FREE WILL! why cant god physically show himself?

[MindForgedManacle]

[quote='MindForgedManacle' pid='584154' dateline='1389881462']
There's actually a really good YouTube counter-apologetic video on this:

"Theistic Argument Against Apologetics"

I completly agree, The primary arguement against Theology is the desire to not be held accountable to God's law, that way we can live any way we choose.
[/quote]

Yeah, no. Nice red herring and completely nonseical statement. And that doesn't even have anything to do with the video.

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[quote='MindForgedManacle' pid='584159' dateline='1389882237']
[quote='Drich' pid='584152' dateline='1389881305']
what does completely independant will mean in this context?
It means were are not allow to choose what ever we want, however it does not proclude all choice, Meaning we do have the ablity to choose something that we have been given over to choose from. Which if you took the time to read what i actually wrote you would have seen that, we have been given a choice. To remain in sin or to seek redemption from it.

I'm sorry Drich, but what you're talking about has nothing to do with free will or choice. If we don't have a completely independent will, we don't choose anything because we have no control over how our 'wills' act outside our control. what you're talking about is autonomy which itself is not really the issue here.

because their lives did not center around one choice, but to gather people and teach or prepare them of the choice they were given.

So in other words, you retract your claim of God revealing himself would destroy the purpose of our lives then. Because then God could just reveal himself to everyone, and thus it wouldn't be "centered around one choice", as you put it.

It is revealed to us Via the Holy Spirit when we Ask, Seek and knock for it as outlined by Luke 11...
-Or did you think I and people like me seek to spend their lives telling people about what they have found from a complete vacuum?

And this is the usual Christian cop-out. All it is is an attempted shield from the fact that there are those who clearly seek, and yet do not find. Or they find, but later see that what they thought they found was ephemeral, and continue elsewhere.

The vacuum of your mental masturbation, perhaps. After all, I was once like you, a fudie-evangelical type.

But when you truly love someone and do not get love in return do you stop loving them? If your child got sick and could not respond to you (could not get love in return from them) would you stop loving your child?

You misunderstand (and actually just evaded, as I'll show). You get the pleasure of loving that person, you don't actually need reciprocation to get the pleasure out of it. Why do you think stories of the one-sided lover are so relateable? Further, in this case (with God) it is emphatically a situation wherein we ARE loved in return, so you poorly dodged that one.

The trials we face sometimes makes us feel as if we are not high on the list of those in whom God loves, but it is those in whom God chasens that He loves the most. For it is the trials that push us to grow spiritually.

So even here, you agree with what I just said above.

Many go through the motions of Christianity now, and yet they do not know God. How many more would be going through those motions if the threat and danger of hell were as real as the grand canyon? Like if you could goto a place and see your buddies suffer.. how many would go through the motions that really hated and resented God, just on the off chance they would save themselves?

Are you a complete dunce? NO ONE who KNEW (in other words, could not be wrong about) the fact that they would be infinitely tortured would risk it. There would be NO chance of saving yourself in such a world, and given one's knowledge of God's (and Hell's) existence, it would never happen.

Where is the Calvinist who believes themself to be unelect? Where is the Armenian who believes in the saving power of Christ, and yet chooses not to believe anyway? We already see that in this world, much less in a world where it is completely known that God and Hell are real.

I disagree, and history disagrees with you. Look at the dark ages, when as far as everyone knew Hell was real and look at the corruption that took place in the name of faith.. Evil men will be evil no matter the context. At least this way we can be honest with ourselves.

And again, you are a dunce. You're talking about people BELIEVING Hell is real, versus a possible world where they KNOW it is real. I don't merely believe 2+2 = 4, I know it. If I (or anyone) had comparable knowledge of the existence of Hell and God, given the value-set of basically any person ever, it would be no question in accepting God. Making this facile and patently disanalogus comparison to our world is thoroughly mistaken.

blueberry or plain?

Fundie-proselytizing flavor.

[Ben Davis]

(Mary) was told before hand by the angel Gabriel and she seemed happy enough about it. There was no actual sex involved of course therefore no rape just the implantation of the divine essence of whatever it was that went on I don't think we can know.

