made prision their home.. My question is what does it say about those who hate or curse a God who end a prision sentence earily? Why is 'fairness' based on 'prision' rules?

So, God jails us in a shithole of sin, evil, depravity, pain, war, famine, etc. (in your theology), with no consent from us being apparent and for no known crime that each individual would be guilty of being known, and then following it up with either an eternity of praising him or beimg tortured in fire and sulphur, and you still wonder why?

[Drich]

If we have souls and thus can go to either Heaven or Hell, that doesn't make us "trans-dimensional" anymore than it makes Neo trans-dimensional because he can enter and exit the Matrix.

The matrix is one 'reality' or "Dimension" The fact that Neo/Us actually exist outside of the 'Matrix' makes us trans-dimensional. From the persepective of everything else in this 'reality.'

If it was "meaningless", then by necessity it was also pointless to do so, therefore God (in your worldview) has made pointless decisions that merely caused countless individuals unbearable agony and some get an eternity of punishment afterward even if they were ignorant of their apparent sinful plight.

Just because something does not have value, does not mean it is without purpose.

They're asking why God put us through that, when you yourself have already admitted it was meaningless, and there was no necessity in Him having allowed such trauma to occur at all.

Again just because we are not justified in assigning 'moral value' to what happens to us in this life does not mean what we do in this life is pointless.
I have described in detail what the point of this life is.

So, God jails us in a shithole of sin, evil, depravity, pain, war, famine, etc. (in your theology), with no consent from us being apparent and for no known crime that each individual would be guilty of being known, and then following it up with either an eternity of praising him or beimg tortured in fire and sulphur, and you still wonder why?

Again how do you know there was no consent from us?

[DeistPaladin]

And to level up!

Why not? Yahweh also leveled up as a deity as the Bible progressed. In the OT, he was a limited being who needed to rest and couldn't beat a tribe that had iron chariots. It's only in the NT that he achieved omnipotence.

I know I've posted this before but it bears repeating.

[Bad Writer]

Your assumptions are what drive your understanding of heaven and hell. So, if you have some evidence to show how you know that these places are not of this reality,

I have the words of Christ, is that enough?

I have the words of Captain James T. Kirk. Is that enough?

then perhaps the Mormons also have similar evidence to support their own doctrine that Heaven is actually a Solar System where God lives and that Hell is located on Earth.

Any 'proof' they would provide would contradict Christ's own proclaimation.

That's the funny thing here, and I'm glad you brought up this point. You see, the Mormons don't actually have any proof for this bit of doctrine. At the same time, neither do the Christians for theirs.

How do you know that your assumption is right, and that the Mormons' assumptions are wrong?

My 'assumption' is only right if one chooses to worship the God of the bible. I do not care to worship any other 'gods.' Not even the Mormon one.

Why not? The process for believing in any other gods is exactly the same. Why the Christian god and not Odin?

I did not assume anything. I ASKED how did you know you did not ask God, then proceed to give you a reason why you would not remember asking.

Why do I need proof for your claim? It's your claim, you need to back it up. You're asking for something I don't even need to give, which means you, like many of the other Christians here, don't understand the Philosophical nor the Legal definition of "Burden of Proof". Before we move on, you need to look that up.

If you're equating earth to a prison, and if, as you assert, we are put here by god, then we are condemned to this existence. If a person is in prison, then we can only assume that he/she committed some crime. "Criminal" may have been uttered by me, but it was a word unspoken by you. You just projected your own assertion onto the critic (me), and that is a fallacy of ignorance.

Maybe you should take the time to read the part you previously ignored. Your argument and mislabled fallacy falls apart there.

Instead of just telling me that I ignored something, perhaps you should enlighten me, and I'll have more reason to heed your words. Also, in light of what I said, the fallacy is not mislabled. Stop with the bullshit and the stall tactics because you have a lot here to answer to.

[Simon Moon]

Maybe the 'deficiency' is ours and not God's. In that we need a space/deception that allows us to make an uninfluenced honest decision about our heart true desire, as to the nature of where we want to spend eternity.

Think about it. if you got to stare down the pit of hell and then look to boundless treasures (God's Glory) God had to offer. anyone with any desire for self perservation and the ablity to lie to them self would choose God over hell. Then the question becomes how long will they be content with God before their true feelings would surface? a year? a Billion years? A trillion years? Even after 900 trillion years we would not have put a dent in eternity. We do know by Satan's example that at some point we will surcumb to pride as he did and will want that seperation and will be willing to risk Hell for it.

So why not place all of us in the realm/matrix hidden from the automatic knoweledge of God's Glory or the absolute terrors of Hell, and allow our hearts the 80 or so years it needs to simply play out what it really wants. (Give those who want to know the knoweledge to make the desision they have been given and allow the rest to surround themselves with whatever they wish.)
So when you stand before God on the day of your final judgement and He judges you sheep or Goat, Wheat or Weed, yu will know beyond doubt that his judgement is absolute and just.

Again God could created us and seperated us then and there, but He gave us this life to prove to ourselves who we are so when we find ourselves in Heaven or Hell we wont be able to lie to ourselves and say we are more than what we are.

Oh, so 'God' created the entire universe as a giant 'Soul Filtering Machine".

From here on out lets call it the 'Soul Selector 2000'.

So, 'God' designed us with a deficiency, knowing all along the many of us will not make it past the Soul Selector 2000? Why would he do this?

I once read a biography of Alfred Hitchcock. In it he described his film making process, in which every scene, camera shot, line, etc was already designed by Hitch before filming even started. If the movie turned out bad, he didn't blame his characters, he blamed himself as the designer of the film. But yet your god is not to blame for his creations? And that doesn't sound silly to you?