A constant energy, or a conscious energy? A constant energy bringing forth the big bang, without a God, is the only way life adds up. so for no reason except for the reason that science is hard to figure out, there lurks an eternal, singular God? He has super powers? Characteristics? The ability to reason/think/fathom? for no reason? This adds up? I mean, i apologize for being an atheist. I know people die, and childhood religious indoctrination creates the world's greatest conundrum, I just can't believe that it's so obvious there isn't a God, and three quarters of the world is religious. Science hasn't properly described the eternal properties of "nothing" so simpletons understand, but some books say God and that's how we're supposed to reason? It doesn't add up. A singular god, eternal, in spiritual utopia.. interested in making some predestined friends for heaven the hard way, after literally existing forever for no reason. a singular god.. does that drive home my point? i hope it does. anyone pushing this singular god crap is a dishonest person. just exists this way.. because.. physics is for douchebags. seriously, for no reason, there is a god that has characteristics/traits/own set of morals? super powers? 10 rules? popularized pedophilia? i mean.. people can't think, or don't want to. i won't let dead people turn me into a putz. it's so ****ing obvious there isn't no deity going "don't masturbate" outside the mother****ing cosmos.

Is it really so hard to understand the concept of an eternal moral God, one that can create and wants his creations to be moral as well, one that loves and wants his creations to love as well? A God that is purely just, purely moral, and purely loving? Once you get past that you are not this God, is it so hard to understand that there may be a God that is like this?

Let's get straight to the part where if we don't follow this "loving" god of yours, then...

In your mind is it impossible for a loving God to be just as well? Purely just and so therefor punishes wrongs that are committed but also purely loving and so therefor chose to take the punishment on himself for anyone who chooses to believe?

Eternal Hell is not "just". It's sick and twisted. Especially when your so-called god made people that way.

The bottom line is that you religious nuts created the concept of hell bc you want control over other people. The church has always wanted two things: a) our money, and 2) control over us.

Now take your nonsense somewhere where people don't have minds of their own.

I assume you believe that I'm a Christian, in which case you would be correct. If you understood Christianity you would understand that God did not make us this way, it's a result of our sinful choices.

I can grasp that an eternity in Hell would be terrible, but I can also grasp that God is infinitely more intelligent, just, and loving than I am. I also acknowledge that he has offered a lifeline to anyone willing to take it, and considering what it cost him and that over the course of the thousands of years that he has laboured for us he could have just quit and destroyed us all, and done so without compromising his own sense of justice, that he is incredibly loving.

Just as a thought experiment though, let's pretend God's justice didn't require eternal death and eternal separation. Let's pretend you have a situation where anyone can do whatever they want. What's to stop you from doing something evil or something that's against this loving God that created you? Nothing, right? Do you think such a situation is tenable? Why would a loving God allow such things to happen, or even create a situation where that was the outcome? It doesn't make sense, does it? So clearly some justice is required. So let's take it a step further. Let's pretend you have a reality where God is the creator, but when you choose to sin you're simply thrown into a sort of temporal jail to serve your sentence, this seems to solve the problem, doesn't it? Well, from our perspective, it might, we get to exist and whenever we mess up and sin we're thrown into this temporal jail to serve our sentence and that solves the problem of justice. But what about God's perspective in such a situation? He's destined to become a jailer for all of eternity, constantly locking up and meting out punishment whenever his creation fails and chooses to sin. This also seems undesirable, why would God create such a reality? So let's explore a third option, one where we're given a clear choice, God or without God. In such a reality God makes it abundantly clear what the consequences of sin are and lets us make the decision entirely on our own. This seems to be the most preferable of all three situations, and one where God's love morality and justice are not compromised. Such a situation lines up with what the Bible teaches, which overarchingly points towards Jesus and the salvation offered in him, salvation that is being offered to people already past the line of guilt. It's an awesome expression of God's love.

Also, I'm not interested in your money or in having control over you.

walkby, can God be hurt / damaged by sin (or indeed anything)?

I know a whole lot more about xtianity than you ever will. Your bible says that God created all this. He created evil. He is responsible for everything, including all the sin. So don't give him too much credit when he tries to undo his giant f*ckup.

I'm sorry that you have chosen to live your life under the false impression that you're somehow "sinful" in the eyes of a "loving god" who will send you to hell if you don't bow down to him. I know that's gotta be a sucky life. Constantly looking in the mirror and seeing "sin" and shame and guilt for all the things you know you want to do. You think that you're "saving" others by inviting them into the spiral of misery with you. But we have no desire to sink into that morass.

Know that you can choose to open your eyes at any time and escape that madness. But odds are, you won't. And that's the truly sad part.

I had no choice to enter the universe and its original sin. Its a trap.

This may seem far off but Eduard von Hartman speaks to the tensioned activity in the polarity of the unconscious and the rational. the "unconscious" is considered the "will" in the Wikipedia article as apposed to the reasoned activity of the clarity of consciousness.

Although it doesn't say in the article, others have seen von Hartman, as by his own admission, as describing the redemption of the "suffering God" or that God who is the essence of our realities who suffers, awaiting his redemption through the works of Man.

He is a man who has thought about suffering in the world and sees it as the selfless act of creation, that to which we are indebted, the God of everywhere of our childhood .