She still wasn't given a choice and that's the key aspect of rape, the absence of consent. She was told by Gabriel that God was going to impregnate her therefore even though there was no physical intercourse, her rights were just as breached & she was just as pregnant as if there had been.

The Old Testament does demand that rapists be stoned to death it's not really pro rape.

Really? Then you don't know your bible in this case. [sardonicism] You'll find that the majority of 'punishments' for being a rapist involved having to take lifetime responsibility for your victims 'welfare' by having to 'suffer' marriage to them. [/sardonicism]
Stoning was only in the case of adulterous rape and even then, not in all circumstances and not always the rapist, also the victim. Hardly just behaviour and mandated by God, too.

It does have rules on how to treat your women taken as war booty but I suppose it's better than just raping them and leaving them to die which they otherwise would have done. Women back then needed husbands to look after them and put a roof over their heads anyway so I imagine they would have opted to stay with their captors if they were treated well. By our own modern standards of behavior we would still furrow our brows at these passages of course.

So for you, the bible provides a context in which rape is okay? And the fate of the Midianite girls meets this rationale for justification? Rape is never okay. For some women, death may well have been preferable to being kidnapped at sword-point, forced into a lifetime of indentured servitude and raped. God promised the Midianite girls to his soldiers as a reward for their fighting as if they were property, chattel or spoils and there's no adequate justification for that behaviour.

The rape of Lot by his daughters wasn't meant to be a good thing it was an explanation for origins of these tribes of people in the area of the time that the Jews didn't really like, they were born through the abomination of incest. There is some tribal propaganda in there.

It was still the mechanism by which God allowed the propagation of Lot's line. Thus rape was once again mandated by God.

[Sword of Christ]

She still wasn't given a choice and that's the key aspect of rape, the absence of consent. She was told by Gabriel that God was going to impregnate her therefore even though there was no physical intercourse, her rights were just as breached & she was just as pregnant as if there had been.

Well she was the only human born without sin so was the only person viable to give birth to God himself who would then through his life and death lead mankind to the fulfillment of eternal life. So I'm sure she was accepting of her role in human destiny assuming Gabriel filled her in on all the details there. For Catholics she does have something of a divine status herself.

Really? Then you don't know your bible in this case. [sardonicism] You'll find that the majority of 'punishments' for being a rapist involved having to take lifetime responsibility for your victims 'welfare' by having to 'suffer' marriage to them. [/sardonicism]

It depends which book of the Bible you read. I think the idea with the rapist having to marry their victim is that no other man would marry or financially support her if she had lost her virginity that way so the alternative would be for her to beg on the streets. Again they had different social set up in their society compared to our own historically Christian Western society.

Stoning was only in the case of adulterous rape and even then, not in all circumstances and not always the rapist, also the victim. Hardly just behaviour and mandated by God, too.

They wouldn't stone the woman who was raped if she screamed loud enough to be heard in an urban area or if the rape took place in an area where no-one would be able to hear her. I suppose the idea was to ensure that the woman really was being raped and not just claiming that to avoid a stoning to death for adultery. Again you're projecting modern Western society on an ancient people. What you have there is a real history of a real people warts and all and their covenant with the the Jewish God, a very different kind of God to the ones worshiped by their pagan neighbors we're talking monotheism here, the real deal. And from within this people the Messiah and was raised. This is the way to approach these sacred texts even though some of it is certainly a little off putting.

So for you, the bible provides a context in which rape is okay? And the fate of the Midianite girls meets this rationale for justification? Rape is never okay.

They didn't think was rape by the standards of their culture just a way to organize how you treat the women you capture from neighbors as your war booty, as you do. I realize that their opinions of proper civilized conduct isn't the same as ours you will just have to bear that in mind when you read it.

For some women, death may well have been preferable to being kidnapped at sword-point, forced into a lifetime of indentured servitude and raped.

