Let's be biblically literary

[Acrobat]

Efficient for what purpose? 

For the acceptance of some sort of cosmic, supernatural equivalent of accepting a scientific and historical fact?

Huh? No. That’s not what I mean. 

Then what do you mean then? Efficient for what purpose? If it isn't for the purpose of disclosing some supernatural or god like equivalent of a scientific or historic fact, that what purpose does this efficiency you speak of serve?

I ask because it's not clear. If i said a spoon is more efficient for eating a bowl of cereal than your hands, you get when I mean by efficiency here, because you recognize the goal in which this efficiency serves. It's not clear what goal you have in mind when you brought up efficiency.

Is god a rational mind?

If by rational mind, you mean a sort of mind that ponders and thinks things, and does running calculations in his head, than no, because omniscience, being all knowing, requires no such pondering. Why think when you already know?

[LadyForCamus]

Huh? No. That’s not what I mean. 

Then what do you mean then? Efficient for what purpose? If it isn't for the purpose of disclosing some supernatural or god like equivalent of a scientific or historic fact, that what purpose does this efficiency you speak of serve?

I ask because it's not clear. If i said a spoon is more efficient for eating a bowl of cereal than your hands, you get when I mean by efficiency here, because you recognize the goal in which this efficiency serves. It's not clear what goal you have in mind when you brought up efficiency.

Is god a rational mind?

If by rational mind, you mean a sort of mind that ponders and thinks things, and does running calculations in his head, than no, because omniscience, being all knowing, requires no such pondering. Why think when you already know?

I mean efficient for allowing for as many people to be saved as possible.  And, by “rational mind”, I mean, a rational mind. Can his actions contradict logic? Can he act irrationally?

[Acrobat]

I mean efficient for allowing for as many people to be saved as possible.

I don’t think anything you’re imagining here as more efficient for salvation than anything we already have. Even if we all accepted God existed, as Jesus as his son, that he died and rose again, as sort of historic and scientific facts this wouldn’t mean we’re saved. Because no Christian view salvation as a matter of accepting something equivalent to scientific and historic facts about God.



 

And, by “rational mind”, I mean, a rational mind. Can his actions contradict logic? Can he act irrationally?

I don’t want to be labor the point, or take issues with folks like yourself using words like act, implying a sort of god whose not acting one minute and than acting another minute, doing nothing, that doing something, I.e a negation of god as unchanging.

Since I don’t think for our discussion these distinction are all that relevant, I’ll just say yes, god is logical. Can’t do actions that contradict logic, such a creating a rock so heavy he can’t lift it, and retain omnipotence.

[LadyForCamus]

I mean efficient for allowing for as many people to be saved as possible.

I don’t think anything you’re  imagining here as more efficient for salvation than anything we already have.

Nothing could be more efficient than choosing to reveal The Truth of salvation for all man who has ever lived and ever will live, during one thirty year span of time; a mere fraction of the almost 200,000 years that humans have existed so far, in one small area of land in the Middle East, to one small group of illiterate farmers, and then expecting that somehow this message will successfully and accurately translate to all of his beloved creation equally, across all continents, all languages, and all pre-existing (and subsequent) world religions on into millennia? You can’t be serious.

Even if we all accepted God existed, as Jesus as his son, that he died and rose again, as sort of historic and scientific facts this wouldn’t mean we’re saved. Because no Christian view salvation as a matter of accepting something equivalent to scientific and historic facts about God.

There is a possible plan B: Make his existence as obvious and indisputable a fact of reality as the fact that when I drop a pen it falls to the floor, to all people equally. That would certainly increase the number of souls saved. It would also eliminate the “need” for Jesus’s blood sacrifice. How can a person choose or reject god if he isn’t convinced that god exists in the first place? Step one for allowing as many folks to be saved as possible is making yourself known, and if god made himself known, faith would not be a requirement. 

