So WHY did God create Man and the Universe?

When God created the universe did he use union labor and pay union wages?

 

As I said: groundhog day! It certainly amazes me how you don’t tire to have the same discussion over and over again.
You may still be surprised to hear that theologians don’t say whatever they like about God. Theology has certain methodologies. If it is an example that helps you understand: when you were asked to analyse a poem in school, you could give a variety of interpretations, but you’d better give a darned good line of argumentation for the one you chose, otherwise you won’t pass the test.

One doesn’t need to take theologians concepts of God on board, to see that it is comparing apples to oranges to compare God to unicorns, sparhetti-monsters, fairies, teapots, Santa Claus … you name it. Of course you cannot prove the existence of either by means of microscopes and telescopes etc. pp., but that kind of proof is not required of a philosophical idea. Unless of course, if one is a materialist positivist, who says that a statement can only be counted as true when verified via microscopes, telescopes etc. pp. Which is a logically inconsistent paradigm, because it itself can not be verified in this way, and thus it renders itself obsolete.

So when Richard Dawkins called God a “creature” in a recent discussion, or when you compare God to a unicorn, you guys just expose that you don’t have a clue what it is Monotheists actually believe: God is uncreated – that’s the essential point. A unicorn on the other hand – if it existed - would be a creature.

So sorry, one cannot have a proper discussion with people who choose to remain ignorant on what the other side’s argument is. Understanding the other side’s argument does not necessarily mean you have to take it on board. It means you can give an intelligent counter-argument, if you don’t. The unicorn isn’t one. Failed!

 

So then - according to crank & co’s criteria - whatever it is, you believe in, is akin to a unicorn.

Fair enough. But why conjure a stupid unicorn out of your hat when you could just as well counter their hubris with their own religion’s tenets? All major monotheistic religions proclaim that God is beyond human understanding. Take for example Maimonides, arguably one of the most influential Jewish theologians, who influenced the thought of Aquinas and who was himself influenced by Islamic thought: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/#GodViaNeg

 

The "God is beyond human understanding" thing is also used by extremist zealots to justify killing innocent people.

There may be things about God that we do not understand but that does not mean there is nothing we understand. For example, the God of the OT is shown to have petty human emotions and petty human characteristics.

When this is pointed out ... out comes the "it is beyond our understanding" defense.

The point of bringing up a Unicorn is not to literally suggest that God is a Unicorn (although she may well be).

The point of the Unicorn comment is that Unicorns are mythical creatures .... just like God.

 

You are getting self-contradictory. First you complain about people claiming to know God’s will. Then you are complaining about people claiming not to know God’s will.
Any idea can be abused for vile opinions and actions, including the idea that God is beyond our understanding. That alone doesn’t make the idea as such wrong.

Of course the OT’s descriptions of God are often anthropomorphic. But as seen in the link I gave you classical Jewish interpretation recognizes this problem and goes beyond an anthropomorphic view of God. So does the Christian one. Admittedly most Christians on this board aren’t the brightest bulbs (You may include me – I’m not a second Augustine, Eriguena, Aquinas … or Tillich either). But if you seriously mistake dimwits posting in a stupid internet-forum for the pinnacles of Christian theology, you can’t be that bright yourself.

OMG! You do it, too! Richard Dawkin’s epic fail of thinking of God as a creature! http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=359123&p=1064087873#post1064087873
God – in the eyes of the big monotheistic religions - is not a creature, mythical or otherwise: he/she/it is the non-contingent, uncreated creator and sustainer of all things. And having no shape or form, nor being bound to time and space, he/she/it certainly isn't a bearded superhero sitting on a cloud or something.

 

God is anything but "outside detection", and is actually unavoidable. You can follow the scientific method from Injunction to Apprehension to
Confirmation/Rejection (falsifiability) to verify the reality of God.

Do the experiment of meditative or contemplative practice (Injunction), see from a first person perspective if it's possible to detect these most subtle and encompassing levels of reality (Apprehension), then compare your results with a group of the qualified (those who have also done the Injunction/Apprehension).

The interpretation of God (Tao, Buddha-nature, Brahman, Allah, the Absolute, Rigpa, and all other human linguistic referents) is dependant on 2 main factors...the psychological stage of development one is at and the culture through which one's worldview is constructed upon. Through that part of projected interpretation of constructivism and contextualism (by which even science can't escape as pointed out by the physicist Thomas Kuhn), there are qualities of 'God' that hold true cross-culturally and comprise the core of all the world's great religions...that the deepest level of reality and existence can be experienced as ever-present, transcendant, nondual, unchanging, nonlocal, atemporal, eternal, indestructible, etc.. etc.. and a felt sense of something that can be described as an unconditional absolute transworldly love for everything that arises and a peace beyond understanding with realization that one's previously accepted limited identity was a transitory misconception as compared to actual reality. Descriptions of these types arise no matter what culture or psychological stage someone is at (even hard-nosed scientific rationalist who experience spiritual reality have used such descriptions). The pre-modern interpretations with the superstitious baggage is not a requirement or even an intrinsic feature of God.