They had the option of leaving their captor and not being sold into slavery after a set period of time had passed. It's an improvement over being raped, beaten and left there in the burning remains of their village which was the custom of the time. They had to be treated with some respect and given some basic rights. It's a start anyway.

promised the Midianite girls to his soldiers as a reward for their fighting as if they were property, chattel or spoils and there's no adequate justification for that behaviour.

From their point of view they would wonder what else they were suppose to do with their spoils, again your projecting our society and cultural norms onto them. I'm sure they would be horrified by some of things we got up to and think of acceptable in modern times we're not all Saints by any means.

It was still the mechanism by which God allowed the propagation of Lot's line. Thus rape was once again mandated by God.

I don't think it says anything about God commanding the rape of Lot it's just the kind of thing they put in there. I'd take more notice of what they had to say about God and creation and the coming of the Messiah.

[Drich]

Couldn't help but notice the offer you make in your signature, Drich. I've been looking into ordering a free bible and was wondering if you'd have a recommendation. The thing is, I'm a hairy guy and so I go through a lot of paper. I'm looking for something especially soft.

Phone books work better for toilet paper. bibles tend to be made of the thin stuff which makes it too easy 'punch through' resulting in the hated 'brown thumb syndrome.' plus the pages are bigger.. something tells me by the content of your posts, you would need the added volume lager pages would offer...

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Yeah, no. Nice red herring and completely nonseical statement. And that doesn't even have anything to do with the video.

Yeah I did not watch the video.

I'm sorry Drich, but what you're talking about has nothing to do with free will or choice. If we don't have a completely independent will, we don't choose anything because we have no control over how our 'wills' act outside our control. what you're talking about is autonomy which itself is not really the issue here.

Ok, lets start over you seem to be lost. We do not have free will or complete autonomy. we have but only one choice in this life to make, as Sin dominates out complete existance. That choice boils down to one question do we want redemption for sins or not?

So in other words, you retract your claim of God revealing himself would destroy the purpose of our lives then.

The purpose of our lives is to play out the desires of our heart apart from the known Glory of God. If God's glory is known then how can we live the life we were purposed to live?

Because then God could just reveal himself to everyone, and thus it wouldn't be "centered around one choice", as you put it.

It would still center around one choice, but rather than freely choose we would feel obligated to choose. then wonder for eternity why we went to Hell anyway.

And this is the usual Christian cop-out. All it is is an attempted shield from the fact that there are those who clearly seek, and yet do not find.

There are those who truly Ask and Seek and Yes they truly do not find find. Why? Because we are not command to truly Ask and Seek... We are Commanded to Ask, Seek and knock. Without the knocking we are doomed to not find anything. Why? Because in order to find God we all must spend time seriously scrutinizing what we believe in most this results in a period of disassoceiated belief. Meaning we seperate ourselves from our father's religions in order to seek our own. If we do not seek we will never get past this schedualed stop. If you look at just about every single person the bible mentions they spend a time or period seeking or even lost in the desert (The desert being metaphorical or in the case of the jews, david, Christ, Paul, Moses and the like it was literal.) Like wise we are all to spend a time wandering seeking..) This is where most of the 'true askers and seekers' on this website or the people of this website seem to know have all walked away.

If you do not have the humility to A/S/K as outlined in luke 11 and in the life of every single character outlined in scripture that God used is some great way, then that asker/seeker must have not been that genuine beyond what they expected/demanded of God.. In otherwords if they expected God to react on their time table rather than submiting to His then they did not have the humility needed to approach God in the first place meaning they did not Behave in a manner consistant with Luke 11, no matter what they felt at the time.

Are you a complete dunce? NO ONE who KNEW (in other words, could not be wrong about) the fact that they would be infinitely tortured would risk it
There would be NO chance of saving yourself in such a world, and given one's knowledge of God's (and Hell's) existence, it would never happen..

You seem to be missing an element, did you read the passage I left from Mat 7?
If you did you would see that there are those who go through the motions of Christianity and yet Jesus deems them as unbelievers anyway. even though they did great miricals and good works. Therefore those people would be in Hell, even if they went through the motions of christianity.