If plan B leads to even just one more soul being saved than the plan he actually went through with (the Bible), then god has acted inefficiently, and in logical contradiction to his expressed desire: to allow for as many souls as possible to be saved. So, has god acted irrationally? Or is he not concerned with allowing for as many souls as possible to be saved?

[Acrobat]

"Nothing could be more efficient than choosing to reveal The Truth of salvation for all man who has ever lived and ever will live, during one thirty year span of time; a mere fraction of the almost 200,000 years that humans have existed so far, in one small area of land in the Middle East, to one small group of illiterate farmers, and then expecting that somehow this message will successfully and accurately translate to all of his beloved creation equally, across all continents, all languages, and all pre-existing (and subsequent) world religions on into millennia? You can’t be serious."

But what if the nature of the barrier between us and the recognition of the truth of salvation, is akin to a delusion? This is what atheists often accuse theist of when it comes to the particular truth of reality they possess but religious people don't. That it's a delusions that keep the religious from recognizing it. In fact atheists often speak of their truth of reality, in salvationary terms, like liberation and freedom, a recognition that frees us from bondage.

One thing we understand about the nature of delusion, is that they aren't resolved by the clarity of facts. No matter how clearly you present the case for the holocaust, holocaust deniers will not accept it. And its not as if delusional people, want to know the truth, but fail to recognize it, but they don't want to know it. They want to believe the lie, and will do their best to preserve it. Even if that means killing someone who tries to show them the truth.

The other things about the delusional, is that it's not just a denial of truth out there, but more fundamentally a truth about themselves, a concealing of the underlying unresolved pain that manifests them. A projection of the world and others, formed from a contorted perception of themselves.

[Belacqua]

Does the God Belaqua refers to even provide an afterlife at all, or care about our morality? If it's methodology is unfathomable, so are it's motives. It could want anything so why try to please it at all?

Does the person who made this post want Belaqua to reply at all? 

If he does I'd be happy to take a shot at answering.

[Succubus]

If by rational mind, you mean a sort of mind that ponders and thinks things, and does running calculations in his head, than no, because omniscience, being all knowing, requires no such pondering. Why think when you already know?

Omniscience you say?

Gen 1:31
'And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good'.

6:13
'And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth'.

If he knew he was going to drown the whole fucking lot of them then why did he create them in the first place?

[Acrobat]

If by rational mind, you mean a sort of mind that ponders and thinks things, and does running calculations in his head, than no, because omniscience, being all knowing, requires no such pondering. Why think when you already know?

Omniscience you say?

Gen 1:31
'And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good'.

6:13
'And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth'.

If he knew he was going to drown the whole fucking lot of them then why did he create them in the first place?

I don’t know you should probably ask that question to a fundie literalist who also believes god is omniscient, as to how they work that one out.

[Belacqua]

Does the God Belaqua refers to even provide an afterlife at all, or care about our morality? If it's methodology is unfathomable, so are it's motives.

All right, the first thing to do: distinguish the God of the Sunday schools from the God of the philosophers/theologians. 

The first kind is written for simplistic understanding. From the viewpoint of the philosophers, everything people say about that God is allegory at best, outright false at worst. 

I suppose there are various reasons we ended up with both types. Like it or not, most religions have a popular type and an elite type. Even Taoist temples in China have pictures of hell to scare simple people into behaving themselves, although the Tao Te Ching doesn't say anything like that. Christianity, too, when it talks about "God is my friend" etc. is simplistic. 

Taken literally, the God of the Sunday schools is false. This is the God that Dawkins and Hitchens and those types argue against. It is also the kind that theologians and philosophers have never taken seriously. Everyone agrees that we shouldn't believe in that type. Naturally, some Christians do take that stuff literally. Some don't. I don't know what the percentages are and I don't much care. 

In what follows I will try to describe very simply the theologian/philosopher view of God. I do not know if it is true or not. But rather than typing "according to theologians" over and over, I'll just lay it out as they would. 