In this way the reality of God can be 'detected' through the scientific method with empirically reproducible results.

 

Once again,

So animals do not experience the same complex love that humans do. Accept it, and move along.

Expect that our intellect separates us from the animals, along with the ability to overcome our desires and instincts.

Atheists, given the depressive bunch they are, fail to see the uniqueness of humans, and would rather throw us in with the beasts.

Again, where is this Love? I don't see it. I see people experiencing it, acting on it, and so forth, but I don't see it.

Expect that God (who is not a "creature") is not some sort of vending machine that is expected to answer prayers. He is all-wise, and thus acts accordingly.

The atheist, unsurprisingly, thinks praying to God is akin to wishing on a wishing star. Woe to the atheist who has such a childish view of God.

Only because you use an equation that is not applicable to the supernatural. Again, your science does not belong here.

Will the love between them not exist if there was no "certain stimuli" to respond to?

Why is murder wrong according to science?

Of course it is sad, because it is akin to a child who uses an equation to solve a problem, when this problem requires a completely different equation. The poor child thinks he has successfully solved the question.

Of course. Given that non-believers don't believe in God, they would not understand such a concept.

By "believe" I mean believe in God.

 

Hmmm,...
The Black people used this Christian tenet to get civil rights from the White enemies that had used Jim Crow separation for a hundred years.

 

You mean love ofr life...?
Or that "he" gets "jealous" of other gods which are not "Reality," and condemns people to extinction for such things?

or what...?

 

You are right,...
Realiyty is the Almighty which the bible is talking about.

We know this is the case because Christ said "I am the Truth,... the way and the life"...
John 14:6.

Jesus then explained this further by saying Truth is in its relationship to the Reality which it it images, and Reality cam be found in the Truth which people come to see.

Muslims got this as wrong as can be by not recognizing Jesus for what he had said.
But the Christians are no better in that they mix it all up with their own ideas about how to be saved for eternity.

 

Seriously? You truly think that this passage was the reason the civil rights act got passed? Funny, I thought it was a dawning realization on the part of the white establishment that "all men are create equal" meant ALL humans. It had nothing to do with god or the teachings of jesus, it had to do with basic morality and a realization of values that America was founded on.

 

On the basis of a bet with his Son Satan God has all of Job's children killed.

God makes King Sihon not let the Israelites pass through his land and on this basis the Israelites slaughter all the townspeople including women, children and babies.

Not only is this nasty but considering Gods law states that children are not to be killed for the sins of their parents this makes God a flip flopping fickle God.

 

I.e. the Bible is NOT written by "god" but by fallable Man who probably just made the crap up!

 

You must be ignoring that REVEREND Martin Luther King used passive assemblies, without violence, to express Truth in front of Americans.

 

The Hebrew patriarchs were doing what patriarchs do, as god made them that way.

We see this same thing expressed by the muslims today.
Those patriarchs will kill whole villages of sexually promiscuous peoples that they see as the enemy which like a disease, kills off human populations.

Satan is the root cause of this libidinal sickness which spreads and kills of children and peoples as the sexual behavior spreads out.

Makes sense.
But jesus said the Truth about these things will work better in changing peoples' behavior once they see the child abuse, Welfare, illegitimacy, high crime rates, etc.

 

...or,... it could ALL be true:

Statistics on Fatherlessness
CHILDREN NEED BOTH PARENTS
(*)
It’s a Fact
Here’s why:

63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census).

90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.

85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes.
(Source: Center for Disease Control).

80% of rapist motivated by displaced anger come from fatherless homes. (Source:
Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14, pp. 403-26).

71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. (Source: National Principals Assoc. Report on the State of High Schools).

85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. (Source: Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. Of Corrections, 1992).

These statistics translate to mean that children from fatherless homes are:

5 times more likely to commit suicide
32 times more likely to run away
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
14 times more likely to commit rape
9 times more likely to drop out of high school
20 times more likely to end up in prison

Children from "fatherless families of single mother" homes are*:
(*)
• 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
• 4.6 times more likely to commit suicide
• 6.6 times more likely to become teenaged mothers
• 24.3 times more likely to run away
• 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
• 6.3 times more likely to be in a state-operated institutions
• 10.8 times more likely to commit rape
• 6.6 times more likely to drop out of school
• 15.3 times more likely to end up in prison while a teenage
• 73% of adolescent murderers come from mother only homes
•(*) 6.3 times more likely to be in state operated institutions
(*)

Daughters who live in mother only homes are 92% more likely to divorce**

 

God/Satan killing Jobs family had nothing to do with sexual promiscuity

The Israelites killing the townspeople of King Sihon (Deuteronomy 2) had nothing to do with sexual promiscuity.