Where is the Calvinist who believes themself to be unelect? Where is the Armenian who believes in the saving power of Christ, and yet chooses not to believe anyway? We already see that in this world, much less in a world where it is completely known that God and Hell are real.

Actually we don't. because there isn't a place where we can see the reality of Hell. There is a vast difference between perceived persecution and punishment and known persecution and punishment. Our history shows that we will endure potential of death and destruction if there is a hope that we can retain some symbolance of a lifestyle we can find acceptable verses following a path that will lead to a horrid destructive end.

Look at what the Jews were willing to endure under hitler until the purpose of the death camps were known.

The were flagged for persuction, rounded up to live in gettos, then moved to labor camps and then on to death camps.. Once word of the death camps got out, Jews were alot harder to find, they took greater risks to avoid captured and when cornered fathers killed their own families to avoid being taken to the death camps.

That is the difference between perceived destruction and the confirmation of destruction. If we had a window into hell the variables are gone, and perceived choice goes away.

Again this life is about proving to ourselves whether or not we would choose to follow God if we did not know of all He offered/His glory.

When we know of God/Hell then the choice we make is no longer about what out hearts truly want it is about saving our skin.. Not that God is fooled by this effort. Meaning we are still going to hell (some of us) because even if we lie to ourselves God still knows the truth about our heart and this whole life would be completely meaningless. (As we would have lied about the reason we want to goto Heaven to ourselves.)

Fundie-proselytizing flavor.

then lego my eggo

[MindForgedManacle]

Yeah I did not watch the video.

That was rather obvious. What you said didn't have anything to did with the pwnage in the video.

Ok, lets start over you seem to be lost. We do not have free will or complete autonomy. we have but only one choice in this life to make, as Sin dominates out complete existance. That choice boils down to one question do we want redemption for sins or not?

Well, I'm not because you've essentially restated what I just rebutted. You don't have any 'choice' (as in, could do otherwise) if your will is 'dominated by sin'. There is no choice here. If your will is so dominated by sin, on your view it's incoherent to say you 'chose' to remain in it instead of accepting Christ. Try to keep up, please.

The purpose of our lives is to play out the desires of our heart apart from the known Glory of God. If God's glory is known then how can we live the life we were purposed to live?

Firstly, how is it our purpose? Merely creating something gives one no inherent purchase on labelling what it's necessary purpose is. That is an entirely subjective value judgement. To say otherwise is to commit the Naturalistic fallacy, that is to say that something ought to be the case simply because of how something is.

It would still center around one choice, but rather than freely choose we would feel obligated to choose. then wonder for eternity why we went to Hell anyway.

Againl you're contradicting you're contradicting yourself in even talking about a 'free choice'. And it wouldn't be an obligation. And I don't see how it would follow that they would go to Hell.

There are those who truly Ask and Seek and Yes they truly do not find find. Why? Because we are not command to truly Ask and Seek... We are Commanded to Ask, Seek and knock. Without the knocking we are doomed to not find anything. Why? Because in order to find God we all must spend time seriously scrutinizing what we believe in most this results in a period of disassoceiated belief. Meaning we seperate ourselves from our father's religions in order to seek our own. If we do not seek we will never get past this schedualed stop. If you look at just about every single person the bible mentions they spend a time or period seeking or even lost in the desert (The desert being metaphorical or in the case of the jews, david, Christ, Paul, Moses and the like it was literal.) Like wise we are all to spend a time wandering seeking..) This is where most of the 'true askers and seekers' on this website or the people of this website seem to know have all walked away.

And as I said, the usual Christian cop-out. It's literally a tautology that you whip out like a penis and become "that guy" at a party. It amounts to "Even if you were a true seeker, you just didin't seek long enough. Everyone that does, God will reward/ lay his grace upon/insert Christian platitude here".

If you do not have the humility to A/S/K as outlined in luke 11 and in the life of every single character outlined in scripture that God used is some great way, then that asker/seeker must have not been that genuine beyond what they expected/demanded of God.. In otherwords if they expected God to react on their time table rather than submiting to His then they did not have the humility needed to approach God in the first place meaning they did not Behave in a manner consistant with Luke 11, no matter what they felt at the time.