The God of the philosophers is absolutely unique and unlike a person. It is unlike any object in the world. Since we are accustomed to talking about things in the world, our language isn't well equipped to talk about this God. Sentences about this God tend to sound like normal statements, but cannot be read in the normal way.

For example, "God exists" doesn't mean the same thing as "my cat exists." Though the grammar looks the same, the absolute difference of God means that the sentences refer to different truths. My cat exists. Someday it won't. The Roman Empire used to exist, and now it doesn't. Saying that God exists is different -- God doesn't exist in the way that a cat or an empire exists. Strictly speaking, the word "exist" here is used analogically. To be careful, it would be better to say that God is existence. 

Partly this has to do with God's absolute simplicity. God can't be said to be something which is currently existing. My cat currently exists, but existence itself is not equal to my cat. When the cat stops existing, other things will exist. Existence will go on. Therefore, the cat is not equal to existence. As God is. The cat is not the equal of existence, but God is. God and existence are not different. 

Similarly, when we say "my mommy loves me," the sentence looks similar in form to "God loves me." But this, too, is only analogous. 

First, it's because you and your mommy are separate. Your mom is a person, separate from you, who looks at you and feels something. Included in love (I assume) is the desire that you live and thrive. God, on the other hand, is absolutely simple, which means there is nothing in the universe which is not him. He doesn't look at another individual and feel something, because there is no individual which is separate from him. And because he is impassible, God desires nothing, including your future well-being. He lacks nothing and needs nothing, so he desires nothing. Desire, again, requires separateness. The desirer, and the thing desired. 

The sentence "God loves me," then, is an analogy for something like "God, being the Good itself, draws all things to the Good. You, too, are drawn toward the Good. And being drawn toward the Good is the best thing for you, the best and most thriving outcome." God doesn't love you in the sense of feeling emotion about you and desiring something. He "loves" you in the sense of providing you with both existence and the source of your goodness. 

Another example: "I know my phone number," and "God knows everything." Two sentences that look alike but aren't the same. Because again, to know something as humans know it requires two things: me and my phone number. Since God is absolutely simple, though, God and what he "knows" are not separate; God "knows" by being at one with everything. All knowledge -- all knowable things -- are already included in God. 

It could want anything so why try to please it at all?

It couldn't want anything; because it doesn't want anything. To want means you lack. But God lacks nothing. 

You can't please God, because God doesn't change or have emotions or desire any outcome. The sentence "it pleases God" is analogous to something more difficult, like "this thing, being good, participates in more of God's goodness than something which is worse." 

When you try to be good, you don't do it to make God happy. You can't change God's mood. You do it to make yourself nearer to goodness. 

Some people think that all this is a figurative way of seeing things that was developed later, after science showed that the literal meanings in the Bible couldn't be true. In fact, the roots of this thinking came centuries before the New Testament was written, and before the Old Testament was redacted into its present form. It comes pretty clearly from Plato and Aristotle.

It would be more accurate to say that in regard to Christian theology, the literal version came later than the figurative, as a method of explaining things simply and analogously to people who couldn't handle the full version.

[EgoDeath]

Jesus only symbolically died on the cross, he only metaphorically died for your rhetorical sins, and god's hyperbole is described in his all-loving two-dimensional character.

What's more: How are they deciding which parts are allegorical and which are not?

How do you decide that the creation story was allegorical but Jesus being born of a virgin was not?

Of course, there will be no simple answer to this question. It will be a long, drawn-out round-a-bout explanation that begs more questions than it answers.

---

It's simple. You want to convince me you exist (if I'm doubtful of your existence) show up to my door and knock. Or at least interact with me in a way that is clear to me you exist.

If God doesn't care, why would it even bother to inspire men to write mythologies and other forms of literature open to various interpretations?

If God cares, why not be clear? If I'm in danger, why not be clear about that to me? If clarity is not the purpose and/or I'm not in any spiritual danger, why should I care?

Oh, because god wants you to have to WORK to understand his word, silly! Why on earth would he give clear, concise instructions on how to be a Christian? That would be too easy!