Why are you trying to claim it did ?

 

cd is talking about Muslim patriarchs.

 

How does a conversation about why God was commanding the killing of children and babies as per the OT become about the Muslim patriarchs ?

 

He wrote:

The post appears to be about Muslims, i.e. the start of a new paragraph
and subject.

 

God tells patriarchs to attack sexually promiscuous peoples because that behavior is like a disease that will spread to the kids.

"Satan," of course, is the libidinal source for this behavior, and is used again and again in the Bible to make that point.

 

Whenever a subject becomes uncomfortable for this member, or it in some way becomes difficult to support a position it has presented...it becomes necessary to divert the conversation toward something (Anything) that can be used to cover up the failure in logical thought.

It is very annoying.

 

?

The Old Testament is about the Jewish patriarchs, isn't it?

His question concerned the Old testament which the Koran pretty much repeats in regard to sexual prudence and the way people need behave concerning it.

If you think sexual points of view are not relevant to the comments against the Bible you are naive.

 

Stop saying things that do not have any bearing on the topic at hand.

What part of "sexual promiscuity" had nothing to do with God's killing of children and babies (in the two examples given) did you not understand ?

 

I notice this phenomenon among numerous members. It is one of many "thought stopping techniques (TST)".

In what Steve Hassan has labeled "destructive cults" the leaders "intentionally" implant these "TST's" in adherents without their knowledge. Implanting TST's are part of sophisticated mind control techniques.

Cognitive dissonance theory suggest a triangle with (thoughts, actions, beliefs) at the tips of the triangle. Move one of the tips and the other two will move to close the dissonance. Change someone's believes and their thoughts and actions will follow. Change someone's actions and their thoughts and beliefs will follow. The first part here is a short but interesting blurb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Cult leaders will set up a "Black vs White" Good vs evil , God vs Devil paradigm. Cult doctrine is good ... anything against cult doctrine is evil.

Those in the group are good, those outside of the group are evil. The punishment for those who do not "believe" is eternal and everlasting torture.

The idea (especially if done to a young child but it works at later ages too) of everlasting torture has a powerful effect on the subconscious. The subconscious influences the conscious. The adherent starts to become very uncomfortable when an idea challenges cult doctrine "belief" due to the unconscious and conscious fear of exposure to everlasting punishment. The fear of excommunication is very real.

The cult leader will exacerbate this fear. "the devil is hiding around every corner and will try and trick you". Demonization of the messenger is very common. Anyone who has ideas that go against cult doctrine is demonized = Satan is trying to trick you through this person .. Satan working through this person .. and so on. Members within the cult that question too much are ousted from the group.

Thought Stopping Technique is the last defense. I remember having a convo with some Hari Krishna dude a long time ago. When backed into a logical corner .. all of a sudden and right in the middle of the conversation this dude starts chanting Hari Hari Rama Rama Krishna Krishna.
This dudes mind could not handle the info and went into this strange repetitive trance like chanting mode.

On another occasion I was sitting with a close long term friend of mine who had been indoctrinated into a strange Christian cult. I was countering his claims by citing the Bible. Slowly he was backed into a logical corner. All of a sudden his face turned white. (he was sitting across from me at the time) the next thing I know he is on his knees in front of me grasping my hand saying "Pray with me now, Pray with me now"

I did not realize it at the time because I had not studied this stuff. It was a later after I had started to study these things that I realized that someone had intentionally implanted a TST in my friend.

One of the things about these paradigms is that if one tenet of the doctrine fails the whole structure collapses. This is why the adherents will can not handle any threat to even the smallest point of doctrine. Doctrine comes from God so it can't be wrong.

What is more whacked is when the cult leader claims to speak for God ( Speaking in tongues is a form of speaking for God that is practised in many Evangelical and Pentecostal congregations). Now anything out of the mouths of these leaders is taken as "from God" and as such is indisputable doctrine.

Whether it is Pope (when they were thought to be speaking for God) or Imam. If this leader says "Go out and kill in God's name" that is an edict from God and the killing is thus justified. "ridding the world of Satan, destroying evil and so on"

This world is of no moment. Focus on the heavenly reward for that is all that matters. Do what God wills and you will get your heavenly reward. What God wills is what I say. Do what I say.