Veedez may like this philosopher as the article does relate him to Schopenhauer and Kant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_R...d_von_Hartmann

Do you mean God the Father? I imagine sin grieves him a great deal since it is contrary and adversarial towards what he wants for us.

God the Son (Jesus), suffered a great deal of pain on earth and was probably grieved just as much by our sin as his Father was (I don't see a reason why he wouldn't have been just as grieved).

God the Holy Spirit is also grieved by our sin.

Can the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit be physically harmed now that Jesus has accomplished what he did on the cross? I don't think so.

Ok. If that's the way you choose to see it. I don't see it that way though.

I want to go back to what I wrote in my other reply. While I do not want control over you I was hoping you would accept my argument, and in a sense that is wanting some kind of control over you, since I want to bring you to my point of view. In that way I was not completely honest. I apologize.

Colossians 1:16 says, "all things were created through him and for him." So yes, we are made by someone else and for someone else, that person is God. Now that we are here though and things the way they are, we have a choice. Also, I think God is entirely capable of making us for his pleasure and for that scenario to be completely acceptable and desirable to us.

What about religions that preach that to escape punishment, God requires that you believe in him, but disbelieve in Jesus?

Its not desirable for me if there is an eternal tormenting hell. If i had the choice, given the vagueness of salvation and my inability to choice to accept Jesus as my savior, id rather have not been born.

If hell equals just death. Then good enough i like the ride and dont need extra innings. Though they would be nice.

But it's worse than that, so apologize for the right thing. You want to bring me to your point of view because that makes you feel good. And you believe that wins you "points" with your god and/or like minded believers. Evangelism is an entirely selfish venture. I don't go into Christian sites trying to sway people to my point of view. Why are you here on a poker site doing just that?

Well, I believe the Bible and trust what is written in it. In John 14:6 Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus is our escape from punishment because He took the punishment on Himself and through faith in Him we are reconciled to the Father. How can we have a relationship with the Father without Jesus? Jesus says we can't.

It makes me feel good because I believe in salvation. My motivation for posting here is to answer arguments and bring up points with the hopes someone reconsiders the gospel and the salvation Jesus is offering. Furthermore this is the part of the website dedicated to such discussion. I apologized because I didn't think it was 100% honest that I didn't want some sort of control over you, since in a philosophical sense we are arguing to bring the other person to our point of view and that involves a certain amount of control. I apologized because I realized this and wanted to be forthcoming.

Thank you for verifying that you are on an entirely selfish venture.

How is considering someone else's salvation and responding to someone with those considerations in mind a selfish venture?

Except that you're not here for discussion. You're here to evangelize. You came in here with the preconceived notion that special you are going to heaven, while anyone who disagrees with you is going to hell. That's not discussion. That's preaching. As much as i disagree with other people here and elsewhere, i would never wish hell, or any suffering on them, or anyone else who disagrees with me.

You have a right to post wherever you want, but don't expect anyone to be fooled by your arrogant approach. You are here for one person... you. To fill the hole in your life.

Fair enough, if you don't want me to post here anymore I won't. When I come here it's not my aim to offend anyone, I only want to offer a Biblical perspective and I have no problem defending it on its merits. The idea that we need to be saved can be offensive, and if someone's entire purpose for posting is to bring people's attention to it then it follows some might get offended. It is not my aim or intention though. So I understand you not wanting me post and I'm fine with it. Take care.

IMHO mainstream Christianity have views that are quite different than those purported in this thread. A lot of these misconceptions has been dismissed already in past 2+2 threads.

You are fine with me and have been nothing but civil.

The penalty for sinners is death, the ultimate harm to a living person. But God is incapable of being harmed by the sinners, yet destroys his creation due to disappointment (disappointment that the creation behaves the way he already knew it would, I might add)? Isn't this a gross imbalance, plain Old Testament vengeance, rather than 'perfect justice'?

Is this something you think you could summarise and justify in a post? That's what it all comes down to, after all.


PS Black Peter sounds like the one who is in the wrong forum, not you.

Why is your morality the correct one? I can certainly see religious interpretations of a harsh God that are "fair". God is a spiritual entity; hell is separation from him. Lust, greed, sloth, pride, cowardice are choices, ultimately - emotional choices we make. There is a deep sense within us of what is right and what is not, and I know few people in any position who haven't deliberately, as a choice, turned away from what is right at some point to end up like they are. It is they who have used their free will to turn their back on God, not the other way around.

Nonsense, and ahistorical. The concept of an underworld, often a dark place and the worst of it often tied to morality, is as old as time, across most cultures and time periods. It's simply how human minds think.
It's also possible that you are merely indoctrinated into materialism and away from spirituality.

You're right. Something about evangelists (and people who pretend to be just to have something to argue about) grinds me the wrong way. I'll step away from the thread now.

You are a sinner and deep in your heart, you know it. Or put another way, you think you are your own man and that objective moral rules don't apply to you. Curiously, many on the left - who want to impose their own morality by bullying and lying and smearing and reality-denial and violence if given the ability - feel this way. Perhaps they are afraid of the possibility of not being in control? I've never really figured out the weird psychology of it all, it's quite foreign to me, kind of like figuring out a mental illness.

I can't see any reason why evangelism would irk you more than other ism, unless they're hitting on some truth you don't want to acknowledge. They're pretty harmless people - as far as I know evangelists never did any of the destruction and murder and mass oppression of the (regular) left or the (far) right.