As I said, a completely ad hoc tautology. And I didn't even realize you would just come out and admit it.

You seem to be missing an element, did you read the passage I left from Mat 7?
If you did you would see that there are those who go through the motions of Christianity and yet Jesus deems them as unbelievers anyway. even though they did great miricals and good works. Therefore those people would be in Hell, even if they went through the motions of christianity.

Yes, and I already knew what you were referencing. Did you even read my post? Not carefully, clearly. You specifically said that in this hypothetical world people KNOW God and Hell exist. You're now describing cannot be wrong (because they know) about God and Hell existing, and yet going against every dominant inclination that permeates them and choosing to be infinitely tortured. So glad we live in the same world, where people still choose to do things they know will result in infinite torture...

Where is the Calvinist who believes themself to be unelect? Where is the Armenian who believes in the saving power of Christ, and yet chooses not to believe anyway? We already see that in this world, much less in a world where it is completely known that God and Hell are real.

Actually we don't. because there isn't a place where we can see the reality of Hell. There is a vast difference between perceived persecution and punishment and known persecution and punishment. Our history shows that we will endure potential of death and destruction if there is a hope that we can retain some symbolance of a lifestyle we can find acceptable verses following a path that will lead to a horrid destructive end.

I kept my quote there so you couldn't continue your constant BS. I wasn't saying that we live in a world where we know Hell exists. My point in bringing up Calvinist and Armenian Christians is because I'd say it's practically certain that there isn't a single Calvinist who doesn't think they themselves are not elect, say. So already, we see in THIS world that even with mere belief, and not knowledge as in that hypothetical world, that people who believe Hell REALLY exists don't choose to do, as far as anyone can tell, what they think will actually pit them there.

---

Look at what the Jews were willing to endure under hitler until the purpose of the death camps were known.

The were flagged for persuction, rounded up to live in gettos, then moved to labor camps and then on to death camps.. Once word of the death camps got out, Jews were alot harder to find, they took greater risks to avoid captured and when cornered fathers killed their own families to avoid being taken to the death camps.

That is the difference between perceived destruction and the confirmation of destruction. If we had a window into hell the variables are gone, and perceived choice goes away.

Again this life is about proving to ourselves whether or not we would choose to follow God if we did not know of all He offered/His glory.

When we know of God/Hell then the choice we make is no longer about what out hearts truly want it is about saving our skin.. Not that God is fooled by this effort. Meaning we are still going to hell (some of us) because even if we lie to ourselves God still knows the truth about our heart and this whole life would be completely meaningless. (As we would have lied about the reason we want to goto Heaven to ourselves.)

---

How disanalogous. You yourself note that the Jews didn't know the purpose of Hitler's death camps initially. In your hypothetical world, we would KNOW of Hell already, so that's a complete nonstarter as far as analogies go.

then lego my eggo

You can have it, trust me...

[Drich]

That was rather obvious. What you said didn't have anything to did with the pwnage in the video.

that is because unless you had something to do with the production of said video you would not be able to properly represent it's content. So what is the point truly? If you agree with the then spell out what you agree with and why, or are you saying you allow YouTube videos to do all of your thinking for you?

Ok, lets start over you seem to be lost. We do not have free will or complete autonomy. we have but only one choice in this life to make, as Sin dominates out complete existence. That choice boils down to one question do we want redemption for sins or not?

Well, I'm not because you've essentially restated what I just rebutted. You don't have any 'choice'

no! This is not what I said at all. This is what you need me to say for the rest of your strawman argument to have worked.

What does the term 'complete autonomy" mean in the quoted passage? I am putting the brakes on the rest of this conversation till you can show yourself to be honest with what I have given you this far...

When you can accurately address the my words we will proceed. Otherwise any further exchanges can rightfully be identified as a waist of time.

[Esquilax]

that is because unless you had something to do with the production of said video you would not be able to properly represent it's content. So what is the point truly? If you agree with the then spell out what you agree with and why, or are you saying you allow YouTube videos to do all of your thinking for you?

