What RELIGION are you?

[cLavain]

Well, I didn't mean to offend you, jss, so I apologize for sounding more harsh than I intended.

It's just that the Bible depicts God as a cruel and vengeful being, and it seems wrong to spread this religion. We need a positive philosophy with a belief in humanity, not gods!

Just because there is no punishment for suicide, doesn't mean you should do it, jss! There are other reasons for living other than fear of God's punishment!

Best wishes

 

[Septor]

I have brilliant idea.Why don't we allow people to believe in what ever philosophy/religion that they want to.Then everyone will be happy.I don't think that anyone should dictate to anyone else what philosophy/religion they want to follow but like human do they have to proclaim there way as the best way.That's humans for you always so predictable.

 

[Zipper]

JSS

All I said was that Orthodox theology which teaches that it is God's love which shall be experienced as a torment to those who do not wish to be transfigured in the eternal world is a theology which runs contrary to the Biblical witness. The Bible teaches that it is divine penalties which will be the source of the sorrows of the unpardoned non-Christians beyond the grave.

As I said, I used to be Protestant, and I used to be Orthodox, so I understand both and speak with knowledge about both. As far as I know, there are no other Orthodox Christians on this thread.

JSS, your source of hope in existence does not have to be founded upon the prediction of punishments for non-CHristians. Nor is it moral to recommend the silencing of the expression of a genuine hope that does not involve promises of rewards and threats of penalties. If you would not like to participate in this very popular thread, then I would beg you not to.

 

[jss]

All I said was that Orthodox theology which teaches that it is God's love which shall be experienced as a torment to those who do not wish to be transfigured in the eternal world is a theology which runs contrary to the Biblical witness that it is divine penalties which will be the source of the sorrows of the unpardoned non-Christians beyond the grave.

As I said, I used to be Protestant, and I used to be Orthodox, so I understand both and speak with knowledge about both.

JSS, your source of hope in existence does not have to be founded upon the prediction of punishments for non-CHristians. Nor is it moral to recommend the silencing of the expression of a genuine hope that does not involve promises of rewards and threats of penalties.

I am not talking about relegions anymore because you seem don't listen and I really don't care.
But I just want to let you know some thing

In those cold nights when I was having manic depressions and sleep to have panic attacks, when I feel I am near to death,when I was starting shaking so much. the only thing that prevented me from killing my self my faith that this will never be worse than hell.

Actually I am glade that I believe in the existence of hell otherwise I may be dead now.

However I started suspecting that you don't ever feel or know any of these sufferings, because you seem just a stranger coming to preach with your relegion in any place not caring with the nature of this place or the special type of people here.
So in my thoughts that your relegion will lead people here to commit suicide, and I choose to live.

 

[Zipper]

The operation of divine judgment is pedagogical and transfiguring -- it has as its end the destruction of wrong, not the destruction of the wronger.

If it would make you wish to end your life to believe that God will not injure non-Christians such as Muslims and Buddhists, then by all means continue to believe that God will requite grief for their wrong. We wouldn't want anything to happen to you.

As for me, if I were to take seriously the Bible's presentation of God -- that he punishes without an interest in correction, either the non-believing sinner or Christ as a substitute -- then this would cause me distress. Rather than believe such ugly folly of him; rather than think of him what in a man would make me avoid him at the risk of my life, I would say, ‘There is no God; let us neither eat nor drink, that we may die! For lo, this is not our God! This is not he for whom we have waited!’

 

[freakalmightee]

dont read this if youre already depressed.

xx

 

[GIOLANDA]

Re: dont read this if youre already depressed.

have you guys seen this? christopher reeves wife died of lung cancer and she never smoked. she was 44. she cared for christopher for 9 years following his accident, which left him paralysed. during the three years of their marriage prior to his accident they had a son. one of those things happening is horrible but both? God killed superman and gave his non-smoking devoted wife lung cancer, leaving a kid without parents. thats seems harsh unless superman was the anti-christ all along? that sort of happened in superman 2 when there was a bad superman. 8O

You are confused! God doesn't kill anybody,Satan is responsible for anything bad. God just allows bad things,but He isn't bad. Remember that he gives good things only,he takes care of the world every day and don't forget Christ's sacrifice for us. It's funny how people don't believe in God,they prefer their sins,but if sth bad happens,God is always responsible. But the truth is:bad=Satan.

 

[freakalmightee]

xx

 

[Zipper]

It's time to stop asking Christians to explain to you the moral structure of the universe. They likely know less about it than you, but are convinced that they have the revealed dogma because they clutch in their hands a superstitious and presumptious book which tells them they have the revealed dogma. Hence, even 13 year old Christians are experts to whom they expect wise Buddhists to entreat in order to discover the divine mysteries.

 

[cLavain]

Re: dont read this if youre already depressed.

You are confused! God doesn't kill anybody,Satan is responsible for anything bad. God just allows bad things,but He isn't bad. Remember that he gives good things only,he takes care of the world every day and don't forget Christ's sacrifice for us. It's funny how people don't believe in God,they prefer their sins,but if sth bad happens,God is always responsible. But the truth is:bad=Satan.