A man with a bible constantly in his hand should absolutely not be using arguments like this. I shouldn't have to explain why.

[MindForgedManacle]

that is because unless you had something to do with the production of said video you would not be able to properly represent it's content. So what is the point truly? If you agree with the then spell out what you agree with and why, or are you saying you allow YouTube videos to do all of your thinking for you?

Do you even remember the context I brought that up in? I didn't address it to you or anyone else in particular, I simply said that it had an interesting argument on this topic of God and free will. And now you're trying to (poorly) cover your ass from the fact that you didn't watch it by pretending I placed some huge stock in the video's argument, when I said all of one thing about it.

And Esquilax is right, this demonstrates how moronic you truly are.

Ok, lets start over you seem to be lost. We do not have free will or complete autonomy. we have but only one choice in this life to make, as Sin dominates out complete existence. That choice boils down to one question do we want redemption for sins or not?

no! This is not what I said at all. This is what you need me to say for the rest of your strawman argument to have worked.

What does the term 'complete autonomy" mean in the quoted passage? I am putting the brakes on the rest of this conversation till you can show yourself to be honest with what I have given you this far...

When you can accurately address the my words we will proceed. Otherwise any further exchanges can rightfully be identified as a waist of time.

Drich, what another dodge, and more of your continued dishonesty. All complete autonomy can mean there (unless you decide to whip out a hitherto unannounced redifining of it) is the capacity to make uncoerced decisions.

The rest is just more of your incoherent junk, which is really just you demonstrating your inability to respond when you realize you've been pegged.

[Drich]

that is because unless you had something to do with the production of said video you would not be able to properly represent it's content. So what is the point truly? If you agree with the then spell out what you agree with and why, or are you saying you allow YouTube videos to do all of your thinking for you?

A man with a bible constantly in his hand should absolutely not be using arguments like this. I shouldn't have to explain why.

Actually you do need to explain why, for the Same Spirit that inspired those words also indwells the believer.

---

that is because unless you had something to do with the production of said video you would not be able to properly represent it's content. So what is the point truly? If you agree with the then spell out what you agree with and why, or are you saying you allow YouTube videos to do all of your thinking for you?

Do you even remember the context I brought that up in? I didn't address it to you or anyone else in particular, I simply said that it had an interesting argument on this topic of God and free will. And now you're trying to (poorly) cover your ass from the fact that you didn't watch it by pretending I placed some huge stock in the video's argument, when I said all of one thing about it.

And Esquilax is right, this demonstrates how moronic you truly are.

Ok, lets start over you seem to be lost. We do not have free will or complete autonomy. we have but only one choice in this life to make, as Sin dominates out complete existence. That choice boils down to one question do we want redemption for sins or not?

no! This is not what I said at all. This is what you need me to say for the rest of your strawman argument to have worked.

What does the term 'complete autonomy" mean in the quoted passage? I am putting the brakes on the rest of this conversation till you can show yourself to be honest with what I have given you this far...

When you can accurately address the my words we will proceed. Otherwise any further exchanges can rightfully be identified as a waist of time.

Drich, what another dodge, and more of your continued dishonesty. All complete autonomy can mean there (unless you decide to whip out a hitherto unannounced redifining of it) is the capacity to make uncoerced decisions.

The rest is just more of your incoherent junk, which is really just you demonstrating your inability to respond when you realize you've been pegged.

the above is all wishful thinking.
I said we do not have complete autonomy which means we can not make EVERY Desision in an uncoerced fashion. But that does not mean every desision is made under those circumstances. Then I provided an example of a desision that could be made with out the influence of sin.

So tell me again sport about how I've "been pegged."

[Esquilax]

Actually you do need to explain why, for the Same Spirit that inspired those words also indwells the believer.

Okay, fine: You say that one can't properly represent the contents of a video without being involved in its production. You weren't involved in the writing of the bible, so can you not represent its contents adequately?

You bitch about using youtube videos to do all our thinking for us, and yet your entire worldview is informed by the text in a musty old book, and you can't see the parallels.

That's why.