Yup, it's me again! :wink: Seriously, if God is almighty he could wipe out the devil any time he wants. But he doesn't, which means either:

a) He's not almighty after all, and can't defeat Satan.
b) He wants people to suffer, or doesn't care enough to fight Satan!

I'm sorry, but there is no other way out of this problem.

 

[Zipper]

What is the meaning of human suffering?

The CHristian answer to this question is that all human suffering is the penalty from God for wrong. Adam broke God's command in the Garden, and God has cursed humanity, setting them out of the Garden and all death and suffering burdens humanity as a product of God's penalty. God considered all men guilty of Adam's sin and punished them by death, that is by cutting them away from Himself; depriving them of His live giving energy, and so killing them spiritually at first and later bodily, by some sort of spiritual starvation.

And this is true not only for the death of the body. It is equally true for the death of the soul. Christians consider hell, the eternal spiritual death of man, as a penalty from God for the violation of his law ("wages of sin is death"). They consider the devil as a minister of God for the eternal punishment of men on earth and in hell.

Hence, Christians present the atonement of Jesus as the solution to the problems afflicting humanity: Christ absorbs divine wrath upon himself on the cross ("atonement"), and those who believe this metaphysics ("faith") shall be unburdened of the primordial divine curse in the eternal world ("justified") and will no longer feel any pain or anxiety but will be in a static state of infinite pleasure rendered by God as a reward. Heaven -- there everything is perfect and we all do things the "right" way without making mistakes and without suffering or fearing. (Do you see the seeds of the socially anxious person's mentality here? The expectation that there is such a mode of human existence?)

The NeoPlatonist answer of human suffering is quite a bit different, and is infinitely more hopeful. If we all came to understand human fear and suffering in the following manner, we would all be cured of social anxiety disorder:

All suffering and fear is an encounter of human evil with the fire of divine love -- divine judgment. The operation of divine judgment upon the non-believing sinner is pedagogical, although no doubt painful. In pain, we can come to see and leave our evil and be transfigured; integrated into the One. The terror of the One is the other side of his love; it is love outside that would be love inside. Pain is the process of receiving love inside if we would just see it as such and cooperate with what the One is teaching us. All pains, indeed, and all sorrows, all demons, yea, and all evils themselves, under the suffering care of the highest minister, are but the ministers of truth an righteousness.

 

[cLavain]

The CHristian answer to this question is that all human suffering is the penalty from God for wrong. Adam broke God's command in the Garden, and God has cursed humanity, setting them out of the Garden and all death and suffering burdens humanity as a product of God's penalty. God considered all men guilty of Adam's sin and punished them by death, that is by cutting them away from Himself; depriving them of His live giving energy, and so killing them spiritually at first and later bodily, by some sort of spiritual starvation.

Talk about overreaction! Especially since God is supposed to have created the whole thing. If you give a gun to a monkey and the monkey shoots someone, you can hardly refer to "free will" and blame the monkey! Indeed, the biblical god seems to be a vile being.

 

[Zipper]

Talk about overreaction! Especially since God is supposed to have created the whole thing. If you give a gun to a monkey and the monkey shoots someone, you can hardly refer to "free will" and blame the monkey! Indeed, the biblical god seems to be a vile being.

Creating humans knowing they will do wrong was not Yahweh's error. Yahweh's error was setting in place a law-enforcement policy whereby he would requite grief for wrong. (Penalty for sin). If Yahweh had made humans with a capacity for wrong but had a law-enforcement policy (like the One does) of pedagogical judgment of non-believing sinners, the whole Christian story would be a lot different and would more closely approximate NeoPlatonist divine truth.

Humans would do evil (problem) humans would be judged pedagogically (problem solved).

But instead, Yahweh requites wrong with sorrow (penalty for sin). Christians euphemistically call this God's "justice" or his "holiness," but insofar as it is completely different from virtuous conduct in a man, they might as well call this his "turtegft" and his "yurwetyy." If we wanted to assign these policies of God with more understandable words that we draw from human analogues, we would best call this Yahweh's "cruelty" and "stupidity."

The divine policy of punishment then necessitates the atonement -- Christ's suffering on the cross, bearing punishment that GOd would otherwise render upon the sinner. Yet the atonement does not solve the genuine problems of human evil (only purgatory would do that). Instead the atonement simply solves a problem of God's own creation (Divine wrath) that would never have existed in the first place if God had instituted a more virtuous law enforcement policy of pedagogical divine judgment.

 

[cLavain]

Creating humans knowing they will do wrong was not Yahweh's error.

The Christian God, being such a "perfect" being, would know very well the consequences of his creation, thus he is ultimately responsible for what happens in it.

Humans would do evil (problem) humans would be judged pedagogically (problem solved).

Except it would not be solved, would it? A murder cannot be undone. What we call punishment is really only revenge.

And you have still not provided any evidence for your claims.

 

[Zipper]

Humans would do evil (problem) humans would be judged pedagogically (problem solved).

Except it would not be solved, would it? A murder cannot be undone.

Even without the material rectification of the wrong where that is impossible, repentance removes the offence to a degree. Sorrow and confession and self-abasing love will make up for the murder to a degree. For evil in the abstract, nothing can be done. It is eternally evil.

This is the reason of judgment; this is why justice requires that the wicked shall not go unpunished—that they, through the eye-opening power of pain, may come to see and do justice, may be brought to desire and make all possible amends, and so become just. Such punishment concerns justice in the deepest degree.

What we call judgement is really only revenge.

Agreed, human "judgment" is often simply cruelty disguised as judgment. Divine judgment, on the other hand, is virtue -- transfiguring and correcting the wronger. The operation of Divine judgment is the same as the operation of divine care. Take this to heart, apply this on the social plane, and your social anxiety will be worked out by the operation of divine judgment.

And you have still not provided any evidence for your claims.

There is no evidence. To see lustrating light peeking and then surging through the cracks in existence is a way of seeing and understanding the experiential phenomena. The experiential phenomena will not ultimately provide you with a mode of interpretation, but you can superimpose one as a cognitive grid. We do this by faith, and unavoidably each one does this to some measure or another.

Obviously, nobody has to be as mystical as Plotinus when they observe reality and understand it in this manner. But nevertheless, we can all have faith. Faith is the foundation, the root, the underlying substance of hope. If you have any hope, it comes from some faith in you. Hope, you may say, is a bud upon the plant of faith, a bud from the root of faith; the flower is joy and peace.

Do you hope for anything, friends? Thank the ONE, that comes from you faith. No man that has not faith can hope. Faith is the trying of the thing that you do not see, and that you cannot be sure about, a thing that you do not see and which, not seeing, you have doubt about, you can yet try--that is faith. Faith is intended to put to the test the unseen world of truth, virtue, and wisdom.

 

[cLavain]

There is no evidence.

I know.

To see lustrating light peeking and then surging through the cracks in existence is a way of seeing and understanding the experiential phenomena.

Your words are poetic, Zipper, but they mask empty rhetoric.

Obviously, nobody has to be as mystical as Plotinus when they observe reality and understand it in this manner. But nevertheless, we can all have faith. Faith is the foundation, the root, the underlying substance of hope. If you have any hope, it comes from some faith in you. Hope, you may say, is a bud upon the plant of faith, a bud from the root of faith; the flower is joy and peace.

Do you hope for anything, friends? Thank the ONE, that comes from you faith. No man that has not faith can hope. Faith is the trying of the thing that you do not see, and that you cannot be sure about, a thing that you do not see and which, not seeing, you have doubt about, you can yet try--that is faith. Faith is intended to put to the test the unseen world of truth, virtue, and wisdom.

Faith and hope are modified by experience and reason. I may have hope of thwarting SA, because others have done so. I have no faith that I will fly if I jump from a tall building, because no one has done so and lived to tell the tale. I have no faith that an omnipotent being cares about me or intervenes in the world because there is no evidence to support such a claim.

Well, it's late night in my part of the woods, so I'll read your reply (if any) tomorrow.

 

[Zipper]

I have no faith that an omnipotent being cares about me or intervenes in the world because there is no evidence to support such a claim.

If you saw a flower growing in the dirt from a seed, spreadin out its leaves towards the sun and blooming in glorious color, this would be grounds for faith in a sun and solar radiation.

I see moral growth and development, maturation and remediation, so I think in an analogy and see reason for faith in the ONE and his pedagogical judgment. Of course, the evidence alone will not overdetermine this faith, but the faith is a good cognitive approach to the experiential phenomenon, making more sense of it -- an approach which likely cannot be outdone by any other. This faith is the revealer of secrets. Secrets of joy, hope and wonder.

 

[Reholla]

I am a Christian and I would like some one to explain to me how the world was created if there is no such God

 

[Si]

I am a Christian and I would like some one to explain to me how the world was created if there is no such God

Hey there Reholla.You've certainly come to the right place to get answers to that question.We have two experts in the form of "Clavain" and "Zipper" who seem to have all the answers.So being the experts that they are I'm sure that you will be enlightened by their superior knowledge.
Just hope you have plenty of time to read and a bucket near by to puke in.

 

[GIOLANDA]

Re: dont read this if youre already depressed.

You are confused! God doesn't kill anybody,Satan is responsible for anything bad. God just allows bad things,but He isn't bad. Remember that he gives good things only,he takes care of the world every day and don't forget Christ's sacrifice for us. It's funny how people don't believe in God,they prefer their sins,but if sth bad happens,God is always responsible. But the truth is:bad=Satan.

Yup, it's me again! :wink: Seriously, if God is almighty he could wipe out the devil any time he wants. But he doesn't, which means either:

a) He's not almighty after all, and can't defeat Satan.
b) He wants people to suffer, or doesn't care enough to fight Satan!

I'm sorry, but there is no other way out of this problem.

Well,sorry cLavain,I wanted to stop talking about this endless subject,but I see that I can't,so forget it all about the deal :lol: I won't say many things anyway! I f you read the Bible you'll see that Satan will be punished in the end,an angel will throw him into the lake of fire-that's hell. And remember that God could make us like robots,so as to worship Him only,but He didn't,because He let us free. Don't you see how nice He is? He let you free,to talk against Him!